The language of the far right is now in the mouths of our mainstream political leaders, from Labour to the Conservatives. In 2025 we saw the biggest far-right march in Britain’s history, after a summer of flag-waving protest. The year before, racist mobs tried to attack mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers.

Something incredibly dangerous has been unleashed and yet our political class seems at best indifferent and at worst to welcome it. Daniel Trilling explains how we arrived at this extraordinary moment and what we can do to change course before it’s too late.

Daniel Trilling is a journalist and author based in London. His  journalism, which was shortlisted for the 2022 and 2023 Orwell Prizes, focuses on human rights and politics. He’s written books on refugees in Europe, Britain’s far right and is a regular contributor to the London Review of Book and the Guardian.

He is also an associate lecturer in journalism at London College of Communication, where he helps out with the Refugee Journalism Project, a training and mentoring scheme for exiled media workers in the UK.