I have been asked to define the way in which I use the term ‘far-right'. I do that in this video and, at the same time, explain why I think Reform fits my criteria for describing it as such.
This is the audio version:
This is the transcript:
What is the far right in British politics? And how do I think that Reform relates to that definition? It's a question that I'm being asked and given the significance of Reform in the UK's current political environment and the rise of the far right, in my opinion, around the world, it seems an appropriate time to answer the question.
2025 is, in political terms, going to be dominated by these parties, and they are going to try to create narratives that upset the status quo within the politics of the UK as a consequence and therefore, it seems right to define the terms that I use when I describe a political party as being on the far right.
There are quite a number of ways in which I think that this is flagged and I'm going to highlight a whole series of them. They aren't in numerical order. They aren't necessarily in order of priority. The point is that you have to assemble this evidence across a whole range of indicators to suggest fairly conclusively that a party is on the far right. And that's what I intend to do in this video.
The first indication that there is that a party might be on the far right is that it is considered by just about everybody in a society to be further right than all the existing current political parties. And this is undoubtedly true of Reform in the UK.
There isn't anybody who pretends that Reform is not at least on the right wing of the Conservative Party or further right than it, and remember that the Tories have shifted significantly towards their right wing over the last decade and moved away from their old One-Nation view of the world. So, just on that basis alone, purely technically, Reform is clearly on the far right of politics, because if the Tories are in the centre-right, and Labour is on the moderate right, then Reform must be on the far-right, and technically that's a term we can use simply to describe where they are.
But that isn't sufficient in itself to explain whether they're on the far right. There have to be these other things as well.
One of those is a decided bias towards wealth and against working people. And I think we can see that in the behaviour of Reform. It's all in favour of cutting taxes on the wealthy.
It doesn't like inheritance tax.
It doesn't like capital gains tax.
It's biased against corporation tax.
But as importantly, It is providing no indication of real support for working people and their rights, and many of its policies would remove the social safety net on which so many people in the UK are dependent. This is a clear bias towards the wealthy, at cost to those who work for a living and who are dependent upon the state to provide services that they could not afford for themselves, and that is an indication of a far-right party.
Reform is also biased towards corporations or companies. It favours deregulation, which would massively increase the profitability of large companies who did not have to comply with that regulation, which has been put in place to protect us from harm.
It is not in favour of accountability. It doesn't appear to want large companies to be accountable for their behaviour.
And we can see this most particularly with regard to climate change and the abuse of the climate that large companies do. Reform is basically in denial about the fact that this problem even exists and therefore of the need to be accountable for it. As a consequence, it also wants to liberate companies from this constraint, which they think exists on their profit. And as I've already mentioned, it wants low corporation tax.
Reform seeks to shrink the role of government. And that is another indication of a far-right party. It wants actual cuts in government spending and says that they must come.
In particular, it questions the role and even the existence of the NHS, which is anathema to most people in the UK, but which Nigel Farage has promoted for a long time, suggesting that there are insurance-based alternatives, which would however be largely unaffordable for most people. Look at the USA for evidence of that.
And in general, whatever it is that the government does, Reform want less to be done. This is a clear indication of a far-right agenda.
I also think Reform has a disdain for democracy. And let's look at the clearest indication of this. Reform is a private limited company controlled by Nigel Farage. There is actually no democracy within this political party, or what it claims to be a political party, because Nigel Farage decides what happens. You could not get a clearer indication for disdain of democratic process within a political party than that. It's not accountable to anyone – as the promotions and sackings that take place in that party on a regular basis show. And I believe that is an indication of the approach of Reform to democracy as a whole.
Reform also highlights the significance of military power. There's nothing that Nigel Farage likes more than the chance to be a little bit jingoistic. On the beaches in Normandy, whenever there's an anniversary, he wants to be there celebrating the forces. But he also wants an increase in spending on the forces at a time when he wants to cut government spending in general. This dependence on the forces is a very clear indication of a far-right party.
