The Great Realignment: Why the New Right is Here to Stay

12:30-13:00: Sandwich lunch

13:00-14:00: Presentation and Discussion

About the Discussion

The talk is a presentation of the contents of a book, to be published by Polity Press on 30th January 2026, with the same title as the talk. The argument of the book is that the politics of the last ten years should be understood as a realignment of politics in which the main issue that divides publics and that politics is oriented around, is no longer economics (capitalism vs socialism) but cosmopolitanism vs nationalism. The talk argues that this has changed the nature and definition of the categories of 'left' and 'right' and that for the foreseeable future the main divide is between national collectivism and liberal cosmopolitanism. It gives an account of why this has happened and is not a short-term phenomenon. it also looks at the question of how liberals of all kinds should respond to this new political world.

About the Speaker

Steve Davies is Senior Education Fellow at the IEA. He is a historian and a graduate of St Andrews University. He taught for thirty years at Manchester Metropolitan University. His books include Empiricism and History, The Wealth Explosion: the Origins and Nature of Modernity, Apocalypse Next: the Economics of Global Catastrophic Risks, and The Streetwise Guide to the Devil and His Works. His academic interests include intellectual history, the history of political thought, the economics of football, and the virtual worlds of MMORPGs. His non-academic ones include SF and fantasy and Manchester City.