Ireland, like Scotland, takes pride in its reputation for friendliness. Having experienced high levels of immigration over a short time period, the land of “a thousand welcomes” avoided the far-right backlash to have affected many other nations. But last week, those who had celebrated Ireland’s peaceable, welcoming nature were jolted out of their reverie.

Following a stabbing in Dublin, where three children and a carer were injured outside a school, unfounded rumours swirled online based on what police called “hateful assumptions” about who was to blame. In response, a "lunatic, hooligan faction driven by a far-right ideology" took to the streets, some even calling for foreigners to be killed.

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Three double decker buses and police cars were set ablaze, and concrete blocks thrown at police. Shops were looted. The scenes disgusted the public and have left the nation and particularly its immigrant communities, deeply shaken.

It was a reminder of something important, something that should put politicians on alert here in Scotland where we tell ourselves similarly complacent stories about our exceptional openness of character: that nowhere is immune to the politics of hate.

The riots in Dublin did not take place in a vacuum. The UN has expressed alarm at a rising tide of hate speech globally. This is a climate that the unscrupulous seek to exploit – not just far-right figures inciting people to riot but politicians who would take over whole countries.

Right-wing populists thrive when populations are divided and afraid, and they appear to be on the march once again.

We’ve seen how it goes: leaders sweeping to power on a wave of xenophobia or nationalism, promising a reckoning with supposed elites only to serve their own elites and set about undermining the institutions of democracy – the courts, parliament and the law. Donald Trump did it; so did Boris Johnson, albeit with an affable smile.

Now, a year out from the US presidential election, Donald Trump is once again ahead of Joe Biden in the polls. The day before the Dublin riots, in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders of the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) emerged as presumptive Prime Minister. Wilders, who was once banned from entering the UK because he was seen as a threat to public order, is stridently anti-immigration and anti-Islam, and wants to opt out of international climate agreements.

The Herald: President Javier Milei President Javier Milei (Image: free)

Just a few days before Wilders’ victory, Argentina elected chainsaw-toting climate change sceptic Javier Milei. The far-right AfD is making historic advances in Germany, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National is leading Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance Party ahead of next year’s European elections in France and authoritarian populist Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been reelected in Turkey.

For anyone worried about climate change, the protection of minorities and Russian aggression, these advances are disturbing. Here in Britain, Boris Johnson may be gone, but the hard right, little Britain brand of politics he unleashed into the mainstream certainly is not. Liz Truss, Suella Braverman and Rishi Sunak have amplified aspects of it. You can see it even in Scotland, where progressive policy on net zero, that once commanded consensus, is now facing fierce hostility.

But the victory of regressive politics is not inevitable. In some countries, voters are turning their backs on it, like in Poland where the Law & Justice party lost power last month, and Brazil, where voters have jettisoned strong man Jair Bolsanaro in favour of Lula da Silva.

So what can be done here in Britain to prevent a relapse?

This will fall mainly to the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer who is on course to win the next election. If he is canny, he will already be thinking ahead to his second election, perhaps in 2029, since that will be the real test. By then the Tories could be run by a wild rightist – even Nigel Farage – so Starmer must have rewarded those who put their faith in him.

He must focus on the correct problems and make damn sure he delivers on them.

First, the economy. Rising inequality fuels political division. Starmer must enact meaningful measures to bear down on inequality and offer credible policies that make voters feel better off. He wants to be spending £28bn a year on the green transition by the end of the parliament. Fine, but he will already be thinking about how to avoid the Biden effect, where the US president has put the economy on a much stronger, more sustainable footing only for his macroeconomic genius to leave voters cold, wondering when they are going to see a difference in their monthly finances.

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Secondly, Starmer must take people’s concerns seriously about uncontrolled immigration and have a robust plan to tackle it, but without engaging in divisive identity politics. Equally, he must heed people’s anxieties about the cost of the net zero transition, but also trounce the misleading propaganda about it hammered out by the populist right. Boris Johnson pursued a strategy of divide and conquer, believing it was OK to alienate 55 per cent of the population as long as the other 45 could be coralled. Starmer’s task is to unite across the middle. He’s already some way towards achieving that.

He must also offer an aspirational vision. The Tories are on course to lose the next election rather than Starmer to win it. A solid economy made internationally competitive again, better performing public services, an age of housebuilding, unleashing the benefits of green tech and controlling immigration (after this year’s net migration figure reached 745,000), would be a package most would sign up to.

A Labour government will set the weather for politics across the UK, but progressives in Scotland must also take care. Here too we know what the politics of division feels like. Here too progressive, centrist policies are under attack. The threat of populism feels more remote in Scotland, but if Ireland’s recent experience teaches us anything, it’s that we shouldn’t be complacent.

Above all, we need competent, credible government and fair-minded leadership.

Labour must deliver real benefits that people feel – or a Starmer premiership might prove to be only a brief respite in an age of populism.