He also seeks to link politics and religion, and Richard Tice, the deputy leader of Reform, does this perhaps more often than Nigel Farage himself. He frequently refers to the UK as a Christian country, but there's no evidence for that. Latest surveys and the census all indicate that the majority of people in the UK are now ambivalent about their relationship to any religion and the actual number of people attending Christian worship is now in a tiny percentage. So, this claim that we're a Christian country, which Reform uses to reinforce its agenda against those of other faiths, most of whom do, of course, come from migrant or ethnic minority populations is a deliberate use of the church as a political positioning weapon. And that is a very clear indication of far-right alignment.
Reform seeks to control the media. It is very clear that it has no time for media regulation, and it is a great lover of GB news. It also favours those other outlets that are very much inclined to promote far right thinking, including the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and others. And do remember, the Daily Mail has a very unfortunate history in this respect. It is clearly not interested in unbiased news reporting, and its frequent attacks on the media. Its frequent attacks on the BBC are a clear indication of that.
It also seeks to control freedom of speech and of protest. Now this is obviously linked to the control of the media, but extends that issue. It wants to limit the right of unions to protest. It wants to limit the right of those from the left to protest. And we have seen it actively opposing those rights, whilst Nigel Farage willingly turns up on demonstrations by farmers. There is a bias in this which is very apparent and it's towards the far right.
But there's also something else about Reform which is very typical of the far-right. It has a disdain for the arts, for experts, intellectuals and universities. This is a far-right characteristic which it is very clearly aligned with.
Reform also promotes family values. Nothing pleases it more than the idea of the ‘wife at home', and there's a lot of appeal to people to increase the number of children they have. This is how they wish to deal with the ‘flood of migrants', by having more white children. This idea is deeply offensive to most. It's also utterly economically unsustainable in the world in which we now live, but Reform promotes it, nonetheless. And I think that is strongly misogynistic, which is of course another one of the characteristics that I would suggest are apparent from its behavior. That to me is deeply worrying.
Reform is also strongly nationalistic. That nationalism is not, of course, for the United Kingdom. Reform is in complete denial about the nature of the United Kingdom, basically ignoring the existence of Northern Ireland and Wales and Scotland and only presuming that England is of consequence.
English nationalism and English exceptionalism are the basis for its nationalism. But this is typical of the far-right. They draw boundaries to suit their own purpose and that is what the far-right in the form of Reform are doing here. They are defining what is the country to suit their own image of what they wish it to be, not what it actually is. And, as a consequence, they're dismissing the rights, opinions, and opportunities of fifteen per cent of the people in the United Kingdom, as it now is, who they presume they can subject to their rule without question arising.
But they do the same with regard to other countries as well. Nobody, of course, was more in favour of Brexit than Reform and its various Farage predecessors.
This whole process of defining the UK, or rather England, as a country apart is a very right wing trope, and is only breached in one situation, of course, which is that Farage would like to align us with the USA of which I frankly think he would like us to become the 51st, 52nd or 53rd state depending upon the order in which Trump manages to take over Canada and Greenland and us, and anybody else who he thinks should be within his domain. But Farage likes that but doesn't want to actually define us as having relationships with anyone else and this is a far-right trope.
Reform seeks to deny the rights of minorities. LGBTQ+ rights are not on its agenda. I've already mentioned its position with regard to women, which I think is deeply misogynistic. And it does appear that it is quite contemptuous of those with mental ill health and those who are not from the mainstream thinking within the UK, as a consequence sidelining all those with autism and ADHD and with any other form of neurodivergent condition, which actually means that they are more than able to operate in society so long as society recognises that they do not operate in a neurotypical fashion.
Neurotypicality. is what reform wants, as does, of course, Kemi Badenoch, but they appear aligned on this point. And that is the clearest indication of this lack of tolerance of minorities, which is, of course, then seen in reform's populist nature.
Reform is fundamentally populist. It seeks to ‘other' groups in society, by which I mean it tries to define people as not of the mainstream. And I've just mentioned some groups that it does not want in the mainstream, and we are of course, always aware of the fact that so much that has come from Nigel Farage is what looks racist to some people, but if it isn't racist, is most certainly against the best interests of those from ethnic minorities and is fundamentally opposed to migration, with that opposition to migration appearing to be much higher in the case of those who happen to not be white or male.
