The British Political-Media Class’ Mainstreaming of the Populist Radical-Right

Julian Petley explores how hard-right views have increasingly been normalised as the ‘common sense’ of the more mainstream right

Last year, the BBC received a complaint from Richard Tice, the then Leader of Reform UK, that an article in one of its news reports had referred to his party as “far-right”, which he argued was “defamatory and libellous”.

The corporation immediately apologised and removed the offending sentence. Tice also claimed that his lawyers had warned other media organisations about describing his party in these terms.

As a presenter on GB News, Tice regularly rails against the BBC, and the Reform Party is committed to abolishing the licence fee, so his complaint could not be described as exactly disinterested. It did, however, provide a useful opportunity to consider the extent to which right-wing populism can be said to have entered the bloodstream of right-wing parties in the UK, and the media outlets that vociferously support them.