Why Populists Are Winning

and How to Beat Them
Armed with original research from across Europe and America, Liam Byrne explains why populism has seduced voters worldwide, unpacks the five keys to populist appeal and offers a game-plan for defeating populism and saving democracy

'Required reading' Andrew Marr, New Statesman

'A welcome shot of serious thought' Financial Times

In 2024, two billion people went to vote – and populism won big. Donald Trump returned to the White House. Marine Le Pen surged in France. Reform UK became Britain’s most successful far-right party in modern history. Across the West, authoritarian populists now govern a quarter of the world’s democracies.

But is this peak populism – or the populists’ tipping point?

From the counting halls of inner-city Birmingham to the trading floors of Wall Street, from the Heritage Foundation war room to the algorithmic outrage machines of social media, Liam Byrne exposes the forces propelling the populist surge – and reveals how to stop it.

Drawing on original polling of thousands of voters, interviews with leading thinkers, and on-the-ground reporting across Britain, Europe and America, Byrne decodes the populist playbook. He reveals populism’s five tribes, showing which voters can still be won back. He traces the millions flowing into Britain’s populist media-political complex. He maps the rhetoric populists use to weaponise fear and nostalgia. And he warns: democracies rarely collapse in normal times – they fall after the next crisis, when hope collapses.

WHY POPULISTS ARE WINNING sets out a bold plan to rebuild the radical centre of Western politics. It is a field manual for democratic renewal – written for anyone who refuses to let fear win.

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