And this, to me, I think, is a clear indication of populist, anti-migrant narratives, which are also reflected in its demand that those who do come to the UK assimilate and abandon their own cultures, for which there is no reason, because those cultures add to the diversity and joy of life in the UK.
But, perhaps most of all, this policy is indifferent to the creation of fear or of the causing of offence, which appears to be such a part of the programme that Reform wants to promote. There is a refusal at the very heart of this programme to recognise the multi-country, multi-cultural nature of the United Kingdom as a whole, which is aligned with the English nationalism to which I've already referred. This is a trope from the far-right, and I believe it aligns Reform with the far-right.
And finally, and let's just mention it, there is cronyism. Cronyism is, of course, normally associated with corruption, and I'm not suggesting that Reform is corrupt, but I am suggesting that it might be afflicted with cronyism. And how do I know? I'll go back to another point I've already mentioned. The fact that Nigel Farage will not tolerate any form of opposition to his views within the party that he has created.
He risked it with UKIP, and he risked it with the Brexit Party, but he will not risk it with Reform. He is in control. And if that isn't a definition of cronyism, in the sense that those who wish to get on have to crony up to Nigel, or they have no chance of doing so, then I don't know what is. And this, again, is a clear indication of a far-right movement.
So, that's how I view the far right. Those groupings are what I think are significant, and why I think Reform is a far-right party.
I know that there will be those who disagree, and they're very welcome to do so. But this is the criteria I'm using, and that is why I think Reform is on the far-right. And because I find so many of those issues that it promotes repugnant, that is why I will be spending time in 2025 challenging everything that they, and those who are closely aligned to them in the Tory party, stand for.
This mind map summarises the arguments in this video:
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A superb compendium of far-right attributes and behaviour traits Richard.
Not to deflect attention from the main operators of far-right politiking in the UK, but both Farage and Tice ( as well as Badenoch) are given a run for their far-right money by Keir Rodney Starmer.
Like Blair before him with university fees, market-ising the NHS, invading Iraq/Afghanistan, Sir Keir’s here to do atrociously right-wing things that the blue wing of the Single Transferable Party (stp) were obviously finding difficult to achieve on their own (e.g. (so far) ‘lawfare’ against pro-Palestinian journalists, expelling 13,500 asylum seekers and migrants fromthe UK (instead of threatening Rwanda), prosecuting peaceful protesters, etc., etc.)
I agree this is a useful way of looking at ReformUK, etc. However, I also feel there are deeper structures and traditions that define the political right and left. These terms originated in the French Revolution – the wealthy and privileged sat on the chair’s right in the National Assembly, the commoners on the left. I think it’s important to remember that these terms are not primarily about ideas or values – but grounded in the economic and legal realities social inequality.
And I think this underlies the other truly foundational difference between right and left: the wealthy and privileged must draw on various sources of ‘authority’ to justify their position (tradition, religion, rank, force); the left must instead rely on arguing from human reason and evidence. The left believes humanity is capable of organising itself on this basis, its own reason and understanding; the right denies this, and sees humanity instead as irrational and unpredictable, needing therefore strict control – by, of course, none other than the wealthy and privileged.
This is very sober appraisal of the Far Right that is almost too restrained for me.
Whilst not disagreeing with anything you have said at all I assure you, all I would add is the Far Right mentality is one of perpetual war for perpetual peace. There always has to be an ‘other’ an outsider, a threat that must be repelled. To this, everyone must join the mindset – no room for weaknesses or doubts and all other things need to be sacrificed to this aim, to dealing with this ‘threat’.
What the Far Right is is a form of self flagellation in the pursuit of artificial enemies (except that those running the show will live in comparative luxury); the Far Right is an act of suffocating conformity; an act of focusing hatred and ultimately a society repurposed as a death cult with human life being short and brutal, and where suffering for the cause is venerated. It will never vanquish its enemies because they do not exist, and exist only in the minds of the Party, to be chosen and re-chosen when they see fit and our society’s soul re-engineered for epic battles with apparitions.
