With Reform ahead in the opinion polls and more than 100,000 marching on a demonstration called by Tommy Robinson, HANNAH SELL assesses the growth of the far-right in Britain, and the tasks facing the workers’ movement.
Labour is neck and neck with the Tories in current polls, both on an unprecedented low of 16%. More than two thirds of voters have broken with Britain’s traditional major parties.
Discontent is growing on Labour’s backbenches along with rumbles about Starmer resigning in the hope that a new face could fix their predicament. But it is the government’s continuation of austerity, and its failure to improve public services or living standards that are the root of its problems, not Starmer’s lack of charm. This is the inevitable result of Labour’s role as loyal lieutenants of diseased British capitalism. The warning lights are flashing on the dashboard of the world economy, but even before a new crisis, growth in Britain is flatlining and the cost of government borrowing has hit the highest level since 1998. The capitalists are demanding that Labour responds by further attacks on the working class. In this situation, November’s budget can only increase popular anger at this already hated government.
The weakening or shattering of traditional establishment parties is an international phenomenon, which is clearly also underway in Britain. In many countries right-populist or far-right parties and politicians have stepped into the resulting vacuum. Trump’s re-election, albeit standing on the wreckage of the Republican Party, symbolises the trend, but he is not alone. In Europe Italy has had a prime minister from the far-right Brothers of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, since 2022. The last general election in the Netherlands saw Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom come first with 23% of the vote. His withdrawal from the government coalition has triggered a new general election due to take place in October and the Party for Freedom is currently on 32% in the polls. In France Le Pen’s National Rally are at a similar level, while in Germany the far-right Alternative for Germany is vying for first place in the polls.
Now something similar is happening in Britain, with Nigel Farage’s right-populist Reform Party currently topping the polls. For many workers and young people, particularly those on the sharp end of the divisive rhetoric spewed out by Farage and others, this is fuelling a growing feeling of foreboding about what the future holds. No wonder. First the Tories and now the Labour government are trying to out-Reform Reform with anti-migrant propaganda. Labour has stepped up repression against protest – particularly the ban on Palestine Action. At the same time the news over the summer was dominated by protests outside multiple hotels housing asylum seekers, and then on 13 September, more than 100,000 are estimated to join the Unite the Kingdom demonstration called by far-right celebrity Tommy Robinson. Fear of abuse and attacks is on the rise among minorities.
The need for the workers’ movement to take action is clear, but is the situation we are facing fascism? That is a conclusion that is commonly being drawn on the left. The Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP) opened their report on the Unite the Kingdom demonstration by describing it as “a swarm of over 100,000 fascists and racists”. Left MP Zarah Sultana talks of “fascism growling at the door” and Jeremy Corbyn, in an article called Labour is Paving the Way for Fascism published in Tribune on 1 September, concluded from recent events that “these are signs of a country on a slippery slope to fascism. This term should not be used lightly. Many acts are terrifying enough on their own terms without warranting that label. But beware, fascism doesn’t arrive in uniform overnight. It arrives with suited politicians, one piece of legislation at a time”.
Jeremy Corbyn correctly used his article to argue the need to build an alternative that is “not going to scapegoat refugees for the ills of society” but instead “focus our attention on the real cause: a grotesquely unequal society that concentrates wealth in the hands of the few” and to point towards the potential to build such an alternative shown by his and Zarah Sultana’s declaration to launch ‘Your Party’. For the right-wing trade union leaders, Reform is being used as a bogeyman to try and justify continuing to back Labour. That approach, however, will only guarantee Reform’s success. The building of a workers’ party with a clear anti-racist socialist programme is one of the central tasks the workers’ movement faces if it is to combat the growth of the right, as it urgently needs to do.
Nonetheless, to be able to work out the tasks our movement faces it is necessary to start with an accurate assessment of the stage society is at – and above all the class balance of forces. If 100,000 fascists actually had marched through the streets of London we would be in a very different and massively more perilous situation than the reality today. We do not underestimate the urgency of the tasks, but it is a very serious mistake to imagine we face the prospect of fascism coming to power in Britain or in other countries. However, repellent Trump and Meloni are, they are not heading-up fascist regimes. Nor would a Reform government be fascist. On the contrary, it would be a weak and highly unstable government which would be likely to face mass working-class opposition from day one.
