The British Far-Right is currently in charge of the British Conservative Party and therefore in charge of the British government. Fascists do not respect democratic principles, human rights, and the rule of law. Strong elements of fascism are readily visible in the government's policies, including the roll-back of civil liberties, inhumane treatment of refugees, efforts to withdraw from the European Court of Human Rights, creeping political control over state media, gerrymandering, and election interference.
The rise of British fascism has been accompanied by a marked erosion in the quality of political debate, including deliberate obfuscation of facts and identity politics, including increasingly emotive attacks on opposition groups. The purpose of these strategies is to detract attention away from an economy in crisis and to escalate political tension as justification for more repressive policies.
The purpose of this paper is not to discuss the origins of British fascism, which can be traced back to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008/2009, but rather to ask what can be done to stop British fascism. Is Labour’s current strategy of doing nothing likely to succeed? What are the risks? And what will it take to stop British fascism if Labour’s strategy fails?
British politics today
The essence of British politics today can be illustrated with the following imaginary conversation between two individuals:
Person 1: The sun rose at 7.30am.
Person 2: No, it didn’t!
Person 1: Yes, it did. Here is the proof.
Person 1 shows Person 2 the proof.
Person 2: Fuck you!
Person 1: What? What did I do wrong?
Person 2: Fuck off, you shrill woke freak!
Person 1: Fuck off yourself, you fascist asshole!
This stylised conversation illustrates the frightening speed and ease with which a rational conversation can descend into deep emotive polarisation. The dramatic transformation kicks off with Person 2’s refusal to acknowledge Person 1’s statement of fact and his decision instead to viciously attack Person 1. Initially beset with incredulity, Person 1 reacts with surprise, but when Person 2 then escalates further Person 1 becomes indignant and abandons all hope of persuading Person 2. In the end, both Person 1 and Person 2 resort to deeply personal attacks and the original point of the conversation – the time of the sunrise – has ceased to be of any importance.
British political debate today is highly analogous, with two notable differences. First, the persons in the conversation are of course the British Centre-Left and Far-Right. Second, the clash is taking place in front of a live audience, the electorate, as both political groups vie for power.
Far-right strategy
The British Far-Right today is inspired by Trumpism, which appeals to the electorate through a number of highly emotive narratives. One is that Brexit is good for Britain (economic and political nationalism), the other that immigration of non-whites, including refugees, diminishes access for white British people to public services and jobs.[1] In addition, the British Far-Right deliberately stereotypes members of the opposition as ‘woke’ and ‘the blob’.
The strong reliance on emotive tactics is deliberate. Aside from the fact it is convenient at a time of economic crisis, the Far-Right wants to escallate the political division.
Why does the Far-Right want more political polarisation? Because it is prepared to use more extreme political methods to gain power than the opposition. Fascists fight with no holds barred. By contrast, democrats adhere to the rule of law, human rights, and democracy, which becomes an impediment in a fight, where the other side does not play by the rules.
The Far-Right in Britain today therefore delights in seeing so many members of the opposition drawn into increasingly emotive fights on social media platforms, such as Twitter and, indeed, on mainstream TV and in newspapers. They want the escalation. They are spoiling for a bigger fight. They use classic bully tactics, because they believe the opposition does not have the stomach for a truly ugly fight.
What can Labour do?
If the Far-Right is prepared to use any means to hold on to power what can Labour do to gain office?
One option is simply to do nothing and hope that the Tories self-destruct. This is, in fact, Labour’s current strategy. It is based on the observation that populist governments (whether they be Left-wing or Right-wing) tend to be extremely incompetent. Their mismanagement usually ends up causing an economic crises after which they lose support among voters.
