Britain: Thousands mobilise to face down fascist rioters

By Phil Hearse

Published 10 August, 2024

Thousands of anti-fascists mobilised to face down fascist groups threatening immigration lawyers and mosques in cities across Britain on August 7. This followed widespread fascist rioting on August 4, which included attacks on the lodgings of asylum seekers, mosques, and Black people and Asians, who in some cases were pulled from their cars and beaten.

The rioting, organised by followers of English Defence League (EDL) leader Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon), mobilised mainly middle-aged white men, as well as some younger bystanders. This sudden outbreak of racist violence followed the deluge of anti-immigrant and Islamophobic statements by leaders of the right of the Conservative Party (particularly former Home Secretary Suella Braverman) and Nigel Farage, founder and leader of the hard right Reform UK party. They denounce the pro-Palestinian demonstrations as “hate marches”.

The immediate cause of the rioting was misinformation spread on social media about the identity of the 17-year-old man accused of stabbing three young girls to death in a frenzied attack in the seaside resort of Southport on July 29. The alleged perpetrator, named as Axel Rudakubana, was neither an immigrant nor born outside Britain, yet his foreign-sounding name was enough to set social media sites claiming he was a Muslim and illegal immigrant. This triggered widespread rioting, which must have been planned in advance.

Far-right alliances

What was the background to this apparently sudden eruption of fascist violence? It came just three weeks after the British general election in which Labour won a huge majority (410 seats against a disastrous 121 for the Conservatives). In Britain’s bizarre first-past-the-post system, Reform UK won only 5 seats on the basis of 14% of the vote. But they did get into parliament for the first time, and came second in more than 90 seats, most of them Labour. Farage said: “We’re coming for Labour in the next election.”

Reform UK and the Tory right relay the Islamophobic anti-immigrant message, focussing especially on the thousands of refugees who cross the English Channel each year in small boats. In fact this represents only a small fraction of the immigrants to Britain, most of whom are accepted to study or work in the National Health Service and other sectors short of labour.

Farage and Robinson do a double act in which Reform UK appeals across class lines while Robinson’s EDL appeals more to poor whites, especially youngsters, on the so-called “sink housing estates” — hopeless de-industrialised areas where the labour movement now hardly exists. Obviously there is an overlap: some of the rioters vote for Farage and riot with Robinson.

The size of the far right and fascist movements in Britain is a result of years of failure by Labour and Conservative governments to do anything to overcome child poverty, the poverty of single-parent households who have to choose between buying food or heating their houses, the collapsing health service, and vicious cuts to public services demanded by the central government of local authorities. Austerity after the victory of the Conservative-Liberal coalition in 2011 has transparently made the rich much richer and driven the poor into insufferable poverty. The riots reflect the ability of the de facto propaganda alliance that stretches from the Tory right and Reform UK to the fascists to mobilise on the basis of an anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim agenda.

Since 2017, the Conservatives have promised a ‘levelling up’ policy of prioritising investment to bring poor areas in the north of Britain more into line with the more prosperous South East. The result of this promise was nothing. In post-industrial towns in the north and Midlands, many have deserted Labour and feel let down by the Conservatives.

But there is something dangerous in the fascist-led mobs who marauded through cities on August 4 – the existence of a “lumpen” culture of male drunkenness, violence, homophobia, misogyny and racist violence. Some very young men get dragged into this culture, in which the typical form of political activity is rioting and violence. In Britain, as is typical of these movements, Reform UK has managed to merge lumpen working class people and sections of the “patriotic” right-wing middle class: it is a typical fascist alliance.

Anti-fascist resistance

The new Labour government, elected by just 21% of those entitled to vote, has a huge majority but is in reality a weak government. Its leader Keir Starmer has purged the left and imposed right-wing discipline on his MPs – at least for the moment. His ministers took to the airwaves on August 8 to praise the police for holding back the fascists, but ignored the much more significant anti-fascist mobilisations. London mayor Sadiq Khan praised both.

The most publicised anti-fascist mobilisation was in the North East London district of Walthamstow, a truly multicultural area in which alliances between socialist organisations and Muslims have been developed over the years, ranging from the Gulf War to racism and, most recently, Palestine. Some of the thousands of people assembled to defend the local Community Advice Centre, which has a legal arm to help asylum seekers, waved Palestinian flags.

