As surprise election fever grips the UK, buried on YouTube you can find an obscure promotional film for the only British political party with an architectural manifesto. The United Kingdom Independence Party, better known as UKIP, has released a three-minute video featuring montages of grand neoclassical buildings interspersed with shots of modernist towers collapsing into dust, all set against epic orchestral music.

UKIP's architecture policies flash up in large serif font: Minimum life spans of 100 years. Binding public referenda on all major developments. An end to tower-block construction. Architecture schools required to teach students in "traditional and classical styles".

The film strikes a tone of fury at the shoddy build-quality of much contemporary construction, mixed with overwhelming aesthetic prejudice. It is aggressive, peppered with falsehoods and unashamedly traditionalist: it is the face of architectural populism.

Populism is not so much a political movement as an anti movement, which rejects pluralism and instead sees the world as downtrodden masses bullied by an elite. For UKIP, modern architects are part of that elite – oppressing the people by making ugly buildings without meaningful public consent. Its film highlights a genuine gulf between what is built and what is popular. As populism grows in power, navigating and manipulating its contradictions will become critical for designers whose work seeks social purpose. So here is the worrying question: what if UKIP has a point?

Mainstream architectural culture spurns traditionalism. We mock contemporary classicists like Quinlan Terry with a special kind of casual derision. Classical and traditional architects who have built widely and achieved great fame such as Robert Stern and Demetri Porphyrios, or who enjoy political influence like Léon Krier, are routinely sneered at by the wider profession.