Should the UK look to Poland to learn how to combat populist politics?
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Radosław Sikorski, Poland’s foreign affairs minister, tells The News Agents about the dangers of populism, and why Elon Musk poses such a threat to political stability in the UK.
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Read time: 5 mins
In brief…
- In 2023 Poland emerged from a long stretch of populist rule, and has since repaired ties with the EU.
- Sikorski says populist politicians latch onto one issue – immigration most recently – and offer people simple solutions to a complex problem.
- He says they never deliver on their promises, and usually end up making people poorer and sending a country into mayhem.
What’s the story?
Poland is a country that knows a thing or two about populist politics – its Law and Justice Party (a populist, right-wing group) was most recently in power from 2015 to 2023.
Law and Justice (PiS) promoted itself as a pro-family party, increasing leave for new parents, offering monthly payments for every child and banning most Sunday trade in order to get workers to spend more time with their families.
But it also supported a country-wide abortion ban, proposed a ban on IVF fertilisation and stood against comprehensive sex education for young people.
Its leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, was fiercely anti-LGBTQ+, banned Pride marches and said that affirming homosexuality would result in the "downfall of civilisation". Some Polish towns established themselves as LGBT-free zones with encouragement of the populist government.
But it was its stance on immigration which will perhaps ring true with anyone worried about the rise of populist politics in the US (under Trump) and in the UK (with the rise of Reform UK).
Kaczyński wanted a total ban on Poland accepting refugees, as he believed they would bring "infectious diseases" into the country. Other PiS ministers referred to a "Muslim invasion of Europe", and claimed the government was proud to have prevented the building of mosques in the country.
What Poland learned about populism
Radosław Sikorski, Poland's Minister of Foreign Affairs, in Donald Tusk's Civic Platform platform government, tells The News Agents that populist politicians "never deliver on their promises".
"They usually make you poorer. They usually create mayhem," he says.
"You have to really engage with the people, that's the only way. You have to do real politics."
And he sees big similarities in what Poland has been through, and the situation now facing the UK and US.
"Populists become popular when they latch on to an issue that the establishment neglected, and it is actually the same issue in the United States, in Britain and in Poland, namely, migration," he explains.
"A wise establishment takes the issue and solves it. Populists offer simple solutions to complex problems."
In 2024, under Tusk's rule, Poland strengthened its border with Belarus, due to concerns over the volume of refugees entering the country from places including Russia.
Human Rights Watch describes the military presence on the border as resulting in "inhumane and illegal" pushbacks, which is denying people fleeing war "basic humanity".
"We have now built a barrier, and we have now reformed our asylum laws so that people may not force their way into Poland to apply for asylum," Sikorski says.
"They have to wait on the other side, and then you recover people's trust."
How Brexit was a prime example of populist politics
He believes the biggest example of offering that "simple solution" to a complex problem in the UK was the Brexit campaign and vote in 2016.
"The British public was for decades, radically misled about how the EU actually works, and there was not enough pushback from politicians correcting the record," he says.
"People got the impression that Brexit will solve your migration problem. But inward migration is even bigger than before."
Inward migration maybe, but in terms of people from Poland, things are now moving in the other direction.
Many Polish people who were in the UK are now returning home, and Sikorski says the country "wants its Poles back". There are now 700,000 estimated Polish people living in the UK, a drop from the million that were living here before the change in government.
"Poland is successful. Economically, our wages have risen dramatically over the last 20 years.
He says that economic migrants have generally come to expect double the wages in countries they choose to settle in, and that's no longer possible for Polish people in the UK.
He says populists "messed up" Poland's relationship with the EU, which he says has now been fixed and the country has just been given a 40 billion euro transfer which it will invest in roads, schools and hospitals.
Why Elon Musk is now the biggest populist threat
In 2024, the big threat to UK politics is, Sikorski believes, the possibility of Elon Musk flooding the bank balance of Reform with tens of millions, in order to exert his influence in British politics in the same way he has in America.
"You have to bring back the limits. The kind of big money in politics is not good for democracy," he warns.
As well as limiting direct financial input from overseas influences, he also says the algorithms of social media networks – again something leveraged by Musk on X during the US election – must also be regulated.
"The algorithms are designed to keep us engaged, and what keeps us engaged is anger. So instead of stimulating civilized debate, they stimulate anger and division," he says.
"Humanity's last hope is the European Parliament, because it is not yet captured by big tech."
“Whatever is illegal in the analog world should be illegal in the digital world. The fact that it's digital shouldn't give you immunity from the laws of the land.”
He cites legal action in Brazil, where X/Twitter has been banned, the arrest in France of the Telegram owner for breaking EU laws and the recent Australia ban on social media access for under-16s as the first steps in regulation.
"There is now no difference between the tech billionaire and media owner and the next president."
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