Japan's Thatcher to Europe's Trump - the countries where parties like Reform are on rise

When someone says "revolution", you picture barricades in the street and an inevitable West End musical to follow. But today's revolutionaries don't build barricades, they build armies of followers.

And it's spreading fast. In Japan, the Land of the Rising Sun is about to get a new star: Sanae Takaichi, a conservative firebrand dubbed the nation's "Iron Lady".

The 64-year-old president of the Liberal Democratic Party is hoping to become Japan's first female prime minister today [Tuesday] after Prime Minister Shigeru Ishibia and former LDP president announced he was standing down from the top job. Japan's Parliament, the Diet, is scheduled to put Takaichi in the hot seat even though there's been a twist - the LDP's long-time coalition partner Komeito has just walked out, throwing the numbers into doubt and forcing Takaichi to hunt for new allies.

Still, if she wins the parliamentary vote or not, her meteoric rise to the top echelons of power marks something bigger. Populism is no longer a Western phenomenon, it's global.

Takaichi's platform is one of national pride, tight borders, frugal spending, and scrapping Article 9 of the constitution, which bars Japan from using its army. She opposes same-sex marriage and says no woman should inherit the throne. In a country famed for moderation and stability, her ascent has jolted the establishment.

Five thousand miles away, Prague has just elected the return of "Czech Trump" billionaire Andrej Babiš, after his ANO ("Yes") party won around 35% in the latest election, coming first but falling just short of a majority.

Ousted as PM in 2021, Babiš is back railing against the old political establishment, and courting anti-immigration allies to govern as the country's prime minister.

Two very different countries yet both are shaking under the same tectonic shift: the middle ground cracking as the plates of global politics move. What lies beneath the quake? And is this a passing phase, or a new world alignment?

To understand it, we need both a microscope and a history book. Professor Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, from the London School of Economics, sees twin pillars beneath the surge: culture and economics.

"There are people feeling like strangers in their own land resentful of migration and political correctness," he says. "Add long-term stagnation and inequality, and you get anger. It steams and eventually explodes."

Before Covid, inequality and globalisation stoked resentment. After the pandemic came debt, slow growth and migration pressures. Regional blocs such as the EU were seen as overreaching.

Gawain Towler, a political strategist, argues the real driver has been the "broadening of democratic influence through social media. The message is no longer controlled and held in the hands of the few", he says.

So what's gone wrong? Towler blames an "official narrative" curated by global bodies such as the World Economic Forum and World Health Organisation. "Decision-makers are insulated from the impact of their decisions," he says. "The left and right were slowly replaced by a uni-party."

Japan's ruling Liberal Democrats, he argues, have become part of that same globalist club. Takaichi's rise, like Trump's before her, is rebellion from within. "These movements are rejecting the quangostate," says Towler. "The most important thing to happen was Musk taking over Twitter. As centrist parties grow more alike, the 'patriotic parties' are connected by the same end goal, but separated by history."

Ross Kempsell, head of the Future of the Right Programme at Policy Exchange, agrees.

"Populism as a term has been somewhat hijacked by the political left," he says. "Some academics now treat it as a dirty word, used to describe anything they dislike."

He argues populism isn't a spasm of anger but part of a long evolution. "It's like the post-war crisis of traditional conservatism, when deference and elite rule fractured amid mass media revolutions," he says. Even Thatcher's Right to Buy policy, he notes, was a form of populism: "transferring power from institutions to people".

"Populist techniques and style are nothing new," he adds.

Across the Atlantic, Greg Swenson of Republicans Overseas UK calls the modern wave a revolt against "luxury beliefs" - elite obsessions detached from ordinary life.

"The top issues are affordability and mass migration," he says. "They're drowned out by governments lecturing on misinformation and net zero. People are tired of being lectured by establishment parties living in gated enclaves."

He warns elites are "fighting back with undemocratic tools", citing Nigel Farage's Coutts bank account being suddenly closed in 2023, and German parties' freezing out of the far-right Alternative for Germany party.

Put together, the picture looks familiar: the democratisation of information meets economic strain and cultural unease. The elite loses control and populism fills the vacuum.

Yet every populist wave bobs along on local waters. In Japan, nationalism is wrapped in deeply seated reverence for tradition. In Czechia, it's anti-corruption fury and growing resentment of Brussels.

