The rise of Europe’s populist right is forcing established conservative parties across the continent to reconsider their positions on immigration, national identity and cooperation with movements once regarded as beyond the political mainstream.
In Britain, Reform UK has established itself as a serious challenger to the Conservatives under Nigel Farage. The party is based at Millbank Tower, the former headquarters of the Conservative Party, just a short distance from the Houses of Parliament.
Similar shifts are under way in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally has overtaken much of France’s traditional right, while Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) has made historic gains against the centre-right Christian Democrats.
The trend presents established parties with a difficult choice: adopt tougher positions on immigration and national identity, and potentially work with populist rivals, or risk losing more voters to them.
Steve Baker, a former Conservative minister, said politics was increasingly being shaped by “identity and nationalism” rather than the economy. He linked the change to frustration with political and economic institutions, adding: “The world does not work for far too many people, and almost no one is able to explain why. In that environment … someone gets the blame.”
He warned that blame was increasingly being directed at ethnic and cultural minorities.
Reform UK challenges the Conservatives
The Conservatives are fighting for survival after their 14-year period in government ended with a heavy defeat at the 2024 general election.
Reform UK has channelled anger over immigration, accusing successive Conservative governments of failing to honour promises to reduce arrivals. Net migration reached nearly one million in the party’s final years in office, while a September poll found that 44% of Britons viewed immigration as one of the country’s most important issues.
But the contest on the British right has broadened beyond migration figures. Political arguments increasingly concern British identity, ethnicity and who can describe themselves as English.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, whose parents are Nigerian, has challenged attempts to define Englishness solely through ancestry. Suella Braverman, a senior Reform politician born in London and of Indian descent, has said she does not consider herself English because “Englishness is an ethnicity.”
“I don’t want to live in a country run by people who … debate whether my mixed-race children are English,” Ms Badenoch said at the Conservative Party conference in October. “We must not let these people take us backwards.”
Mr Baker said concerns about immigration and demographic change could not simply be dismissed, but added that he opposed the shift towards ethnicity in political debate. “None of us were talking about ethno-nationalism a few years ago,” he said. “I recoil in absolute horror to see this conversation going mainstream.”
Reform’s support has also faced pressure. After polling at about 28% in May, it had fallen to 22% in some surveys as the party dealt with internal controversies and financial scandals.
The party is being challenged from further to the right by Restore Britain, led by former Reform lawmaker Rupert Lowe. The group is targeting voters who believe Mr Farage’s party is not sufficiently hardline on immigration, Islam and national identity. One poll placed Restore’s support as high as 9%.
Germany’s AfD puts the political firewall under strain
Germany’s political establishment has maintained a firewall against the far right since the Second World War, refusing to form governing coalitions with parties associated with nationalist, anti-democratic or extremist movements.
That barrier has been tested by the AfD’s growing electoral support. In September, the party won 43.8% of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt, more than doubling its previous result and finishing well ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union, which took 17.2%.
The AfD’s strongest base remains in eastern Germany, where it has drawn on resentment over reunification, economic inequality and distrust of political institutions. Its support has since spread beyond those traditional strongholds.
The party has also benefited from dissatisfaction with Germany’s handling of the 2015-16 migration crisis. About 890,000 asylum seekers arrived in Germany in 2015, as the country responded to people displaced by the war in Syria.
In the 2025 federal election, the AfD won about 32% of the vote in eastern states and 18% in western Germany, making it the country’s second-largest party nationally.
AfD politician Tomasz Froelich said the party had attracted working-class voters, skilled industrial workers worried about their economic future and financially insecure small business owners.
He predicted that the established parties would eventually be unable to preserve the firewall if the AfD continued to grow. “If the AfD continues to rise towards 35% nationally … and comes to represent more than one third of voters, this approach will sooner or later become impossible to sustain,” he said.
The party argues that it has already shifted the political debate. Mary Khan, another AfD politician, said demands for stricter border controls, a migration cap and a greater focus on national interests were now being discussed within the CDU.
Mr Merz faced nationwide protests in January 2025 after backing an immigration motion that passed with AfD support. A subsequent attempt to turn the proposals into law failed after 12 conservative lawmakers refused to support it.
The AfD’s positions have nevertheless alienated some nationalist parties elsewhere in Europe. Italy’s Giorgia Meloni has cited differences over Russia’s war in Ukraine, while France’s National Rally broke with the German party after comments by an AfD candidate appeared to downplay the crimes of the Nazi SS.
Le Pen’s National Rally moves into the mainstream
In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally has transformed itself from a political outsider into one of the country’s most powerful electoral forces.
Polling in October suggested Ms Le Pen could win between 31% and 36% of first-round votes in the next presidential election, placing her at least 11 percentage points ahead of her nearest rival. The election is due to take place in April.
Ms Le Pen has spent years distancing the party, formerly known as the National Front, from the extremist reputation associated with her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. Renaming the organisation, moderating some positions and presenting it as capable of governing have helped the party broaden its appeal.
That strategy has left France’s traditional conservative party, Les Républicains, struggling to retain national support, with recent polling placing it at about 9%.
French essayist Stéphane Azihari said National Rally had appealed both to voters disappointed by the traditional right and to working-class supporters who had moved away from the left.
“The primary driver of RN voting remains, of course, the fear of non-European immigration, and Muslim immigration in particular,” he said.
Immigration and Islam have become increasingly prominent in French political debate. A 2024 poll found that 77% of National Rally voters considered immigration an important factor in their decision, while research cited in the source material found that 73% believed Islam was incompatible with French society.
Mr Azihari said concerns about Islamist terrorism, including the 2015 attacks in Paris, had helped normalise the party’s positions on immigration and security. President Emmanuel Macron has also backed more restrictive immigration measures, but tougher policies have not removed National Rally’s electoral appeal.
Across Europe, the growing strength of populist parties is therefore influencing politics even where they remain outside government. A survey of party support across 31 European countries found that almost a quarter of voters now support far-right parties, leaving mainstream conservatives to decide how far they are prepared to move towards them.