More than anything else, the Far Right is an exercise in unfreedom in pursuit of a freedom that does not exist in reality.
We are not free to disregard others without consequence; we are not free to exploit the planet and each other without consequence; we are not free to be aggressive without consequence although the Far Right will always claim victim hood first; we are not free to destroy others so that we might live, without consequence. The Far Right is a negation of the ‘other’ who first must be established and then wiped out.
Human life is based on consequences – or if you like – debts owed to each other – not necessarily money debt but debts as reciprocal human obligations based on empathy, co-operation, self-sacrifice, kindness and mutual survival – all eschewed by the Far Right. Meeting those obligations is what has made humanity successful. The Far Right – Fascism even – breaks with that reality and attempts to creates a new world by exception. The unfreedom it creates for society leads to freedom for only those that run that society – the freedom over life and death, wealth.
Thus the Far Right emerges as a mindset that is devoid of accountability and is based on self appointed primacy over others; these people are rule breakers, not rule takers. They are inherently anti-social and isolationist, refusing to accept that they live with others. No surprise then that rich like to fund its dreams.
Maybe I’ve read too much Tim Snyder and Hannah Arendt, with not a little of David Graeber too, to whom I owe debt of recognition for making me see more clearly.
We cannot afford the Far Right and my instinct is to wipe them off the face of the earth or at least make their existence illegal. We had that opportunity in the second world war but chose to fight Communism instead and not really putting fascism to bed for good. But much better – much better I say again to balance my anger – is to ask the question, ‘Why do the Far Right get to exist in the first place?’ and the answer to that is our own stupidity.
If we stupidly continue to think that having such a huge inequality of rights, wealth and opportunities is acceptable we will never have peace because all we are doing is creating an opportunity for the Far Right and its science of fascism to exploit our weaknesses .
The problem is that it is this set up that seems to endure: Capital/wealth sets out to hoover up as much money and assets from economic output for itself that it can, knowing that society at some stage will have had enough and will call for change. This is when capital/wealth plays its trump card (now also known as a presidential card) and prevents society from enabling change by using the conditions it has created to foment the Far Right which it will support to prevent any real change taking place (another weapon by the way is austerity). It will get us falling out with each other, locating false blame and continue to feed their greed thus subverting change. They have it all sewn up, a loop that will keep us just going around in circles for ever if we let them.
There we go.
Much to agree with
I had a far right threat this morning – saying I and my kind will never win – thwey will destroy us.
That attitude existrs. Where I differ PSR is in my desire to convert, or live alongside the far right, not destroy it. We have to make it irrelevant.
I get very angry with the Far Right because I repudiate their psychological abuse and dishonest gaslighting of people who are in pain for their own benefit. A better definition of evil I cannot muster. Personally I think that the personal abuse and exploitation of unhappy people is one of the lowest crimes against humanity.
Please note that I corrected myself twice for emphasis that rather than ‘wipe them out’ it is better instead to eradicate the conditions which the Far Right feeds off.
I can assure readers that even I can see that the ‘wiping them out option’ renders me no better than that which I accuse. So, anger gets the better of me sometimes – my apologies. But how far will all of this go? How do we prevent extremism and whilst in the grip of it – which is quite possible – how does one contest it? The answer to that maybe that will have no choice but fight with pigs, get very dirty and learn to like it too after all. We should not rule that out I’m afraid although we will truly be in the midst of societal failure if it comes to that.
But this has happened before and the cost of un-contesting the far right is huge. The Europe and the near East we have before us now is still shaped by Nazi Germany to this day. That is a lesson we cannot ignore. In the long run who really won the second world war has an unpalatable answer from where I am standing for sure.
I’ve only just come to this thread, and I note that PSR is the only one to have mentioned the word “empathy”, and only once.
For me, this is the key attribute that differentiates what we call the far-right from the left, socialist viewpoint.