What is fascism?
Leon Trotsky, one of the key leaders of the Russian revolution, wrote invaluable analyses of the rise of fascism in the 1920s and 1930s, and how it could be defeated. He expended considerable effort avoiding wrong or premature definitions of fascism, because they led to profoundly mistaken conclusions about perspectives for working-class struggle. A fascist regime represents the most severe defeat for the working class; a complete triumph of the counter-revolution. This was the difference between Hitler coming to power in Germany and the various semi-dictatorial regimes that preceded him. There was still a chance under these regimes for the working class to regather its forces and defeat capitalist reaction, whereas the Nazi regime atomised the working class making anything beyond secret, underground struggle impossible for a long period.
When fascism came to power in Italy in 1922 and in Germany eleven years later it was against a very different background to today. In the wake of the 1917 Russian revolution, in which capitalism had been overthrown for the first time, a revolutionary wave had swept Europe. The working class outside Russia, however, lacked the necessary leadership to successfully overturn the existing order, and mass revolutionary movements were defeated. The ruling class, without any way forward for their rotten system, desperate to hold onto power and to crush the working class which was moving to take it from them, turned to the forces of fascism: a mass movement mainly of the impoverished and enraged middle classes, small proprietors and peasantry. The majority of these middle layers had first looked to the working class for salvation, but following repeated defeats they became the raw material for a reactionary movement that was unleashed to destroy the working class’s organisations and atomise its collective power. Fascism was victorious only after the defeat of several waves of workers’ revolutions, the result of mistaken leadership.
In Italy, after several years of gigantic workers’ struggles, in the wake of the defeat of a general strike in August 1922, the capitalist class backed and funded the fascists to smash up trade union organisations and murder trade union leaders. In Germany by the end of 1932 there were an estimated two million men organised in the ‘brownshirts’, Nazi paramilitaries that waged war against workers’ organisations. Once they came to power, the fascists installed totalitarian regimes that extinguished the workers’ organisations and all elements of democracy. In Germany within six months of coming to power more than 100,000 communists and socialists were the first sent to the concentration camps.
We face an entirely different situation today. The Meloni government in Italy has not attempted to crush the organisations of the working class but they, at a certain stage, are likely to move to crush the government. Already Italian trade unions are in the lead internationally when it comes to organising strike action in solidarity with the Palestinians, with widespread strikes and hundreds of thousands demonstrating on 22 September. The support for all of these right populist and far-right parties is overwhelmingly electoral, and none have an armed wing. Today in France, for example, the far-right National Rally are ahead in the polls but they are not organising attacks on the organisations of the working class, which has decisively entered the field of struggle after a period of seeming acquiescence.
We are under no illusions: the world’s capitalist classes are not less vicious than they were a century ago. ‘By any means necessary’ remains their approach to maintaining their rule. Capitalism is still based on nation states, and the capitalists remain prepared to stoke deep-rooted nationalist feelings whenever necessary, for example to justify war, or to attempt to play the divide-and-rule card to try and defend their rule from social uprisings and revolutions. State machines, now as then, are not neutral, but ultimately defend the interests of the ruling class.
Nonetheless, the capitalists were badly scarred by their experience of fascism in the twentieth century. Yes, the threat of socialist revolution was defeated for a period, but they lost control of their states to the fascists. The result was the unprecedented destruction and death of the second world war and, in its aftermath, a weakening of capitalism internationally with the strengthening of the Stalinist bloc, cutting off half the globe from imperialist rule for decades. In addition, in the advanced capitalist countries the main social base for fascism – the ‘middle people’ – is much smaller today.
When they can no longer rule via capitalist democracy they are more likely to try the route of military dictatorships which, while they can still have a certain independence from the ruling class whose interests they ultimately represent, are nonetheless far easier to control than the frenzied masses of fascism.
The current balance of forces
But at the moment the capitalists have no need to take that road in any of the economically developed countries, not least Britain, and the working class has opportunities ahead to bring capitalism to an end before we face that prospect. Today we are at an early stage in the struggle – the capitalist class faces huge difficulties in finding stable governments that will act in their interests, ultimately because of the sickness of their system – but their rule is not yet under serious threat.
