Do Your Own Research: How The Far Right Captured British Politics w/ Daniel Trilling
Novara Media
Novara Media
4.8 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 2 May 2026
⏱️ 100 minutes
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Summary
A decade and a half ago, the British far right was a fringe concern. But since then, the ruling party – whether it be The Conservatives or Labour – has played into their hands over and over again. Whether through appeasement or ineptitude, more than a decade of rightward drift has put Reform within reach of Downing Street.
Can anyone stop them? Is anyone actually in control? Or are the emotional forces that the far right have unleashed in the UK now too powerful for them to rein in?
Daniel Trilling is the author of If We Tolerate This: How the British Establishment Made the Far Right Respectable. He argues that to understand the ever-worsening political state of Britain, we have to look not just to the far right themselves, but to the systems of establishment power that have enabled them.
Do Your Own Research is a new show from Novara Media about the systems that make the modern world possible.
Music by Iglooghost.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The rise of the far right has been one of the main stories in global politics for the last 15 years. |
| 0:16.0 | And this week the UK will face a turning point in its version of that story. |
| 0:22.6 | Reform are already the most powerful political force to the right of the Conservative Party in British political history. |
| 0:30.6 | Polling has them up around 70% to become the largest party at the next general election. And the local elections happening |
| 0:39.5 | this week on Thursday will be a major test of that ability. Ben, the week after that, Tommy |
| 0:46.4 | Robinson will be hosting a Unite the Kingdom rally. Four nations, one kingdom under God, it's called, which is already kind of weird. If you've been |
| 0:57.9 | studying the British far right for any length of time, you will know that yes, Christian symbolism |
| 1:03.5 | and so on is around, but it's never been the core of it like this. It's the question I have |
| 1:09.8 | is why is everyone suddenly becoming Christian |
| 1:12.5 | and why the Americans trying to take our far right from us? And who are these people really? |
| 1:18.5 | We know the names, of course, Nigel Farage and Tony Robeson, but who are the people around them? |
| 1:23.2 | Who are their backers? Who are the people who are really influencing what they say? |
| 1:28.3 | And do any of them have any real control over where this movement goes? |
| 1:33.9 | To discuss all this, it's my pleasure to be joined by Daniel Trilling. |
| 1:38.4 | He's the author of a new book called If We Tolerate This, |
| 1:42.1 | a title cribbed via a Manic street preacher's song, from a Spanish Civil |
| 1:47.3 | War propaganda poster showing the aerial bombardment of children. And of course, that's an |
| 1:53.6 | extreme comparison to the UK today. In Israel, where the far out has already token over, |
| 1:59.7 | it is, of course, quittal. |
| 2:02.5 | And so we should be mindful of the fact that while fascism is not around every corner, |
| 2:08.2 | every single attempt to draw a line in the sand where the British far right must not go beyond |
| 2:14.7 | for the last 15 years has completely failed. Maybe it's time we stopped |
... |
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