To Labour’s credit, so far this is exactly how things are panning out in the UK. The Conservatives have low poll ratings and recently suffered a catastrophic loss of more than 1,000 seats in local council elections. The Tories have largely been their own worst enemy. They have gone through several incompetent and corrupt leaders. Economic performance has been abysmal. Public services are collapsing. Sewage is pouring into rivers and the sea. To make matters worse, successive governments have failed to define viable paths to overcoming the enormous economic challenges posed by Brexit. Given the dire state of the domestic economy, it is therefore also unsurprising that the government now channels most of its energy into foreign policy, including the pursuit of a prominent role in the war in Ukraine and adopting medieval methods to scapegoat refugees (prison ships, Rwanda Rendition, etc). But is this enough to turn their fortunes around? Probably not.
The risk of doing nothing
While Labour’s strategy of doing nothing in response to Tory incompetence is so far working, there is no guarantee of final success. The specific risk facing Labour and the country as a whole is that anti-democratic forces within the Tory party introduce specific undemocratic measures in response to the loss of popularity with voters. This risk is far from trivial. After all, the Conservatives command a sizeable majority in parliament, so they may yet introduce measures that can affect future election outcomes.
Worryingly, this is already happening. Britain's erstwhile objective and mainstream news organisations, such as the BBC and The Telegraph newspaper, have already abandoned all pretence to balance and impartiality. Jacob Rees-Mogg, a prominent Brexiter and proponent of Far-Right policies within the Sunak Administration, recently conceded that the introduction of voter ID cards was deliberate gerrymandering. The government has also passed legislation, which gives unprecedented powers to the police and limit people’s right to protest. There has been no serious attempt investigate known Russian interference in the 2016 Brexit referendum. Looking forward, it is not inconceivable that the Tories could seek to expel EU citizens in response to a recent Labour proposal to allow EU citizens with indefinite leave to remain to vote in UK general elections (many EU citizens are likely to harbour anti-Brexit sympathies).
Violence as last resort
If the Tories become still more authoritarianism, to the point where free and fair elections are either severely impeded, or no longer possible at all, then the democratic opposition in Britain will have no choice but to accept a very unpalatable conclusion, namely that violence may be the only viable way to stop British fascism. It is either violent opposition or the prospect of being vanquished under an ever more oppressive regime.
This is not the first time Britain has faced fascism, both at home and abroad. The lessons from history are very clear. Mosley and his Union of British Fascists never occupied the political mainstream and were thankfully neutralised before they could pose a real threat to democracy. The difference today is that fascism is emerging from within a sitting government. This puts Britain in unprecedented territory and should be a major concern for any democratically-minded British person.
As for fascism abroad, Winston Churchill famously spotted the threat posed by Nazi Germany very early. However, the Allies only reluctantly arrived at the same conclusion much later. Democratic nations in Europe, including the UK, merely observed with growing unease, but complete inaction the rise of fascism right up until Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September 1939. While the reluctance to engage Hitler militarily at the time was entirely understandable, especially after the bloodbath of World War I, there is also no doubt that the unwillingness to confront fascism early ultimately allowed the fascists to grow much stronger than they would otherwise have done, and therefore increased many-fold the final cost of defeating them.
Prospects
As the British General Election scheduled for 2024 draws nearer, politics is heading towards an important juncture. Will the Tories make use of their still significant majority in parliament to alter the democratic playing field to their advantage in a bid to hold on to power in spite of, or perhaps because of, their poor standing in the polls?
Ordinarily, this question would seem outlandish in a country, such as the UK, which has such a long and proud democratic tradition. However, today, when prominent members of the Conservative party and members of the government exhibit strong fascist sympathies, it is no longer unthinkable that Far-Right elements within the government could gain the upper hand in a party that is heading towards political oblivion at the next general election.
There are two likely outcomes: If anti-democratic extremists within the Tory party can be kept at bay there is still a very good chance that Britain will retreat from fascism as Labour wins the next election. On the other hand, if Far-Right extremists gain further influence in the government in the coming months then Labour’s strategy of doing nothing could fail spectacularly as Labour blithely stands by as the Tories to dismantle democracy to hold on to power. And if that is where Britain ends up then the only way to defeat fascism in the UK will be to resort to violence.
Note: [1] In the US, this ideology is more overtly racist in that it holds that non-white people replace white people as the majority, a theory known as the ‘Great Replacement Theory’.
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