The working class has begun to recover from the ‘long dark night’ it experienced at the end of the twentieth century and the start of the twenty-first. This was the era after the collapse of the Stalinist regimes in Russia and Eastern Europe. While they bore no resemblance to genuine socialism, their implosion was nonetheless a victory for the capitalists worldwide and a serious defeat for the working class. In its aftermath, levels of working-class organisation were pushed back a long way. The idea of an alternative system to capitalism – socialism – was marginalised. In that post-Stalinist age, capitalism, dominated by US imperialism, was wildly over-confident, claiming that it offered peace, plenty and ‘liberal’ democracy for the world.
Instead, however, it brought war in the form of the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan: backed to the hilt by New Labour Mark I, and then the Great Recession from which capitalism has not recovered. In response the working class has begun to re-enter the scene of history. In Britain we had the biggest strike wave since the late 1980s in 2022-2023. The 800,000 who have signed up to ‘Your Party’ shows the potential for a new left force. Nonetheless, this is still very early days, the working class is far from challenging for power and, as yet, has not even taken the vital first step of having its own mass party.
Still, the hollowing out of the social base of establishment parties, and the undermining of the authority of all of the institutions of capitalism, has led to the capitalists having to desperately fumble around to try to create stable governments in their interests. In Britain they are simultaneously trying to resuscitate the Tory Party, hoping it can be in the wings for when the Labour government completely falls apart, while simultaneously trying to make Reform a more reliable representative of their interests in case it does end up in government despite their efforts. The defection of Tory MP Danny Kruger to Reform in order to become head of “preparing for government”, and his assurances to the media that Reform would now ‘support welfare reform’, are indications of attempts by the capitalist class to mould Reform.
Italian capitalism has done the same with the Giorgia Meloni-led government. Her party has historic links to Italian fascism. Nonetheless, her government has stayed well within the bounds of capitalist democracy and the Italian capitalist class appear pleasantly surprised by the degree to which it has reliably defended their interests, including by issuing 450,000 work permits to migrants since 2023. As the head of major construction and property company, Donati Immobiliare, put it, “she is a pragmatic leader who understands the needs of business”.
Reform is unreliable for the capitalists, but it would be better for them than a workers’ party coming to office! Nonetheless, if the ruling class couldn’t prevent a future workers’ party becoming a mass force, they would certainly also organise within such a party to try to make it more ‘moderate’. That is why it is vital that a new party is based on the trade unions – as mass workers’ organisations – in order to apply counter-pressure from the working class against such attempts, and also that the Socialist Party and other socialist and Marxist organisations are free to organise within it.
Bonapartist measures?
There are other measures that British capitalism may have to resort to in the relatively short term in order to try and find a stable instrument through which to rule. It is not excluded, for example, that they move to abandon the first-past-the-post electoral system as not fit for purpose, switching to some form of proportional representation. It also cannot be ruled out that they will be compelled to resort to some kind of coalition government, supposedly in the ‘national interest’, if faced with a new global economic crisis and the mass struggle that would result. Such a government might take more executive measures, over the heads of parliament, to some extent freeing itself from the normal ‘checks and balances’ of the parliamentary system. In that sense it would be a development not of dictatorship, but of elements of parliamentary Bonapartism. That would, unlike fascism, fit Jeremy Corbyn’s description of ascending “one piece of legislation at a time”. A National Government, brought to power to defend the interests of capitalism in a time of crisis would, however, further undermine all parties that took part and thereby ultimately hugely increase the problems facing the capitalist class.
Far from bringing the era of ‘liberal democracy’ that the capitalists promised after the collapse of Stalinism, there is a global trend of increasing elements of ‘parliamentary’ or ‘presidential’ Bonapartism, above all in Trump’s attempts to rule by Executive Order. According to the Global State of Democracy Survey in 2024, 94 countries – representing 54% of all countries assessed – suffered a decline in at least one factor of democratic performance compared with their own performance five years earlier, compared to only 55 countries, 32%, that advanced in at least one respect.
