Tim Squirrell, ISD’s Head of Communications, spoke with UnHerd about the far-right’s splitting view of the Russia-Ukraine War, the “Balkanistation” of the ecosystem and the appeal of conspiracies in moments of human crises. The contradictions within the spectrum of the far right shows that extreme recruitment ultimately relies on opportunism and not ideology.

“You need to understand what need a conspiracy, ideology, or a world view is filling for someone”, Tim says. “Once you identify that, then you can start to target it and try to understand what you might be able to do to get them out of it”.