Britain’s Political Reckoning: Ziccarelli & Maguire on the Crisis in Anglo-America

Transcript of AFPI’s inaugural interview in the new “Civilizational Allies” series

This conversation is the first ever of the America First Policy Institute’s Civilizational Allies Interview Series, hosted by Director of Global Coalitions Kristen Ziccarelli. It features leading policymakers, leaders, and strategists from across the world on questions of sovereignty, identity, and the future of the movement. Upcoming guests include President of the Italian Machiavelli Institute Daniele Scalea, and French immigration expert Nicholas Monti — each bringing their own perspectives to the challenges facing the West.

At a moment when the U.K. is convulsed by mass migration, political upheaval, economic stagnation, and a crisis of national identity, Scarlett Maguire has emerged as one of the most incisive interpreters of British public sentiment, as a leading British pollster, strategist, and commentator. As the founder of Merlin Strategies, a London-based research and polling firm with major clients across Europe and the U.S., Maguire has spent more than a decade advising parties, media organizations, and institutions on how voters perceive questions of sovereignty, migration, and belonging. Her commentary appears regularly in the BBC, The Telegraph, and The Spectator, and her work offers a crucial window into the shifting moral and political atmosphere of modern Britain.

Last year, Britain’s Conservative Party was swept from power after fourteen years in government, replaced by Labour’s Keir Starmer. Yet far from stabilizing the country, Starmer’s tenure has deepened the sense of disillusionment among Britons. The right-wing Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, is now leading in national polls. The political rupture in Britain mirrors a broader crisis across the Anglo-American world: the breakdown of the postwar consensus, the revolt of working-class voters against elites, and the growing demand for leadership rooted in national interest and cultural continuity. Scarlett Maguire helps me understand these developments, analyzing these trends and their implications not only for the U.K., but for the transatlantic right — offering both a cautionary tale and a moment of clarity for the America First movement.

Kristen Ziccarelli:

Thinking about the British political environment right now, please share what is dominating the discussion and some of the current trends and any relevant power dynamics.

Scarlet Maguire:

The British, political system at the moment is historically fractured. We are traditionally a two-party state and a two-party system, with the conservatives on the right and labor on the left. That has been shattered over the last 18 months. The conservative government was in power from 2010 to 2024, and we had our election last July, when they were booted out with a resounding vote from the public, who were incredibly unhappy with how 14 years of conservative government had gone. This meant that Keir Starmer's Labor Party - he is now prime minister, won with a huge parliamentary landslide. But with the peculiarities of our “first past the post” system means that he was able to do so on only 33% of the vote, because everyone else's vote was so splintered. We had, in the UK, what was an almost historically low turnout of just 60%, meaning that only two in ten of the eligible electorate actually cast a vote for Keir Starmer. This has caused Labor quite a few problems since. I think there was quite a lot of complacency among both Labor and the Conservative Party, which is our traditional right of center party in the U.K.

Both these face the threat of outside voices, meaning Reform U.K., but we've also now seen a threat from the left for Keir Starmer as well. At the last election, Reform UK came from a standing start, so Nigel Farage, who was already behind the scenes, came back to the forefront to stand and lead the party. It was a campaign that completely transformed Reform UK's chances. They received 14% of the vote and five MPs, which at the time was unthinkable. Nigel Farage has been in British politics an awfully long time, and he's never managed to win a seat himself.

The right-wing party or populist right wing, which has led in 92 consecutive polls, are undeniably the winners. It is astonishing. They are undeniably the winners of the last 14 months, and they have more than doubled their vote share from the last election, at least in terms of opinion polls are going anyway. They're now hovering somewhere between 30 and 35% of our vote, depending on where you look and if current trends and trajectories continue, that will only, probably increase.

As a result, the British system is in a very odd place. It's very seriously contemplating even amongst media circles and political elites, the prospect of a Nigel Farage premiership for the first time, which was never thought about before. It was always dismissed as something that could not happen, especially not at this speed.

So, we are in an environment now where the overwhelming sense of the British public on both the left and the right, is a deep frustration with the status quo and the way the country has been governed - this is letting itself out. Those forces are now currently being voiced, in support for Reform, or other left wing populist challenges. It’s my assumptions that those trends will only continue.