As the crisis of capitalism deepens, further steps in this direction are inevitable. We should not, however, exaggerate the current situation. Capitalist democracy, truncated as it is, remains the norm for the capitalist class in the advanced capitalist countries at this stage whereas, even up until the 1970s, military dictatorships existed in Western Europe in Spain, Portugal and Greece. And despite the still low level of consciousness and organisation of the working class, we should not underestimate its underlying power, which the capitalist class has to take account of. Last year’s attempted coup in South Korea was defeated by a mass movement from below and then a general strike. That is a warning of the response they would face to any section of the capitalist class foolish enough to consider steps in that direction in Europe or the US. Mass working-class action can also stymie much more limited attempts to curtail democratic rights. Even recently here in Britain it should not be forgotten that the Tories 2024 Trade Union Act was a dead letter almost from the start because trade unions found ways to defy it.
But isn’t fascism growing ‘from below’?
Of course, historically the capitalist class has also used fascist thugs as auxiliary forces to attack the workers’ movement, even while keeping them at arm’s length. Does the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ demonstration show that we are seeing the development of serious fascist forces in Britain, with all the dangers that would bring? To say that at this stage, however, would be to seriously overstate the situation. Certainly, the demonstration was instigated by the far-right figure of Tommy Robinson, and the platform was jammed with far-right speakers whipping up racism and division. It is also true that the relatively small proportion of fascistic thugs that were on the demonstration were given confidence by the size of the crowd and, without police protection, the Stand Up to Racism counter-protest would have faced a serious violent attack. Nonetheless, the vast majority of participants were not ‘out for a fight’, nor were they aligned to the still very small and fractured far-right organisations. Nor has that been the case with the big majority of the far smaller numbers – perhaps not more than 10,000 in total – who have protested outside hotels housing asylum seekers this summer.
Nonetheless, we must not underestimate the danger of the far-right growing. The size of the Unite the Kingdom march sounds an urgent warning to the workers’ movement. The approach of most union leaders over the recent period has now conclusively been found wanting. It has mainly consisted of outsourcing responsibility for fighting racism to the Stand Up to Racism organisation, dominated by the SWP. Now the trade unions need to act on their own account, not with the moral appeals against racism which typify Stand Up To Racism’s approach, but linking the opposition to racism and division, and defence of migrants and refugees, to the need for the maximum possible unity in the struggle for working-class interests. This has been official Trades Union Congress (TUC) policy since 2018, now it needs to be made a reality.
Fighting racism cannot be separate to fighting New Labour’s capitalist austerity. The recent TUC Congress passed a resolution to call a national demonstration against austerity. A well built for Saturday demonstration against New Labour austerity and racist division would be a launch pad for a serious struggle. There is enormous anger among the working class about the relentless squeeze on living standards under the Tories and now Labour. The most recent Office for National Statistics survey, from August of this year, found that, when asked what the most important issues facing the UK are, the top three were the cost of living, selected by 87%, the NHS, 82%, and the economy, 70%. If the workers’ movement fails to offer an effective struggle on those issues, then it leaves more space for other forces to harness them for their own ends. Many of those who attended the Unite the Kingdom march were from the parts of Britain which have suffered the most from deindustrialisation and austerity. Marching under slogans of ‘free speech’ and ‘stop the boats’, much of the underlying fuel for their rage was nonetheless the driving down of the living standards of the working class in their communities.
Much wider layers of the working class are considering using a vote for Reform as a means to express their rage, which is likely to be reflected in further gains for it in the 2026 May elections. But it is also true that Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s ‘Your Party’ – if launched in time – could win swathes of seats and even control of councils. Imagine if that position was used to wage a serious struggle against government austerity, not just in words but mobilising the working class in support of a programme of council house building and restoring public services, including reopening youth clubs, libraries and more. After decades of politicians of every stripe inflicting austerity on the working class such a stance would enthuse millions.
Already 67% of Reform voters see Jeremy Corbyn as ‘for working people’. If he was part of a workers’ party leading a fight against local authority austerity, in sharp contrast to Farage’s posturing, it would clearly be able to win a large section of Reform voters. Remember in 2017 a million voters switched from UKIP to Corbyn’s Labour because of their enthusiasm for his anti-austerity stance.