Takaichi's path to power was a revolt within the ruling party. She beat moderates in both polling and internal ballots, inheriting a wounded LDP desperate for renewal.

Her message is to reassert Japan's identity, curb immigration, and stop "elite consensus". With Komeito gone, she may need votes from smaller parties to govern, a test of how far her nationalism can stretch into pragmatism.

In Prague, Babiš represents what some call "Populism 2.0" - pragmatism and media-savviness. He's not threatening "Czexit" but he will likely resist deeper EU integration on Ukraine or climate rules.

In fact, populists everywhere are learning to exploit the centre's collapse.

Julian Gallie, from polling firm Merlin Strategies, says the trend isn't confined to a few outliers. "We are seeing a surge in right-wing populist parties in Europe... Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and, of course, the UK," he says. "A large part of this is the parties cannibalising the vote shares of centre-right alternatives, much of it fuelled by immigration."

Gallie warns that mainstream conservatives have misread their own base. "The centre-right have been out of touch with their own voters," he adds. "Polling shows that immigration salience is far higher among centre-right and populist-right voters across Europe."

And in Japan, he says, the same dynamic may be emerging within the ruling class itself. "It wouldn't surprise me if those changes were coming from within the parties," he notes. "Politicians are more online than ever, and interacting more and more with populist news sources."

History shows that populism often burns bright and fades fast. But now tech could see it last longer. Towler draws a parallel to Gutenberg's printing press. "The democratisation of information gave huge power to the people," he says. "It changed the world."

Social media, he argues, is the 21st-century version. It has smashed the old information monopolies. Politicians and influencers can now broadcast straight to the public.

The result means populism has resilience. New media platforms bypass the traditional gatekeepers, and some argue it scares them. "The movement cannot be stopped," adds Swenson.

And it's not confined to the right. On the left, US politicians Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rail against billionaires and inequality. Across Europe, left-green movements are also adopting a populist framing to political issues like local services, the cost of living, and a swipe at "corporate capture" of things like water services.

In Britain, the Greens' new leader Zack Polanski proudly calls himself an "eco-populist". Using podcasts and social media, he's not just attacking Labour, he's aiming to replace it. Recent polling has the Greens nipping at the heels of Labour and the Conservatives in some national snapshots.

Polanski even turns attacks into ammunition. When a column on this website criticised his "plot to destroy Britain", he shared it online with a cheeky jab as he added that his "secret evil plot has been unveiled". His supporters lapped it up.

But such a rising tide brings worries with it. Mr Gallie cautions that there can "sometimes be a lack of unifying ideology" in populist parties. He warns that populism can struggle "keeping voter groups together when they are not united behind a common creed", citing Reform struggling to balance "ideas such as welfare spending alongside tax cuts".

He adds that the troubles can come to the fore once parties are in office, having coasted in on the wave of anti-establishment sentiment. Sometimes, voters are not "overly keen on the direction a populist party takes once in office"

Prof Rodriguez-Pose shares similar concerns saying that populism can introduce "instability into political systems and governance." He adds that "across Europe and elsewhere in the world, populism has made many countries harder to govern".

Jamie Gollings, Deputy Research Director at the Social Market Foundation, also warns of the rise of populism saying they "try to foster division" and have a "'winner takes all' view of democracy", which can "undermine the legitimacy of established institutions".

On the rise of new media, Mr Gollings warns that "algorithms love political content centred around 'soundbite solutions' and easy targets to blame, meaning that these platforms are the dry grass through which the fires of populism can rapidly spread, unchecked."

And those challenges may soon manifest at home, where populism is eating into both main parties. Labour is bleeding votes to the Greens; the Tories have been losing ground to Reform for months, while Nigel Farage's resurgence is impossible to ignore.

Towler believes it's all about the way the message is getting out. "Politics has shifted from top-down to crowd-up," he says. "Control of the narrative is moving from the few to the many."

He likens it to a cultural reawakening: "It's about taking back control of your nation and its history from transnational elites."

Whether it's Japan's new Iron Lady, Czechia's comeback king or Britain's restless voters, the impulse is the same: to be heard, not managed.

Populism, it seems, has found its voice, and it's shouting around the world.