In the progressive seaside town of Brighton, home to a large LGBTIQ+ community, police had to protect a small group of fascists when they were besieged by hundreds of anti-fascist demonstrators. It was a similar situation in Bristol. Around the country, socialist, anti-fascist, labour movement and Muslim community groups mobilised.

But there were worrying signs. The progressive city of Liverpool witnessed a significant fascist mobilisation, and it seems that most of them were locals. Racist poison has also spread to Ireland, which has witnessed successive nights of young rioters clashing with police in Belfast.

Starmer’s Labour

The response of Starmer and the new Labour government has been to rely on police repression. Thousands of police have been deployed where fascist mobs might be assembling, and the courts have responded to government requests for rapid action by sending people to jail for up to three years for crimes such as throwing a brick, which in other circumstances might be considered relatively minor.

The Conservative government of the past 14 years passed several laws that gave police extensive powers to ban demonstrations and arrest people for even planning a direct action that might cause disruption. The fact this kind of legislation might be used against the far right should not blind us to the fact that it might be used against radical direct action groups. In July, five Just Stop Oil protestors were given four and five-year sentences for blocking the London Ring Road M25 motorway. For the moment public order laws have not been used to ban pro-Palestine demonstrations, but they could be if the police judge they might lead to public disorder.

Before the general election, Labour criticised the Conservatives for not doing enough to stop immigrant boats from France. Instead of setting up safe, legal routes for asylum seekers and refugees, they promised the formation of a new “command” to police the borders.

The new Labour government promises the poor and disadvantaged precisely nothing. Finance minister Rachel Reeves’ defence of absurd spending limits means there is no new money coming forward to help the NHS, Social Care for the elderly, urgently needed house building or child poverty. Simmering resentment in poor white communities is likely to lead to new racist outbursts. The fascists are not about to give up after one evening of humiliation.

Militant left

One thing is obvious. Whereas there is a party of the radical right, there is no electoral party of the militant left. Part of the responsibility for this lies with socialist organisations wedded to propaganda routinism and reluctant to give up a modicum of independence to build a broad socialist front.

It also lies with those left Labour MPs, holding on like grim death to their Labour Party membership, who are sometimes used as punch bags by the leadership, sometimes paraded as domesticated followers by the ruthless Labour machine. Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who was elected as an independent after his expulsion from the party, has failed to move towards building a new mass socialist alternative.

Four other independents were elected in areas with a large Muslim population, mainly on an anti-Gaza war platform. The raw material exists — in the hundreds who have been expelled and the thousands who have resigned from Labour in disgust — to form a new left-wing political formation on a national scale. While the hard right is mobilising in parliament and on the streets, the left is dithering.

The response of Starmer and justice minister Shabana Mahmood is to rely on police repression to suppress the fascists. Already hundreds of rioters have been charged, and a few have given up to three years’ imprisonment. Starmer promises an “army” of police ready to defend public order. These may intimidate a few fascists but will never work in the long term.

Those mobilised by the far right have a deep sense of resentment towards “elites”, a catch-all term which includes, according to circumstances, people with government jobs, people who live in London, left-wing teachers, university workers, media workers, and, of course, members of ethnic minorities they claim are given privileged treatment in houses, jobs and benefits. They are victims of the classic extreme right divide and rule, and a Labour government which does nothing for them will soon be a victim of their attacks.

Farage has promised a hard-right government by 2029. The Conservative Party is in decay, not only because of political divisions but because it is dying out — it is reckoned that 1.4 million of its members will die before the next election in 2029. The Grim Reaper will also come for 200,000 Labour voters, but they will probably be more rapidly replaced than the Conservatives who are deeply unpopular with the young. The result of this Conservative upheaval is that already some are calling for a merger with Reform UK. A survey showed 50% of the membership are in favour of such a merger.

The left in Britain has to get its act together and prepare for a united electoral intervention. Until that happens the radical vote will get split between Labour and the not-very-radical Green Party. In terms of the extreme right offensive, it is time for the British left to get its act together. Anti-fascist activism is no substitute for a mass socialist alternative. It is later than many socialists think. You do not need a weather forecaster to know which way the wind blows.

Phil Hearse is joint author of Creeping Fascism and a member of Anti*Capitalist Resistance.