Workers’ defence?
The working class going on the offensive against New Labour austerity – industrially and politically – is the most important means to cut across reaction. Nonetheless, there are still other measures that need to be taken seriously in relation to the far right and the small groups of fascistic thugs that are gaining some confidence to crawl out of the gutter in the current atmosphere.
In November 1931, writing about Britain, Trotsky made clear that while the “Party of Mosley” represented “the beginnings of fascism”, its “total futility” also showed how very far Britain was from the “imminent coming of fascism” which was doubtful in Britain even as a “distant perspective”. (Tasks of the Left Opposition in England and India) Nonetheless, Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists was stronger than any of Britain’s current fascistic grouplets, claiming 50,000 members at its height and its biggest meeting, which took place in Birmingham, attended by 10,000 people.
And its ‘total futility’ did not mean that it was no threat to the workers’ movement or to minorities. Nor did it undermine the importance of the huge and decisive show of strength against the fascists when, in 1936 in the Battle of Cable Street, hundreds of thousands of workers in different organisations, effectively adopting Trotsky’s approach of a united front, blocked them marching through the East End of London.
However, that does not mean it is correct in all circumstances to mobilise counter-protests against the far right. At bottom, workers’ organisations need to take a decision on the basis of whether a specific mobilisation will strengthen the workers’ movement and, conversely, weaken the far right. Trotsky, writing in March 1934 of what he described as ‘ultraleft tactics in fighting the fascists’ in Paris explained that:
“The task is to involve the workers in increasing numbers in the fight against fascism. The Menilmontant adventure can only isolate a small, militant minority. After such an experience, a hundred, a thousand workers who would have been ready to teach the young bourgeois bullies a few lessons will say, ‘No, thanks, I don’t want to get my head broken for nothing’. The upshot of the whole undertaking was the opposite of what was intended”.
Trotsky was commenting on an incident in the Parisian district of Menilmontant that led to an unnecessary confrontation with police. But unfortunately, if the police hadn’t on this occasion acted to protect the anti-racists, this conclusion would have been applicable to the Stand Up to Racism counter-protest on 13 September. Such a disastrous outcome would have given the far-right thugs confidence and cowed the anti-racist movement.
The trade union movement needs to campaign for democratic control over counter-protests, including decisions on when to hold them, and on ensuring they have clear slogans for workers’ unity, linking the fight against racist division to the fight against austerity. Often Stand Up to Racism counter-protests are limited to denouncing the protestors as ‘Nazis’. Particularly, as has often been the case on the protests outside asylum hotels, when the protestors are predominantly from the local community and are mainly not part of far-right organisations, this is wholly counterproductive.
The workers’ movement also needs to act on the question of stewarding, with local trade union branches electing stewarding officers, and for trades councils and other union bodies to coordinate the development of stewards’ organisations, as Socialist Party members are doing in a number of trades councils. Firstly, these could act to prevent the far right gaining confidence that they can ‘take the streets’ and intimidate minority communities.
Secondly, they could provide stewarding for counter-demonstrations against far-right protests. In Ireland, the biggest public sector trade union, NIPSA, in which members of Militant Left (our sister organisation in Ireland) play a leading role, has taken the initiative to organise this, and has won support for trade union stewarding at the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. This approach is important even when the counter-protests dwarf the far right. That was the case last summer. One year on, and the objective balance of forces is still in favour of the anti-racist movement. This is likely to be demonstrated in practice if the far right try and go on the offensive in working-class communities, particularly in the major cities. New attacks on mosques for example, would see large numbers of working-class people responding by taking to the streets, with Black, Asian and Muslim communities in the lead. However, this does not alter the need for stewarding from the workers’ movement, in order to make clear that these are united defensive demonstrations involving all sections of the working class, and to make it more difficult for the police to take punitive action against young Black and Asian protestors.
Starmer’s New Labour Mark II has been in office for only 14 months. It is visibly falling apart as it tries to defend the interests of British capitalism. Working-class fury is palpable. It is urgent that the workers’ movement puts its stamp on events, organising a serious struggle against Starmer’s austerity both industrially and politically. Combating the far-right is one important aspect of that task.