Tom Tugendhat Talks Politics, Populism & Democracy

Photo via GU Politics

MAX CLAPHAM: Last Wednesday, the GU Politics Living Room played host to Tom Tugendhat, Conservative Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom, former Minister of State for Security and a two-time candidate for Prime Minister. Tugendhat’s off-the-record discussion with Georgetown students was on the topic of “Politics, Populism, & Democracy: A View From Abroad”.

Whilst the American media will often fixate on the rise of populism in American politics, such as the rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, and how it may constitute a threat to democracy, Tugendhat highlighted how these trends are hardly confined to the United States and are prevalent across the rest of the world, particularly in Europe.

In the United Kingdom, the right-wing populist Reform UK party, led by Nigel Farage, holds a significant lead in polling, threatening both Tugendhat’s Conservatives and the incumbent Labour government by combining a hardline stance on immigration with an economic platform of expanding welfare benefits and nationalising key industries.

For almost 100 years, the UK has been governed by either the center-right Conservatives or the center-left Labour Party, in what was essentially a two-party system. However, the results of the 2024 general election, appear to suggest a disruption to this trend, with Labour winning only 33.7%, the lowest vote share of any majority government in British history, while the Conservatives slumped to 23.7% of the vote, the worst result in the party’s near-200 year history. Farage’s Reform UK, meanwhile, surged to third place in vote share with 14.3% of the vote and won seats in the House of Commons for the first time in a general election. Since then, they have continued their surge in the polls and now lie around  35%, 15 points clear of second-place Labour (BMG Research, September 2025).

Participants first explored what populism actually is, and then discussed whether the political philosophy was a threat to democracy, or merely a buzzword used to delegitimize political parties who challenge establishment interests and present ideas contrary to prevailing wisdom, which Tugendhat suggested was sometimes the case.

As for the health of democracies, Tugendhat remarked that he was simultaneously bullish and bearish about their prospects. Explaining that people normally only turn to populist politics when they feel like the system no longer works, he highlighted the role of A.I. in improving delivery of public services such as healthcare, meaning better results for citizens that will in turn restore their faith in government and the democratic system. Conversely, Tugendhat warned that excessive A.I. regulation, most notably by European countries, is serving as an obstacle to this.

With some commentators warning that Reform UK’s populism poses a threat to British democracy, it is up to one of the two establishment parties to deny a Reform majority, although both legacy parties are currently hemorrhaging support in the polls, with the centrist Liberal Democrats coming second in some polls. Reform UK has seen high-profile defections from Tugendhat’s Conservatives, and there are questions around whether the Tories will continue to exist, or if the Conservatives will be absorbed and replaced by Farage’s outfit. In an attempt to appeal to its right flank, which is under threat by Reform, the Conservatives have adopted more extreme positions on the judiciary, with Shadow Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick proposing that judges should be political appointees, and party leader Kemi Badenoch confirming that a Conservative government would withdraw the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights, replacing it with a British bill of rights. In his leadership bids prior to the 2024 election, Tugendhat initially opposed the latter policy, and then suggested he would prefer reform of the convention to outright withdrawal. In the Conservative party’s attempt to mimic the populism of Reform UK, they may well be leaving behind One Nation conservatives like Tom Tugendhat in the process, raising even more questions about the party’s future.

Max Clapham ‘29 is a freshman planning to study International Politics in the Walsh School of Foreign Service. He is from London, United Kingdom.