When reality bites: the rapid rise and chaotic fall of Reform UK in Cornwall

14. Thanks for reading to the end. Here's the thread on one page: skywriter.blue/pages/did:pl...

13. Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet. But also, long live Sodom and Gomarrah.

12. I write this as someone brought up in and currently living in the countryside. There is much that I love about it, but also much I admire about cities. I don’t believe we need to set one against the other. But urban-rural conflict is one aspect of the constant effort to polarise and divide.

11. Importantly, the city is and has always been a much less controllable space for the far right than the countryside. It is less in thrall to traditional hierarchies and better able to mobilise: the sheer number of people provides a counterweight to oligarchic power.

10. They circulate myths about “no-go zones” and subways in which you’re more likely to get your throat cut than arrive at your destination. They evince what might or might not be genuine terror at seeing black and brown faces.

9. Now this idea is being resuscitated once again. The city is cast by the new wave of fascists as a degenerate, crime-ridden arena, dominated by Muslims, immigrants and “alien” ideas such as feminism, antifa, anti-racism, trans rights, asylum, public transport and intellectualism.

8. Evil city / pure countryside is an example of what Jeremy Lent calls a “root metaphor”: an idea so deeply implanted in our minds that we don’t even recognise it as an idea.

7. It should be noted that not all rural revivalists were on the far right. Lord of the Rings is a rural revivalist fantasy. A society of small farmers overthrows urban industrialism and restores a feudal aristocracy. The Shire is Wallop’s ideal society as much as Tolkein’s.

6. They sought to trigger a mass return of people to the countryside, depopulating the cities. I'm not sure they really thought that through: the result would have been generalised urbanisation. Though, given that some of them (esp Anthony Ludovici) wanted to exterminate so many people, maybe not.

5. They saw the countryside as the “true” heart of the nation, which upheld clean and decent traditions, and sustained old ideas about how society should be run. Crucially, they believed, it was not “polluted” by “miscegenation” and the “dilution” of “racial characteristics”.

4. The city, for them, was a seething mass of “aliens” and “cosmopolitans” (ie Jews). It teemed with “foreign” and “degenerate” ideas and practices. Some of them, particularly Gerald Wallop (Lord Lymington), railed against its democratic impulses: he wanted a revival of aristocratic rule.

3. It was rescuscitated in the 1920s and 1930s by fascist movements. “Rural revivalism” was a major force in the emergence of fascism in Germany, Italy, France, the UK and elsewhere. In the UK it was fomented by the likes of Gerald Wallop, Jorian Jenks, Rolf Gardiner and Henry Williamson.

2. As the prophet Nahum put it, “Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not ... the well-favoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts.” Lovely guy, I’m sure.

1. In the wake on Mamdani’s win, we’ll see a lot more far right anti-urban sentiment. Here’s a thread on its roots and evolution. The idea that the city is evil and corrupt, and the countryside innocent and pure, goes back a long way: to Theocritus in Alexandria, and to the Old Testament. 🧵

Why one small town with very little immigration turned to Reform UK www.bbc.com/news/article...

New publication for everyone interested in climate politics, far-right climate obstruction, and the role of elite cues! 📚 "Climate action versus environmental protection?" now out in @environmentalpol.bsky.social (with Matthias Diermeier). www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... (open access!) (1/5)

Great study on the urban-rural divide in Sweden. Clear attitude- and identity-based polarization, but no systematic bias towards out-group political candidates.

@ruralgrg.bsky.social @wiserd-research.bsky.social @ecpr-ead.bsky.social @ecprpovb.bsky.social @psaepop.bsky.social

Join our team: We're recruiting 2 x 3-year post doc researchers for the Rural-Spatial-Justice project at Aberystwyth, to undertake fieldwork on rural discontent & support for disruptive politics in the UK, Europe & USA. Closing date: 19 Oct. Details: jobs.aber.ac.uk/en/vacancy/p...

As Andrew's Previews marked its 15th anniversary last week it seems apt to highlight the importance of @andrewteale.me.uk 's Local Election Archive Project to this analysis of the geography of the Reform UK vote. ruralspatialjustice.substack.com/p/where-is-r...

@sundersays.bsky.social Far-right protest in Newtown today. Estimate 100-150 present. Some had travelled in from Shropshire etc.. Curious locals on fringe watching rather than participating.

Where is Reform UK winning? Read our analysis of Reform's local elections vote across rural & urban England - and what it means for the electoral geography of Britain: open.substack.com/pub/ruralspa...

From LA to Paris, the populist right hates cities – and it’s fuelled by a sense of bitter defeat | Andy Beckett

We’re investigating the decline of local news in rural America as a factor in rural support for disruptive politics. This report suggests a self-perpetuating cycle.

