In recent years we have seen the far right become increasingly emboldened in the United Kingdom, mobilising quicker as well as being more confident in their vocality. This takes many forms and has led to many different outcomes including the rise in reported hate crime and racially motivated violence and a heightened presence in both social media and main stream media.
In addition to this, we have seen the recent ‘Operation Raise the Colours’, which the right will tell you is a show of patriotism… yet is in fact a thinly veiled deliberate approach to intimidate minorities and asylum seekers through flying what many people among these groups have now come to view as a symbol of hate. To be absolutely clear – I do not think the Union Flag is a symbol of hate and it still has the potential to be reclaimed by the powers of morality in this country, however its once proud image has been subverted and spun by the same people who just want everyone to love it (or leave it).
On Saturday the 13th of September we saw an estimated 110,000-150,000 take to the streets of London protesting to ‘Unite The Kingdom’, a demonstration organised by far right agitator and convicted criminal, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – more commonly known as Tommy Robinson.
The march was billed as a defiant display of national pride in Britain and was addressed by such quintessentially British figures as the world’s richest man Elon Musk, a South African born US citizen, who told protest attendees that “violence is coming … fight back or you die” – a quote which was met with thunderous applause.
All of this may be described by people like Mr Yaxley-Lennon as patriotism, yet I see it as something much more sinister. A consistent thread running through many speeches at this event was the notion of a ‘great replacement’ and the ‘great replacement theory’, a white ethno-nationalist conspiracy theory which suggests there is a calculated effort to erase the white race from Britain and elsewhere in Europe.
Other keynote speakers at the event were heavy hitting names such as Ant Middleton (jailed in 2013 for assaulting two police officers, one of them female), Éric Zemmour (a French political commentator who was in 2022 convicted of inciting racial hatred) and of course true British patriot Avi Yemini (an ex-IDF soldier who has admitted to killing Palestinian civilians during his time in the military … he also pleaded guilty to assaulting his wife).
Relating to this, “protecting our women and girls” has been a driving force behind the recent far right rise. This is not an inherently racist phrase however if you just begin to scratch the surface it becomes clear to be a right-wing talking point which alludes to the idea that asylum seekers and other immigrants (non-white immigrants) have been coming to the UK to commit violent and sexual crimes against the native (white) female population. If I were the far right in Britain and I indeed cared so much about protecting women and girls, I’d certainly start by not platforming convicted woman beaters and proud murderers.
The aforementioned protest was also used to commemorate the recently murdered American podcaster and Christian evangelist, Charlie Kirk, a man who dedicated his life to suppressing the rights of women, ethnic minorities and LGBTQ+ people, as well as helping to elect a man liable for sexual abuse as POTUS and endorse the genocide in Palestine currently being carried out by Israel. Kirk’s death saw an outpouring of sympathy for himself and his family from the British right, hailing him as a champion of free speech and liberty. In accordance with this though, they also took the opportunity to use his death to score political points and further stoke division in this country.
It has become increasingly worrying too that extremism has been able to slip into the political mainstream in this country so easily. One example of this is Lucy Connolly, a woman who advocated for the burning down of an asylum hotel only last year (and was subsequently jailed). She was welcomed at the Reform UK party conference just weeks ago and hailed as “Britain’s favourite political prisoner’ by deputy party leader, Richard Tice. To allow someone who has spent time in prison for inciting violence and stirring up racial hatred to speak at the conference of a major political party, in-front of a crowd gleefully in support, is seriously alarming and should not be taken lightly.
In relation to Reform UK, party leader Nigel Farage recently announced his plan to, if elected, remove 600,000 illegal, undocumented migrants from the United Kingdom. The slight problem with this though is that obviously for someone to be undocumented, that means they aren’t in the system. This leads us on to the frightening idea that Farage may have some plans for a task force rounding up ethnic minorities in the streets and demanding identification and papers… sound familiar?
Fascism such as what has been detailed here and so much more has been allowed to seep through the cracks and into mainstream politics in the UK, and it was no accident. The worries of millions of working class Brits like the cost of living crisis and rising housing prices have been spun by a handful of self-serving elites (like Nigel Farage) to suggest that migrants and asylum seekers are the primary root cause for these issues, all to further their own interests and line their pockets while the rest of us fight over crumbs.
It is imperative to remember that no matter where you think you fall on any political spectrum, you have more in common with anyone who arrives in this country with nothing than with those who tell you otherwise.
This is a serious issue. This will not just go away. This will affect us all.
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