The far right is still a huge danger

Reform suffered an electoral setback in the Makerfield by-election on 18 June. Since their May council victories they have had some damaging internal frictions and defections.

Reform is in a mess, but we can’t be complacent. To stop the far right we need the labour movement and the left to respond with much more urgency. They needs to be confronted in the streets, workplaces and communities. Confronted on the streets in spite of police protection for the far right. On 13 June thousands of people gathered in Brighton to stop the far right from marching and they succeeded. We need more of that.

Nigel Farage is waiting to hear from Parliament’s Commissioner for Standards on whether he broke the members’ code of conduct by not declaring a £5 million gift from cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne.

According to the Local Government Chronicle a number of Tory councillors who went over to Reform have been shocked to see how chaotic and disorganised Reform is, while at the same time it is highly centralised. Seven Medway Reform councillors have gone back to the Tories and across the country a number of others have done the same.

Starmer

Since Starmer’s resignation, Labour seems to have gone up a few points in the polls, but the shift is only margin-of-error, may be only a blip, and is at the expense of the Tories rather than Reform.

Where Reform councillors are still talking to each other, they’ve targetted “net zero ideology”. In Norfolk they allied with Great Yarmouth First (Rupert Lowe aligned, Elon Musk financed) to push through an investigation into spending on climate-related projects, projects that in fact had no relationship to net zero policy.

In the Senedd the 34-strong Reform group have tabled a debate on Wales’s nation of sanctuary programme. In this, as with much else, Reform is pushing through Farage-issued propaganda-related edicts.

Propaganda efforts may work for a short while with Reform voters, and if the party can ride out this period of disorganisation, it could consolidate its base.

Meanwhile the further-to-the-right Restore (Rupert Lowe’s outfit) and openly fascist groups remain very active — quick to exploit the horrific murder of Henry Nowak and a knife attack on a disabled Belfast man. Although these fragmented groups, presenting under constantly changing umbrella alliances, seem disorganised, in their battle cry for remigration — that is, forced repatriation — they have a common cause.

And Reform has inched closer to this policy in recent months. Together, the far right have managed to normalise something that only the most fringe and most virulently racist fascist groups argued for twenty years ago.

That is why the far right as a whole is a hugely dangerous, increasingly physically violent threat — in the first place to all people of colour and all migrant communities. They are also fuelling online and real world misogyny. Violent attacks on all LGBT people have increased dramatically in the last five years; attacks on trans people even more so. As the far right make inroads into “mainstream” political opinion they will be a danger to the trade union movement.

We preach no toleration for the hateful racist repatriation policy. We fight for our socialist vision which aims to destroy the power of the rich and powerful, so that we can reorganise society and create the conditions for everyone to have a fulfilling and secure life. Only on that basis can we turn working-class people away from the divisive dog-eat-dog policies of the far right.