We had this election with this resounding, parliamentary mandate only 14 months ago. We could still have another four years until we have another general election. Those four years will be fantastically difficult for this Labor government. We're already seeing that that they're causing, they're having problems getting through the flagship legislation. They are sort of their support internally is crumbling. Their support externally is hugely crumbling. Then now just on 20%, which again, is almost historically low for labor and again unthinkable for party. They soon are winning such majority. And the Reform look just probably more likely to rise further, which I think lends a question about the direction of travel for the UK.

Kristen Ziccarelli:

What is actually driving this rise of Reform UK? I imagine immigration is a significant driver, among other conditions like crime and economic strife.

Scarlett Maguire:

A huge Reform slogan is that Britain is broken, which is quite on the nose. Labor won on a very similar slogan last year. As far as reform goes, is that I think there are some lessons, probably for the party to learn from Labor in that it's very much easier to ride on a “everything's broken ticket” than a “this is what we're going to do to fix it” ticket. Anywhere between six and seven in ten of British people say Britain is broken and that it needs completely radical change to fix it.

The public is agitating for things to dramatically change in the country; this is because of a few different things. We have experienced economic stagnation since the financial crisis. This was exacerbated in a very long and difficult economic recovery from COVID-19, which has hurt a lot of the country, especially outside London.

Americans like to talk about how England has the same GDP as Mississippi or the poorest U.S. state, which may be technically true, but I would say the reality of it is actually worse and more distorted than that because our wealth is so concentrated in London, and in the southeast.

My job is to go into parts of the country which have suffered a lot more than London and the southeast have and are feeling much more left behind. There's a real frustration with the cost of living. By comparison, we saw how powerful that was in America at the last election. And a sense that the country's just not working for them is a part of that. Our public services are crumbling. We are not doing particularly well as a country. It is very difficult to fund these public services, and at the same time, the population already feels like it's being taxed to its limit.

What has particularly picked up pace over the last 14 months or so as this issue of immigration. We are now seeing that among voters, depending on where you look, pollsters have immigration as the number one or the number two issue facing the country.

If you want to get voters to talk about something else, such as the National Health System, or about housing, they will bring it back to immigration. They see their frustrations at immigration as a root cause to a lot of the other things. They're unhappy about in the country. This has caused quite an astonishing turnaround in our political system and how we talk about immigration in the U.K., especially from, political and media audiences. Earlier this year, Keir Starmer gave a speech saying that some Brits feel that we might become an island of strangers due to mass immigration. He was heavily criticized from his own voters for this, from his own party, and from a lot of commentators.

But I cannot tell you how much more controversial that would have been a year ago. So, the conversation is significantly changing, to keep pace on just how much, the public care about it.

Reform now did a big set piece Nigel Farage party, did a big set piece event a week or two ago where they went to an airport hangar and they got flights on the trauma, deportations, all of the deportations they're going to do, again, unthinkable even that a mainstream party would have done that year, 18 months ago.

What's even more extraordinary is that when you when you poll Brits a clear majority of them support action no matter what it takes to reduce immigration. And so, there is still a sense that the political systems have not quite caught up with how strongly the public feel, but they are coming around to it.

Kristen Ziccarelli

Thank you, that's super illuminating. I'm curious to know how much the immigration debate is also a question of “who we are as a nation” and this idea of what the cultural identity is. To quote Lee Cohen in The Spectator:

“There is a chance for recovery. A counter‑movement exists. Figures such as Nigel Farage – who is in Washington today to talk about free speech in Britain – Robert Jenrick, Ben Habib and the Reform UK party speak plainly about borders, free speech and sovereignty. They refuse to accept that patriotism is extremism or that questioning official orthodoxy is hate. For this they are demonised by the governing elite. But for this they are listened to by ordinary citizens who have had enough and are reasserting their national pride as manifested in the tidal wave of Union and St. George flags that have flooded cities throughout the UK through efforts such as Operation Raise the Colours.”

The article goes on to say, “Britain must decide.” Is that something you resonate or agree with?

Scarlett Maguire:

It certainly is a very powerful quote from the article in The Spectator. And it is certainly true that this summer we have seen, pretty much nonstop protests all over the country about specifically the policy of accommodating migrants in hotels, which actually was a Conservative Party policy that Labor then continued.