Those with an inclusive, social mindset instinctively empathise with those less able or fortunate. In fact I think it is empathy that essentially creates the notion of socialism.
Those on the right tend not to empathise, the attitude to others is “sink or swim”. They embody the Victorian notion that poverty is your own fault. If you can’t make a go of life then you don’t deserve any help. This obviously leads to dividing people into the entitled and the not. The not-entitled become the “other”, to be feared and excluded.
They spurn those who display empathy as “soft” or “wet”, and have adopted “woke” to describe (wrongly) such opponents of their own “hard” attitudes.
It’s hence inevitable that this mindset encompasses the belligerent, the bullies, the sociopaths & psychopaths (who by definition are incapable of empathy), as well as those who are just in it for themselves.
So ultimately, the less empathy being shown, the farther right the person or organisation can be described as being.
Those who are locked into these attitudes are probably beyond being changed, but the battle for society is to persuade those without hard attitudes that empathy is good (and good for themselves), against the far-right who want to persuade the opposite.
Economics without empathy is meaningless.
It’s also meaningless without an awareness of entropy.
A very good assessment from Richard but in my opinion the political divisions of today in the UK are no longer a left and right issue .
The political divide is now drawn along the lines of the 2016 referendum result , leave or remain is where it’s at .
A good example of this is the fact that if Labour had put in their manifesto that if elected to government they would like to rejoin the single market it’s highly likely they would have lost the election .
Reform again in my opinion are gaining traction because of the 2016 referendum result and it could be argued are onside with potentially 17 million voters .
The discourse is of course huge , divides within divides and the established political class hamstrung in gaining enough support amongst the carnage .
A small sample size I accept but at my company which is small , less than 10 people consisting of educational backgrounds from university to state school all are Reform voters and all voted to leave the EU .
I think Brexit is increasingly irrelevant – people realise it was a disaster now.
So yes, it matters for Reform votersm but they will never vote Labour anyway.
It’s divide and rule – setting people against each other by race, gender, sexuality, disability, welfare, science, environment, medicine, economics, media etc. while lining the pockets of an elite and undermining and destroying collective/socialist structures and enterprise in the name of nationalism/popularism.
In terms of right vs far right, it’s a matter of degree and clearly the Overton window has shifted right and seems to shifting further right and not just in the UK although there are a few countries going the other way.
So if only a minority go to church, we can’t call the UK a Christian country.
But you don’t go to church and you still claim to be a Christian? Please can you explain this inconsistency or are you now no longer claiming to be a Christian?
I have said I am a Christocentric Quaker
…And (for contrast) I’m a non-Christocentric Quaker from Devon. Myself and my (now) wife attended a Quaker awareness weekend about 30 years ago. On the whiteboard on the first evening: ‘Are Quakers Christians?’ Mmm…I hesitated! But the answer is beautifully simple: Yes and No. I was hooked!
Agreed
Oh come on Lucy?
To give an attribute to anything, it is has to be a dominant one does it not?
If the poor, disabled and other minorities were treated as Jesus intended I would have no issue with calling this county Christian.
But we do not treat them as Jesus tried to teach us. We do not live in this country as if we honour God or his prophet sent to teach us. OK, we’ll talk a lot about morality and things like sex, and theft – in fact a lot of it is about sex even though the human body is designed for it – but we seem to think that it is OK to be indifferent and even cruel to those less fortunate than ourselves and Jesus for a start never advocated that.
Do you honestly think that what determines a country’s religious direction is its worship of God by going to church?!! Really? What, rather than treating each other as his son advised? So, its OK to pay lip service to God and his teachings and be ‘seen’ going to church rather than true worship through your human conduct on earth toward others?
Wow. I mean wow! If you believe in being saved, then surely you must have realised by now that your salvation is linked in part to how you conduct yourself towards others who are less fortunate? It is how you and this society walks it walk that determines part of whether you are saved or not, whether you or it is Christian. You show your faith through walking through life like God/Jesus suggested with your eyes open and sensitive to those around you. It is more than just going to church and saying a few prayers and singing a few hymns is it not?
