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Around a year ago, I had recently relocated back to the UK from the US and was basking in the nearly universal admiration of US-based friends. While they were staring into the barrel of a second Trump term with its promise of chaos and division, we had chosen Keir Starmer by a decisive win and were feeling quite pleased with ourselves. I remember people praising me on the foresight of my move, which I absolutely took even though politics had not been part of my choice.

Emergence of the Reform Movement

Perhaps the response to that is Nigel Farage and his movement, which has somehow managed to harness the resentment, disappointment and shame felt by large numbers of people who voted for and were then disappointed by Brexit, and are now in pursuit of a new fire to light. To this extent, the origins of the conservative rally last weekend and the ascent of Reform overall seem broadly of a pattern with their US counterparts.

This represents a scenario, at least in part, of people reaching at whatever that pledges to overthrow a structure that has consistently failed to serve them.

What has felt shocking to a lot of us this year, though, is how quickly the political landscape seems to have transformed in this nation, and how a leader as frivolous as Farage could persuade anyone to back him anywhere, let alone in the path of No 10.

Frivolous Figureheads and Public Mockery

And by unserious, I don’t mean in the Trump/Boris Johnson style. You can oppose those men while acknowledging their ability as orators. Farage, by comparison, is a jackass, a grinning fool openly ridiculed to his face by Democrats in Congress earlier this month when he appeared, at the request of Republicans, to give evidence before a House judiciary committee on freedom of expression.

Farage did not orchestrate the ‘unite the kingdom’ rally on Saturday, of course; that was Tommy Robinson, the ex- BNP member with convictions for assault, drug possession and deception – details that, British broadcasters were at pains to point out on Monday morning, shouldn’t stereotype all those who attended at his march with the same reputation.

Parallels and Differences with the US Right-Wing Scene

Americans will recognise this as a critical moment: a parallel moment to that period of Trump’s rise in popularity during which his supporters were given endless favorable profiles in the US national press, and invited to explain why supporting a man who said outrageous things didn’t make them in the least bit self-serving or monstrous.

At the same time, the whiplash speed of Reform and Robinson’s rise means that the nation Trump is touring this week is apparently very changed to the one he went into business with in January. There may be a moment when the US president stops to admire his own work, and he will certainly be satisfied to see British far-right activists making progress.

But he is also a man who despises and is quick to distance himself from “losers” – a group into which, perhaps, his friend the prime minister currently falls, and who we can presume he will drop as quickly as he supported him.

Future Outlook: Traction and Cultural Differences

For the rest of us, it is a matter of biding our time to see how much support our own incarnation of the Maga movement will have. There are crucial differences between the two nations that leave some voter bases who came out in the US for Trump without exact British equivalents.

• British far-right ideology references to the religious institutions as an influence, but evangelical Christianity has no influence in a country where, historically, foxhunting is a bigger wedge issue than abortion.
• I can’t see JD Vance’s pronatalist leanings, rooted in his fanatical Catholicism, being much of a goer here, either.

In fact – and this may be pure jingoism on my part – Vance appears to be the kind of American who even Britons on the extreme right might regard instinctively as a unsettling little piece. On the other hand, if sufficient people are willing to swear loyalty to a agitator or an opportunistic pub bore, these are differences that may hardly matter.