As we look across Europe today, the far right seems to be gaining ground, spurred on by the recent 2024 presidential election that saw Donald Trump return to the White House. To curb this rise in extremism, often disguised as populism, I think we can glean valuable insights from our experience in Barking back in 2010 when we successfully confronted the BNP.
The landscape, of course, has changed. Social media was practically nonexistent before 2010; we hadn’t weathered a pandemic, no major warfare was erupting in Europe, and the international order largely went unchallenged.
Despite these differences, certain factors back then still hold relevance today. Voter turnout was dwindling. In the Barking area of East London, only 45.5% showed up for the 2001 general elections, dropping significantly from 61.7% in 1997. It was clear from our research that it wasn’t apathy keeping voters away, but frustration—frustration that politicians ignored the issues people cared about, anger over the loss of local jobs at Ford in Dagenham, disappointment over the lack of affordable housing, and upset at how immigration was altering the community with politicians unwilling to even discuss it.
By 2006, this growing discontent found its outlet with voters drifting towards the BNP. They fielded 13 candidates in the council elections that year and brought home 12 seats. A greater number of candidates could have seen them controlling a council in Britain for the first time.
The local Labour party had, by 2006, lost the trust of our constituents. We were too inward-looking, focusing on our own issues rather than our community’s. We also failed to effectively counter the falsehoods spread by the BNP, falsehoods that resonated with the public’s frustrations—similar to today where social media magnifies such falsehoods. Outrageous claims like the Labour government encouraging “Africans to move to Essex” gained footholds—just as lies about Ukraine starting the war with Russia are catching on now.
Rebuilding trust with our voters required four years of unwavering dedication. Waiting until the short campaign would have doomed us, and Barking might have ended up with a BNP MP. National support for Labour was dwindling, along with the waning days of the Labour government. Hence, appealing to national issues was not the winning strategy for us in Barking.
But political movements begin locally. Residents care deeply about their immediate environment—not the preoccupations of Westminster. Issues like car parking, litter, or bus stop locations matter a lot more. National issues only grab attention when they hit home. From 2006 to 2010, my constituents were heavily focused on immigration and the lack of affordable housing.
Our approach shifted to centering around voters’ concerns, reshaping how I operated. I traded endless party meetings for real connections with as many constituents as possible.
I reached out directly, inviting them to have coffee, attend street meetings, and rally around local causes like rerouting a bus to a hospital. The crux was open communication. At our coffee events, people found good coffee, chocolate biscuits, and my eagerness to listen—not preach. Listening was key, and at every gathering, local issues naturally surfaced. We acted on these problems and kept everyone informed, fostering a loop of communication, action, and trust.
Challenging conversations, including immigration, weren’t avoided. We didn’t label all concerns as racist, nor promise to rollback immigration, but we aimed to understand and address genuine worries. For instance, we argued for considering a family’s ties to the community alongside their housing needs in social housing decisions—contentious to some, but necessary to address perceived unfairness. We also consistently highlighted the positives of immigration and diversity, like celebrating St George’s Day inclusively.
The results were telling: we managed to dismantle the BNP’s presence completely, ousting its councillors and setting the stage for the party’s eventual downfall.
It’s undeniable that social media now significantly influences the rise of populists, enabling extreme views to find like-minded communities that amplify and distort them through falsehoods.
Yet we cannot allow the current fixation on social media to obscure the wisdom of American politician Tip O’Neill: “All politics are local.” I hope today’s politicians and communities facing challenges both online and on the streets can take a leaf from our 2010 playbook. It is possible and crucial to integrate voter concerns into mainstream political conversations, preventing environments of hate and misinformation from taking root.