I have come to believe – and not without foundation – that there are more Christians outside the church than it it.
Well said
@PSR
AGREED! (all of it)
I also share your lapses into anger, and the moral descent it exposes one to.
Righteous anger – we need more of.
Vengeful, demonizing anger, that’s destructive.
I also share your understanding of what “evil” looks like and your opinion of what could qualify a country to consider itself “Christian” (deeds rather than creeds – James, mercy rather than sacrifice – Hosea)
One of my guidelines is to look at what got Jesus angry and how he expressed that anger (to individuals, to groups, to institutions), what made him cry, what made him show compassion, when he had to be argued with.
Then I compare that to what so many of his disciples got angry about then. & get angry about now (including me), and feel ashamed at the huge gap between the two.
Thanks
I once upset a bunch of Methodists in Central Hall, Westminster, who tried to defend their tax ‘planning’. I actually stormed out, knocking a chair over on the way, having eventually having had enough of them. I was advised I needed to control my anger, and had to laugh when pointing out who had abused a Temple before me.
I think the word “populist” should never appear on its own without a descriptor of “rightwing” or “leftwing”. The populist parties at present are overwhelmingly rightwing – Reform in Britain, Maga in the USA, Front National in France, AFD in Germany etc. The only leftwing populist party with any significant electoral support that I am aware of is the Sarah Wagenrecht party in Germany, although Bernie Sanders clearly represents the leftwing populist wing of the Democrats in the USA.
To my mind the fundamental feature of populism is that it offers simple slogan-based solutions to what are usually complicated problems. That explains its appeal to the millions in all countries who do not pay much attention to the reasons for the problems that they are aware of in their daily lives. So the populists strike a chord when they blame stagnant wages on immigrants rather than unchecked neoliberalism. However, there is a germ of truth in their argument, as the current Maga civil war over the H1B visas demonstrates – the tech oligarchs want total freedom to recruit cheap labour from India at the expense of native-born candidates. But of course a much greater cause of stagnant wages is the destruction of trade unions and forty years of unchecked globalisation and pro-neoliberal legislation and tax changes which have let the 1% grab nearly all the spoils, just as intended.
Rightwing populism is also defined by white nativism which is often a thin cover for racism. It’s obvious that Farage has always promoted white identity politics just as much as Trump has. One of the supreme ironies of Brexit is that it was undoubtedly won by Farage on the issue of immigration, but in the subsequent years the white skinned immigrants from Europe have been replaced by mostly brown skinned immigrants from Africa and India, and in much greater numbers. The law of unintended consequences strikes again. I haven’t the slightest doubt that deep down, Farage would prefer a return to freedom of movement with the EU, provided that it resulted in greatly reduced immigration from the rest of the world.
I quite like Neil Wilson’s latest post which reinforces the belief in my mind that the the UK is mired in far-right “performative nonsense” when it comes to understanding how the country’s monetary system and global trading work including the so called progressive newspapers like the Guardian and Independent.
https://new-wayland.com/blog/sluggish-economies-need-more-spending-not-less/
Good article
The emergence of the ultra right is so common across the world – that it must have something to do with the way global capitalism is working itself out. If the system were ‘sensible’ it would try to find a way of maintaining the incomes and satisfying the basic needs for food warmth, shelter, education etc – components of a decent life for even lower income groups.
Richard lists the components of the ultra right, but it is difficult to capture and characterise the phenomenon that is its rise. One wants to resist conspiracy theories but Refom is platformed so much by @BBC, with the overt narrative that Reform/Farage is the only alternative to Labour/Tory, with no investigative curiosity about other ways of looking at politics – including Greens/Libdems. At this time of extreme political volatility you would have hoped the ‘public service broadcaster’ would raise its game and step forward to try to inform the great British public. Instead it is stepping backward.
The ultra right succeeds when it manages to channel mutually conflicting desires and/or prejudices – implying it’s ‘the others’ to blame – as people here have said – immigrants, baby boomers. women, LGBQ+ etc. by telling mutually contradiictory stories – untruths in plain sight, lies that even those who are attracted dont really believe, but they still give Farage/Trump full credit for telling us untruths they know we dont believe.
