{"id":8827,"date":"2025-09-16T15:25:50","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T15:25:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/?p=8827"},"modified":"2026-02-16T15:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T15:26:11","slug":"britain-facing-up-to-the-threat-of-the-far-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/britain-facing-up-to-the-threat-of-the-far-right\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain: Facing up to the threat of the far right"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jeremy Dewar<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first sign I saw that things were going badly wrong was in The Strand, where police had arrested an anti-fascist and had him banged up against a shop front. I joined a section of the Stand Up To Racism demo that had stopped, demanding, \u2018Let them go!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time I got to Charing Cross I saw dozens of English and British flags pouring out of the station. The great bulk of the 150,000 or so \u201cTommy Robinson\u201d supporters were still streaming over Westminster Bridge and up Whitehall. There they were hemmed in by police cordons preventing them reaching Trafalgar Square and the perhaps 10,000 strong Stand Up To Racism demo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clearly, those in Charing Cross had been warned of this and had crossed the Thames by a footbridge. That, together with the sheer scale of the right wing demo, shows how far the fascist groups at the core of the movement have advanced in the last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Equally, the size of the SUTR march reveals the absence of any such nationally co-ordinated from the Left. At the top of Whitehall an STUR steward was waving people towards Downing Street, telling us of the \u2018exciting speakers\u2019 they had lined up. We ignored the advice, which would clearly have led us into a trap. By now the fascist led mob had taken over half of Trafalgar Square and stood at the top of Whitehall. SUTR were holed up for 2-3 hours until police escorted them out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who are the new right movement?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Politicians and media pundits have been quick to divide the protesters between \u2018good\u2019 and the \u201cbad\u201d. Most, it is implied are only really concerned with the cost of living, jobs and housing, and \u201cillegal\u201d immigrants, not all Black, Muslim and racial minorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This allows politicians, especially Labour, to effectively echo the racist scaremongering with their \u201cI understand why people are angry, but the violence has got to stop\u201d stance. The only politician who will gain from this pandering to the Right is Nigel Farage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In reality, it was largely the organised racists and fascists that have organised 150,000 people through their campaign of anti-refugee demos and \u201cRaise the Colours\u201d flag waving, backed up by effective social media broadcasting. Foremost was Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, aka Tommy Robinson, who has recently done time for broadcasting anti-Muslim lies and faces charges of violent assault. He is a known fascist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also an international dimension: Far right parties from across Europe dominated the speakers. As well as outright fascist leaders, speakers were invited from Vlaams Bloc from Belgium, Alternativ fur Deutschland, the Danish People\u2019s Party, Poland\u2019s Law and Order party, as well as Steve Bannon, Trump\u2019s strategist. Elon Musk incited the crowd, saying:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have another four years, or whenever the next election is, it\u2019s too long. Something\u2019s got to be done. There\u2019s got to be a dissolution of parliament and a new vote held\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a message to the reasonable centre, the people who ordinarily wouldn\u2019t get involved in politics\u2026 Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

France\u2019s extreme right Islamophobic presidential candidate Eric Zemoure backed this up with \u2018great displacement\u2019 fears of Muslims taking over Europe. But a new phenomenon on the UK far right was the number of Christian clergy given the platform. One Bishop Dewar of the Confessing Anglican Church opened the rally!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the back of the assassination of far right Christian hatemonger Charlie Kirk, Christian Zionists and Turning Point fascists were no doubt whipping up support for many of his hate campaigns, not least of which is his violently anti-trans bigotry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, whatever reactionary ideas people came to this rally with, they left with more confidence in them. No doubt, many are now contacts of the organised fascists, such as the Homeland Patriotic Alliance and Britain First, that was the purpose of the rally. Violent confrontations, either with the Left or with the police, are not mindless, they are part of the strategy of assembling and organising a street fighting force. In  time, they will be unleashed on immigrants, Black and Asian communities, LGBT+ people and eventually on working class organisations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tasks facing the left<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Socialist Workers Party leader Lewis Nielsen told the SUTR rally:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We need more numbers on our side\u2014and, to get more numbers on our side, we have to win certain arguments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Argument number one\u2014we have to call them out for the fascists they are. Don\u2019t pretend to me that Tommy Robinson\u2019s not a fascist. Don\u2019t pretend to me that the AfD in Germany aren\u2019t fascist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The second argument is this\u2014don\u2019t tell me there are legitimate concerns about immigration. Don\u2019t tell me there can be a civilised debate about migrants in this country.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is fighting today\u2019s battles with yesterday\u2019s weapons. Calling them Nazis might have worked against the British National Party in the 1990s and the English Defence League in the 2000s, but they were small fry in comparison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robinson and his allies have put 150,000 on the streets. The AfD took one in five votes in February\u2019s German election. Reform UK is polling consistently above 30%. Denouncing those who came on Saturday\u2019s rally as \u2018Nazis\u2019, will make no impression, worse, it could push them further into the arms of the far right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Argument number two is no better. It has to be explained, patiently, that the lack of decent jobs, crumbling services and the rising cost of living are caused by the capitalist system in crisis, and the bosses and billionaires offloading the cost of that crisis, their crisis, onto the working class, including migrant workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But more than this, we have to involve those who might be tempted by the easy answers of the racists into struggles against their real enemies: for more and better housing; for higher wages and decent benefits; for a fully funded NHS, so our hospitals can attract and retain sufficient staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does this mean soft-pedalling the anti-racist message? Far from it. It means constantly pointing out that migrants, and their second and third generation descendants, are just as much victims of the same system as British born workers are. How much more effective is that message, though, when African nurses and East European tenants are on the same picket line or demonstration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New party<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Trotsky warned on a number of occasions that the answer to fascism is not anti-fascism per se, but the struggle for socialism. Liberal pleas to angry masses \u2013 unorganised workers, as well as the struggling middle classes \u2013 will not work. Sadly, this is what simply calling everyone on the Robinson demo Nazis is in the end: shallow liberalism. We need to get smarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The huge response to Zahra Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn\u2019s call for a new left party needs to be rapidly translated into the formation of local branches and workplace cells, where socialists can start to hammer out strategies to tackle low wages and job losses, corrupt councils and disintegrating services, and then take their message onto the streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sultana has correctly said the new party must be anti-racist, pro-trans and anti-imperialist. Good. But now it needs to translate that language into action. And that can only be done by opening up the project to democratic debate, decision-making and action, linking the fight against racism and fascism to the fight for better communities and a socialist future.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeremy Dewar The first sign I saw that things were going badly wrong was in The Strand, where police had arrested an anti-fascist and had him banged up against a shop front. I joined a section of the Stand Up To Racism demo that had stopped, demanding, \u2018Let them go!\u2019 By the time I got […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7725,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[136,12],"tags":[144,318,95,241],"class_list":["post-8827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antifacism-antiracism","category-europe","tag-britain","tag-far-right","tag-united-front","tag-workers-party"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7725"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8827"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8828,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8827\/revisions\/8828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}