If you found @jacobinmag.bsky.social's article on Democrats losing Kentucky coal country interesting, have a read of our free Substack essay on our research on links between rural discontent, spatial justice and support for Trump in east Kentucky: ruralspatialjustice.substack.com/p/notes-from...

The last rural Democrat in Kentucky’s state senate just switched parties. Robin Webb is wrong that Republicans better represent her coal-country constituents, but she’s right that Democrats lost interest in them long ago.

New on our free Substack: Notes from Appalachia. What's behind Trump's landslide in eastern Kentucky? Musings on our scoping visit & reading and thoughts on how we'll approach case study fieldwork (with a little myth-busting). open.substack.com/pub/ruralspa...

Meanwhile in the Netherlands: BBB minister is accused of letting down rural citizens by siding with farmers on alleged intimidation of local residents protesting at pesticide use on ornamental lillies.

Fund for nature-friendly farming to be slashed in UK spending review

How Trump has turbocharged a Canadian province’s quest for independence | Lisa Young

“What is gained from 27 interviews with the same person? Where is the informative value?” asks João Carvalho, who accuses the media of no longer caring about political pluralism: “They give much more attention to political figures who generate controversy”

My debut piece for the Observer is up on their website. It's on the global crisis of the centre-right and why its lost its way. (Free to read) observer.co.uk/news/politic...

This reinforces what @pauliinapatana.bsky.social found -- its not nativism/globalization that leads to support for populist parties. Its poor public goods provision and people getting stuck.

🚨 working paper (w. @morganlcj.bsky.social @markuswagner.bsky.social): Protesters are not judged equally - even if tactics of groups are similar. We ran an experiment in 🇩🇪 testing how people react to farmers vs. climate activists blocking roads. What we find is disturbing: osf.io/preprints/os...

🚨 📒New article with @k8ebrown.bsky.social & @aurelmondon.bsky.social! We propose a revised definition of the term ‘far right', problematise binaries between the far right & the mainstream & illustrate the ‘5th wave’ of far-right politics of this contemporary moment www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Romania, Preliminary final results: Presidential election, first round today Simion (AUR-ECR): 40.9% (+0.6) Dan (*-RE): 20.9% (+0.1) Antonescu (PSD/PNL/UDMR-S&D|EPP): 20% (-0.4) Ponta (*-S&D): 13% (-0.3) Lasconi (USR-RE): 2.6% ... +/- vs. 95% of votes counted ➤ europeelects.eu/romania

Some clear leftist and rightist traits (based on current political science) do not resonate with a large proportion of European citizens. The cultural elements of the left–right concept are not perceived in the same way across Europe link.springer.com/article/10.1...

New post just out A fascinating guest post from @profjanegreen.bsky.social and @martamiori.bsky.social looking at Reform's performance last week. Are we seeing an end to two-party politics or its reinvention? (£/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/t...

There are intriguing variations in the rural-urban balance of the Reform UK vote in different counties. A quick initial of 3 counties (using ONS rural-urban classes (roughly- there’s not an exact fit & we’ve modified category titles for brevity))

We now have >250 wards/divisions reported and an increasingly clear picture of the Reform vote. It is higher in areas with fewer graduates, more people with no qualifications, areas where more people are employed in primary industries (e.g. manufacturing) and areas with more older people.

As Australia heads to the polls, big parties brace for rise of independents

No all-out elections in most of East Anglia, but Reform wins 2 rural/small town by-elections caused by resignation of Labour now-MP for Norfolk SW. Though note this county council ward has previously elected a UKIP councillor.

More rural divisions in Northumberland holding off the Reform onslaught www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

Important pattern here in Northumberland: Reform doing less well (& Tories holding on) in more rural areas. Reform surge is urban & periurban. Will be interesting to see if this holds in other councils as results come in today

Greater Lincolnshire CA Mayoral Election: ➡️ Jenkyns (RFM): 42.0% 🌳 Waltham (CON): 26.1% 🌹 Stockwood (LAB): 12.3% 🏘️ Overton (LincsInds): 8.0% 🌍 Horscroft (GRN): 6.1% 🔶 Young (LDM): 5.5% Reform WIN. electionmaps.uk/le2025

Based on early results from council by-elections, Reform are doing substantially better (and Labour substantially worse) in areas with fewer university graduates. Analysis for @news.sky.com, presented by @samcoatessky.bsky.social.

'We have more in common with America than the rest of Canada' www.bbc.com/news/article...

New open access paper on farmers, globalization, populism and support for Bolsonaro in southern Brazil, with reflection on qualitative methods in electoral geography. Based Rural-Spatial-Justice and Global-Rural research: periodicos.uff.br/geographia/a...