Caroline Lucas, the former leader of the Greens in England and Wales, wants her country back. This has become a familiar refrain in the past decade. The success of radical-right, far-right, and hard conservative parties in increasing their vote share in Europe has alarmed many progressives. The steady support for Donald Trump in the United States, despite – or because of – attempts to undermine the democratic process and wind back the social gains of the past two generations, also revives historically inflected fears of the ultra-nationalism of the 1930s. A restorative nostalgia for a time when their nation was great, or simply better than it is now, animates all these insurgent movements from the right.

England is far from immune to these political tensions afflicting liberal democracies. The anti-immigrant riots across England in the summer of 2024 were created by the usual mix of the spread of mis- and dis-information on social media, exploited by radical-right and extreme-right actors with the simple goal of stoking the rage and division in which their support grows. A decade and a half of declining living standards, combined with a fragile economy that demands immigrant labour, on top of years of nativist politics, created an environment of civic discord. England is not a happy place.