From Trump's Maga to Farage's Reform, they're all following Putin's nationalism playbook | Rafael Behr

"Authoritarian regimes never trust people to love their country spontaneously. Organic national identity, the kind that grows without state cultivation, contains stories of dissent and cultural idiosyncrasy. Variety is subversive. Patriotism in the nationalist mode is uniform and humourless. The citizen must feel humbled by the country's history because humility is a pathway to submission."

"A generation taught to venerate heroes of the past is more easily made dutiful to a leader who will restore lost greatness. Sure enough, Reform UK also wants schools to teach a more patriotic curriculum. Suella Braverman, the Conservative defector named last week as Nigel Farage's education spokesperson, has promised a history syllabus that fosters a love of our great country."

"A party that defines national greatness by reference to a more monocultural past has to set boundaries of interior identity as strictly as it polices external borders. Reform's agenda is textbook nationalism."

Authoritarian governments use compulsory patriotism education to cultivate uniform, state-controlled national identity rather than allowing organic patriotism to develop naturally. Russia implemented mandatory Monday patriotism lessons during its Ukraine war, teaching state-approved narratives of national glory and leadership virtue. Organic national identity contains dissent and cultural diversity, which authoritarian systems view as subversive. Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, now advocates similar nationalist education policies through spokesperson Suella Braverman, proposing history curricula that foster love of country by correcting perceived liberal bias against the British Empire. This represents textbook nationalism, where parties defining greatness through monocultural pasts police both external borders and internal identity boundaries through educational control.

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