The UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Olivier De Schutter, reminds us that there is likely more to the abhorrent rise of the far right in the UK (and elsewhere) than a sudden increase in innate racism.

From London to Lisbon, politicians from centre-right and centre-left parties alike had steadily eroded social programmes, fostering a sense of scarcity and creating fertile ground for the stirring up of anti-migrant sentiment, said Olivier De Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.

Knowing that presents a type of political solution that sadly so far the 2 historically-main political parties have done very little to counteract. In fact, they tend to do exactly the opposite.

“If we were doing more, people would not feel threatened, they would not fear falling behind,” he said. “They would be reassured that the digital and ecological transitions and globalisation will be painless because they are protected by a state that cares for them.”

He is of course precisely correct that the typical modern-day framing of the welfare state as something that is, at best, a necessary evil is misguided, inaccurate, self-defeating and really forgets the whole rationale for a large part of its introduction decades ago in the UK.

At the heart of his argument is the need for governments to rethink the welfare state – from food assistance to healthcare and unemployment benefits – as an essential tool to maintain the social fabric of society, rather than a cost to be reduced.

Doing our best to minimise the ability of desperate people to access the support they so desperately need is fuel on the flames of the sort of conflict we see in present day UK.

De Schutter said mainstream politicians around the world had for decades made it increasingly difficult to obtain benefits, increasing surveillance and stigmatising claimants. “And the message was: it’s a cost to society, it’s a burden, rather than an investment in the future.”

What emerged was a sense that access to such resources must be stringently limited, De Schutter said. “The message is: it is us against them. And what goes to one group must be denied to others, because there’s not enough for everyone,” he said. “It’s a discourse that sets people against one another. And that’s extremely dangerous, and I do think that is what the far right is now reaping.”

Research would seem to be on his side.

His view is backed by a 2021 study that looked at 14 countries across Europe and found that a one-point increase in income inequality corresponded to a one-point increase in support for populist parties.

Higher pension levels, minimum wage legislation and increases to child allowances have also been shown to diminish the likelihood of people voting for the far right.

The parties currently reaping the political rewards - Reform here in the UK - may appear populist, claim to be the voice of the “common man”, telling whatever lies they want to in order to maximally rail against some nonsensical combination of “the liberal elite” and the people most in need of help in the world. But their political kinfolk that have actually gotten into power elsewhere have shown that their type typically has no interest in actually helping even the archetypical “White working class man” they espouse such reverence for - let alone the rest of the 99%.

Referring to the current US and Argentinian governments:

When the far right and rightwing populists have won power, including Donald Trump’s administration in the US or Javier Milei’s in Argentina, their actions suggested their focus was on further dismantling social protection, he said.

“Once in power, they work to maintain the privileges of the very economic elite they denounce in their speeches, slashing food assistance, healthcare and other life-saving services,” he said. “They haven’t kept their promises to the lower middle class, they’ve actually made things worse and the levels of inequalities and poverty have grown significantly in those two countries.”

Given Reform’s pro-billionaire, anti-working-class policies, and the astonishing failures we’ve seen so far with their inroads into local government, it is clear they will be no different.