It was more difficult for the public to, for the conservatives necessarily to criticize it. You can pinpoint the moment where the public started caring dramatically more about immigration to when the hotel asylum policy came into place. I was hearing this in focus groups, where citizens voiced concern because it was a very visible and tangible problem. There were concerns about safety and crime and then on top of that, when people were feeling badly off, there was also a sense that it was unfair that some people come here illegally and are getting a free ride whilst other people were struggling.

It was a perfect conflation of these issues and the perfect symbol of them. It’s interesting that the conservatives are the ones that were responsible for that in the first place.

That point aside, there are the points in [the article] that are correct but the bit I would actually slightly push back on is that the so-called elites as they were described there have now moved to a slightly different stage. It's right that say, six months a year ago, the scenes he described would have been met with outright and spoken horror by the elites. But now we're in a more unusual situation because they have cottoned on to how the public are feeling, and they've cottoned on to how your sort of median voter responds to these things, and the way in which they're voting.

You're now experiencing this phenomenon with the Prime minister, the Home Secretary, where all they want to talk about is how they've got the Saint George's crosses in their houses, in their apartments, how they love the Union Jack flag, how they have it everywhere. They are trying, I think, to get on board with some of the rhetoric. They are starting to come around to it, at least in the way they speak about it, but I think the problem for this government, and any labor government, is that what the public want on migration is quite radical.

They not only want to stop illegal migration, but they want a drastic reduction in the legal migration numbers. This is hard, and something that will be difficult for the Labor government to do, particularly as it comes with a lot of tradeoffs. It comes with changes economically.

The government’s voters are split: the ones who they've lost to Reform care dramatically about this issue, and the ones they have not are alienated by any attempt to talk about it. So, they are caught between a rock and a hard place. But it doesn't mean that they've not even started to counter signal otherwise. Again, it's not been incredibly convincing.

Kristen Ziccarelli

The legal immigration angle is fascinating, because that's something that's obviously hotly contested here in the US. In my own conversations with members of the European right they seem to be on all areas of the spectrum on this issue. I’m curious about this factor of cultural proximity, or what we call assimilation. Do you think that's driving citizens to want a governing mechanism that really responds to their needs and their desires and then wanting people to come in and adopt the tradition and culture of their new home?

Scarlett Maguire:

There is certainly a dimension of that. I touched on earlier, a lot of the concern about the illegal and legal immigration is an economic one. There is a sense that citizens think that other people are costing the country money rather than contributing, but the secondary component that I always touch on is fairness – this idea that the state might be letting some have an easy ride when they don't necessarily do the same for others. This is why the hotels were such a lightning rod, because much of it comes down to visual symbolization, and seeing a lack of assimilation.

You are even starting to hear Labor talk about now, about how there is a need for people to speak English, and to be able to integrate in the communities. The problem is that it has not been matched up with policies, especially over the last few years.

Kristen Ziccarelli:

What do Americans maybe most misunderstand about the right-wing movement over in Britain? And what should they really care about when they consider it?

Scarlett Maguire:

That is a fantastic question. The reason to care is we have very strong historical ties between us, and there is a lot to be learned from both. If Americans had followed the Brexit referendum more closely, for instance, that could have potentially told them a little bit more about some of the currents that were then driving Trump to win his first election. It reflected some of the backlash against globalization, and the frustration with stagnation since the financial crisis. There is a real sense that there were communities that have been left behind by some in the name of progress.

When you spend your time talking to people who don't live in areas of great wealth or metropolitan areas in all countries, it's much easier to understand why people have not been happy with what's happened over the last ten to twenty years and why they feel the way they do.

One thing that shows there's an opportunity in this post-Brexit landscape, especially for the UK and as far as the US is concerned, is for the UK to be somewhat of a bridge to Europe. So the dialogue between the U.S. and the U.K. becomes much more important because the U.K. does now have more leeway to have those conversations and to reflect, because it’s not just what’s important for the UK, but also for Europe – France, Germany, Italy. So when these countries are experiencing crises, times of great upheaval and great change, being able to look at what's happened elsewhere to try and learn from it can only be a good thing.

