Uploaded July 2017 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Reader in Politics at the School of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent
After Brexit and the victory of Donald Trump, the liberal world seems to lie in tatters: economic globalisation is in retreat while reactionaries are on the rise. In Britain, an alliance of left and right-wing voters rose up against remote technocracy and free movement of labour that overwhelmingly benefit the metropolitan, socially liberal middle classes. In the U.S., Trump enlisted the working-class that the Democrats took for granted, and his triumph has shattered the American political consensus on free trade, immigration, and the worldwide promotion of liberal democracy. Coupled with the triumph of patriotic strongmen in countries as diverse as India, Russia, Japan, and the Philippines, Brexit and Trump are so far the clearest expressions of a global backlash against the ruling liberal establishment.
Reader in Politics at the School of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent
After Brexit and the victory of Donald Trump, the liberal world seems to lie in tatters: economic globalisation is in retreat while reactionaries are on the rise. In Britain, an alliance of left and right-wing voters rose up against remote technocracy and free movement of labour that overwhelmingly benefit the metropolitan, socially liberal middle classes. In the U.S., Trump enlisted the working-class that the Democrats took for granted, and his triumph has shattered the American political consensus on free trade, immigration, and the worldwide promotion of liberal democracy. Coupled with the triumph of patriotic strongmen in countries as diverse as India, Russia, Japan, and the Philippines, Brexit and Trump are so far the clearest expressions of a global backlash against the ruling liberal establishment.
