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Cas Mudde's book 'The Far Right Today' is an excellent summary of the development of the far right from it's first, post-Second World War phase in the late 1940s, to its current fourth wave phenomenon ranging from the populist radical right to extreme right terror groups.

It asks the questions on a global scale why have far right policies and parties become so prevalent and considers ways to challenge them, with Mudde potentially moving from the realm of academic to activist?

Mudde is particularly interesting on the response to the rise of the far right and how liberal democratic parties have moved from demarcation (effectively ostracising the far right), to confrontation, cooptation (of their policyviews, if not the parties themselves), to incorporation. It is interesting to consider the rise of the populist radical right in Britain and contemplate where we are in that process today? (In many ways it is sad the Mudde's book was written in 2019 and given all that has happened needs a five years later revision.)

Mudde ends his book with twelve theses on the fourth wave of the far right and leaves us with some hope for challenging its current dominance. He notes that, in the not too distant future, with society rapidly changing demographically and in its acceptance of diversity, there is hope to defeat extreme rhetoric.

He ends the books stating: "The ultimate goal of all responses to the far right should be the strengthening of liberal democracy. Put simply, only fighting the far right does not necessarily strengthen liberal democracy, but strengthening liberal democracy will, by definition, weaken the far right."

For those of us interested in defeating far right rhetoric defending a pluralistic society honouring fundamental rights will see the their disturbing and regressive views confined to history.

I was recently having an exchange on social media with a newly elected Reform UK county councillor where I commented on his assertion that his party was 'centre right' with the observation that as a party they don't have an aligned position on any traditional left / right spectrum but rather that they pick and choose policies based on a populist approach. It can be argued that the party has some fairly right wing views when it comes to immigration whilst its stance on the public ownership of British Steel falls far to the left of the Government, for example.

The councillor in question replied to me as follows: "I am centre right that is a fact ,a popular policy like lowering tax will always be popular , removing illegals that cost us billions will always be popular etc etc"

In that one sentence he conflated populism with the notion of being popular. It isn't an unusual mistake to make and I don't criticise him for it, it's not reasonable to expect councillors to be experts in political theory.

But it is important to note that populism isn't about being popular, although some of the policies of a populist party may well be, it's about how the party looks at the world.

Cas Mudde describes populism as being a set of ideas, that may well have a 'host' ideology attached to them that sets the 'good' people against the 'bad' elite. It assumes that the people hold a common set of values and is moral ideology that paints the 'people' as good and the elite, or establishment, or whatever you want to call them as corrupt.

Perhaps most importantly Mudde describes populism as 'an illiberal democratic response to liberal democracy'.

The real issue is that in a liberal democracy we believe in the concept of popular sovereignty and majority rule, but we also believe in minority rights, the rule of law and separation of powers. In that sense we can argue that democracy has progressed from a relatively simplistic electoral version to a much more complex monitory model that takes into account supranational bodies and institutions, courts and treaties.

The essence of populism is that through a strengthened executive it is free to undermine the judiciary, the media, the rule of law and the rights of minorities (if those minorities don't accord with the homogenous views or characteristics of 'the people').

So, going back to my discussion with the unnamed councillor, I don't expect him to understand any strict definition of populism. What I do expect him to recognise is that populism readily infringes on the rights of minorities, and to ask himself if he is happy with that?

And, just as importantly, to remind himself often that you never know when you may become a minority yourself.