Kristen Ziccarelli:

Absolutely. I'm glad you mentioned that. My assessment of it, especially from what you just said, is that there’s an overwhelming desire to return to a government that is very simply accountable to its people, and for leaders in office that are realistic rather than ideologues. You look at the success of a leader like Prime Minister Meloni in Italy, who is rising, and a very strong, favor among the people, partly because she's answering to the people that are living in normal communities. Those citizens are seeing that their concerns are reflected among their elites and in their capital, and that's really refreshing to them.

Scarlett Maguire:

That’s right. And I think Meloni is also a very interesting example, because in the U.S. before the 2024 election, I was speaking with some about the Democrat White House, who apparently most preferred engaging the Meloni government because they felt like she was in the strongest position domestically, among the rest of European leaders.

It’s interesting because of how this mandate which Meloni built for herself at home apparently gave her this stronger footing globally, which meant that she could be more of a leader on the world stage, which a lot of people forget you need in order to work.

Kristen Ziccarelli:

Very good point, thank you. To pivot a little bit, lets talk about free speech. We both remember back in February in Munich, Vice President J.D. Vance gave that very significant speech, which made quite the impact particularly for the way he criticized the United Kingdom for what he described as backsliding in this area. Tell me a little bit about how that was received in the UK, especially among members of the left and right. Has it had an effect?

Scarlett Maguire:

It sent shockwaves throughout both the U.K. and Europe. None of it was surprising if you were following what the Vice President’s opinions were, it was all completely aligned with his philosophy. None of it should have been a surprise, but it was shocking.

No one normally speaks like that on a European stage with that sort of audience and that sort of mandate. But when historians come to chronicle the last years of what's been happening in Europe, to include the U.K., they will look at that as a turning point. It will become one of those hinge moments where people say, “This is what was said in February in Munich, and then this is what happens after.”

I think he had his finger on the pulse in terms of the issues that Europe was then going to face. You might criticize that, but the diagnosis now looks like in terms of this, European countries being in crisis, Europe is definitely at a moment where it is struggling to reconcile. It can't continue denying the reasons why people are voting for these populist parties, and it's going to have to be able to deal with them more head on. In terms of the reception on the right, a lot of people that I spoke to at the time of the speech felt very enthused by it and thought it was absolutely the right thing to say.

We did see, earlier this week prominent, comedic writer Graham Linehan arrested at Heathrow Airport for tweets that he composed online and he was arrested by five armed police officers. When I read that I thought it couldn't be true. I thought there must be more to it. It’s astonishing because you have Labor MPs saying it's gone too far. Keir Starmer has now started to criticize the decisions that were made around it.

When JD Vance spoke about that in February many more establishment voices on the Left felt very comfortable dismissing it. Instances like that put those parties and those individuals in very difficult positions because they cannot say they think it's a good thing that someone was arrested by five police guards, for a tweet. That is quite an uncomfortable position for them to come in, I agree.

Kristen Ziccarelli:

Thank you very much for illuminating that. Let’s close with hopefully a more optimistic note. What gives you optimism about your country’s future?

Scarlett Maguire:

I do think it is better that for example, in the UK our politicians are now more accountable, and they've got fewer places to hide. That is partly the consequences of Brexit, even though Brexit was much more inspired by immigration than it was about everything else, even though sovereignty obviously was an issue at the time. There is something I think about, people being able to see what's going wrong in that country and being able to say, “hang on, it's your fault.”

That is good. The problem is that when our politicians then don't act to resolve it or don't take the steps necessary, the public may become dangerously disenfranchised with the democratic system. That makes me quite pessimistic.

But on the optimistic side, I think that's good that there's accountability mechanisms in place. I also think it's incredibly healthy, particularly for the two main parties to have been forced out of complacency. No matter where you sit on the ideological spectrum, it can be a good thing.

Previously, the two parties got very used to just handing the baton of power between them. Both are being forced to reassess about what it is they actually stand for, who they represent and why and what is it they want to achieve. That's not a conversation they've had to have for themselves for a very long time. The fact they are facing pressure from challenger parties is fundamentally a healthy thing.

Kristen Ziccarelli serves as AFPI’s Director of Global Coalitions & Senior Policy Analyst for Homeland Security and Immigration.