Last week's byelections in the UK were an earthquake in British politics. For the first time since the rise of the Labour Party 100 years ago, the two-party system has been upended. Now, a new contender for power has decisively entered the race: Reform.It has been less than a year since the last general election in Britain. Since then, the Labour party has collapsed in popularity as a result of Starmer’s repeated attacks on the poor – chiefly his savage cut to winter fuel payments for pensioners and disability benefits. The Tory party, meanwhile – the oldest and most successful political party in the world – has continued to sink into irrelevance.In the meantime, Nigel Farage’s right-wing party, Reform, has shot up in popularity, and is now polling level with – even above – what have been the two main parties for at least a century. What is behind this upset? Does it mean that British people are getting more racist, more right-wing?

As this episode of Against the Stream explains, the resurgence of Farage is a product of the miserable state of broken Britain. For decades, the establishment parties have presided over austerity, privatisation and deindustrialisation. Boarded-up high streets, food banks, ambulance queues and pensioners freezing in their homes have become commonplace in Britain in 2025. As a result, anger is building against the politicians who have presided over this mess. For the time being, this anger is finding its outlet in the party of the only mainstream anti-establishment politician: Nigel Farage.

And this is not just the case in Britain. Similar right-wing populist figures like Trump, Weidel of the AfD, and Le Pen are popping up all across the western world and are gaining steam as the liberal establishment becomes more and more reviled.To uncover what is behind the rise of Reform, Niklas Albin Svensson and Hamid Alizadeh from the International Secretariat of the Revolutionary Communist International met for another episode of Against the Stream, the weekly current affairs podcast of the RCI.Join us in building the Revolutionary Communist International!

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