National populists of Christian Europe, unite! Exploring civilizationist alliances in the British far right

As national populism adapts to a globalized world, civilizationism is emerging as a key frame for inclusion and exclusion. This article examines how British national-populist actors – Tommy Robinson, Britain First and Reform – engage Polish migrants by recasting them as defenders of Christianity and Western civilization. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, interviews with activists and primary material available online, we show how Polish nationalist mythology is mobilized to construct Poles not as immigrants undermining the nation, but as historic allies fighting shared enemies: Islam, liberal elites and globalism. Civilizationist narratives allow national populists to reframe belonging beyond ethnic nativity, building transnational solidarities based on myth, memory and imagined cultural proximity. The case of Polish migrants in Britain shows that civilizationism is not a secondary feature but a central engine of national populism’s evolving transnational strategies, a force that will define the contours of political identity across Europe in the years to come.