The Nationalist Case for Britain: Arguments from the Far Right
British nationalism has moved from the margins to the mainstream with remarkable speed. Reform UK, which had never before controlled a local council, secured 677 seats in the May 2025 local elections, constituting 41% of those contested. The white paper on immigration published by the Starmer government in May 2025 was widely viewed as a direct response to Reform UK, which had won 30% of the vote in those local elections on an anti-immigration platform. This rightward shift reflects a broader set of arguments — about sovereignty, culture, wages, and public services — that nationalists have spent years making. What are those arguments, and why do their proponents believe nationalism is in Britain’s national interest?
- Sovereignty and Democratic Self-Determination
At the heart of the nationalist project is the claim that Britain has ceded too much control over its own affairs to international institutions. Far-right movements are typically anti-global and highly value national sovereignty. From the Brexit vote onward, this argument has held that decisions affecting British citizens should be made by British politicians accountable to British voters — not by supranational bodies in Brussels, Strasbourg, or elsewhere.
Nationalist, radical right parties advocate a re-nationalisation of economic and political activity and push for a prioritisation of national sovereignty over international cooperation. Proponents argue that treaties like the European Convention on Human Rights constrain the UK’s ability to control its own borders and criminal justice system — and that reclaiming those powers is a democratic, not an authoritarian, act.
The Brexit referendum was driven in part by a desire to regain control of immigration and reclaim national sovereignty from international institutions. For nationalists, that vote represented the authentic democratic voice of the British people — a people they argue have been consistently ignored by an out-of-touch liberal establishment.
- Immigration, Public Services, and Wages
The most potent plank of the nationalist platform concerns immigration and its perceived effects on public services and working-class living standards. Reform UK’s 2024 manifesto states that “strict limits on immigration are the only way to relieve the pressure on our housing, public services, increase wages and protect our culture, identity and values.”
Nationalists argue that the “population explosion” driven by high immigration has led directly to the depression of local wages, the housing crisis, and the NHS waiting list crisis. Reform UK contends that uncontrolled immigration may impact earnings and job opportunities for British people, and that many British people are concerned about how population increase affects public services, including housing, schools, and the NHS.
In the year ending June 2025, an estimated 898,000 people migrated into the UK. Nationalists use figures like these to argue that the scale of arrivals is simply unsustainable, and that reducing it is not xenophobia but basic resource management. They point to housing shortages, lengthening GP waiting times, and stagnant wages in low-skill sectors as direct consequences of an open-border approach they claim successive governments have pursued without public consent.
Reform UK argues that the Conservative Party’s failed immigration policies allowed 3.8 million people into the country on long-term visas between 2021 and 2024, and that between 2026 and 2030, 800,000 of these migrants are expected to receive Indefinite Leave to Remain, giving them access to benefits — ultimately costing the UK taxpayer a minimum of £234 billion.
- Cultural Identity and Social Cohesion
Beyond economics, nationalists argue that rapid demographic change erodes the cultural fabric that holds a society together. Within the far right, claims that British or English people are “under attack” rest on defining who counts as part of the national “in-group.” Proponents argue this is not racism but a reasonable concern about the preservation of shared institutions, traditions, and social norms that took centuries to develop.
A growing sense of Englishness is shaped by concerns and feelings about identity, culture and belonging, as well as an incipient sense of sovereignty and democratic empowerment. Nationalists point out, as George Orwell once observed, that left-wing opinion tends to applaud the nationalisms of other peoples while dismissing any expression of English or British patriotism as parochial or bigoted — a double standard they find both intellectually dishonest and politically damaging.
There has been a notable rise over the past two years in the number of people who think being “truly British” is something you are born with rather than something you can become. For nationalists, this is not a sign of creeping racism, but of a population genuinely anxious about whether the British national identity will survive an era of mass globalisation.
- The “Left Behind” and Economic Nationalism
Much of the far right’s support base consists of those who feel the gains of globalisation have passed them by. Support for Brexit has been associated with those who feel politically, culturally and economically disenfranchised — the so-called “left behind” of post-industrial England and Wales, who regard the EU as an “alien” political establishment that failed to reflect their values and interests or address their insecurities.
The beliefs of right-wing politics encourage personal accountability, lower taxes, and the free market, with proponents viewing this as a way of creating opportunity and development. Economic nationalists argue that trade deals, offshoring, and labour market liberalisation have enriched a metropolitan elite while hollowing out manufacturing towns and coastal communities. In their view, putting “Britain first” in trade and industrial policy is the only way to reverse this decline and restore dignity to working-class communities.
In anxious and atomised societies where vehicles for communal action and collective affiliation are thin on the ground, nationalism operates as a default source of cultural defence, community and solidarity, binding together often amorphous coalitions disaffected by the status quo. For its advocates, this is not a bug but a feature: nationalism provides the social glue that liberal individualism has dissolved.
- Parliamentary Sovereignty and the Rule of Law
Reform UK says it aims to strengthen the rule of law by prioritising parliamentary sovereignty, cutting immigration, and reducing the influence of international bodies. Nationalists argue that genuine democracy requires clear accountability — that when things go wrong, voters must be able to identify who is responsible and remove them. They contend that diffuse, technocratic international governance makes this impossible, and that restoring national parliamentary control is the only democratic remedy.
Many English nationalists are attached to the idea of an English Parliament, and are hostile to what they see as financial support given by Westminster to the devolved nations at England’s expense. For English nationalists in particular, fairness within the Union is also a live concern — they argue that asymmetric devolution has left English voters uniquely unrepresented.
Writers note: I do not personally endorse or support Reform UK or Restore Britain.