Maybe people know its destructive – even to themselves – but at least its different – its an adventure.
Its terrifying. Its the thirties.
Well said Richard. This is a trenchant, well argued evisceration of Reform. They are a danger to our society. It would be nice to think that your thoughts reached those who might be influenced by them. Do you think this possible? Or is it, like the foolishness of Brexit, preaching to those who won’t listen or can’t understand?
I suspect they would call me a Marxist and ignore all that I say.
I am not a Marxist.
Thank you for the mind map. It helps cement what you discuss.
I’m glad someone likes it
Videos are being planned in more detail this year
That was a helpful summary of far-right “behaviour”, & as a result, I’ve found myself thinking about the “vision” thing (the 2025 task?), but not OUR vision, rather, the far-right vision.
We’ve bemoaned the LACK of vision in the Labour Party – their key message seems to be a Bill-Clintonesque “Ah feel yore pain “(Primary Colours), combined with “it’s someone else’s fault”, “it’s MUCH worse than we thought”, “you must be patient”, “we can’t afford it”, “private capital will (eventually) sort things”, “we are a party for working people”, “if you DON’T work, you aren’t part of the vision”, which is IMHO guaranteed to hand power to Fa***e or the Tory far right in 2029.
But what is the far right “vision”? What does THEIR ideal society look like?
I know that it involves a lot of lying and false promises (just like Starmer), and that the far right populist promises are undeliverable on the basis of their neoliberal economic policies (like Labour) but….
Putting aside that the far rigjt vision is based on lies that their declared policies can’t deliver (just like Labour, just like Trump, as Richard has blogged on), what IS the society, the vision, the ideal that they preach (whether they believe it or not, whether they can deliver it or not)?
In particular, what is the ATTRACTIVE bit, or with what ATTRACTIVE GARB, is the nasty underbelly of the far right disguised?
IS there a coherent far right vision? If so, what is it?
Are there several irreconcilable far right visions for different audiences (delivered nowadays by granular AI-powered profiling and targeting (a bit like Labour). (I personally lean towards this latter analysis of how the far right project a multi-faceted vision – that there is a fundamental deep-rooted dishonesty in their politics (similar to Labour, but with Labour I think the dishonesty is less deeply rooted, less well thought through, more incompetently opportunistic).
Can we leave aside the negatives about the far right, and try and understand the POSITIVE appeal of a far right vision? Because I think we need to undertake that exercise, if we are to have fruitful omnibus conversations, where we ASK those supporting the far right (Reform &Tory supporters, our neighbours, colleagues, family members, co-religionists):
What is it you believe in?
What do you hear Reform (or the Tories) offering you?
What will that look like?
How will that be delivered?
Who is included?
Who isn’t included and do you know any?
What will happen to the not included?
I’m interested in what the far right voters THINK the message is, rather than what it ACTUALLY is when you analyse the promises/claims.
That isn’t so we can tack in that direction (which I see as the despicable & failing Starmer/MacSweeny tactic), but so we can use those insights to deliver OUR vision in a way (truthfully), that will catch those people’s attention. So that we can expose the far right’s hypocrisy & dishonesty (but not until we’ve understood the appeal of their “vision(s)” to our fellow voters, who currently vote for them).
THEN we present OUR vision, based on OUR principles, having tried to enter their world, understand their aspirations. (In Christianity we call that Incarnation, the Word becoming flesh and moving into the neighbourhood).
For complete clarity. I utterly reject the current cynical Labour way of hoovering up Reform/Tory voters, by tacking in their direction, primarily because of Starmer’s deeply-rooted mendacity, hypocrisy and complete lack of political vision.
But I can’t forget how a party that ended up disposessing, arresting, deporting, shooting and gassing >17m of those excluded from it’s vision (Soviet civilians, Jews, gays, disabled, Slavs, Roma, Socialists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Freemasons) presented a vision to the public that gained the active support of a lot of ordinary people, including collaborators in the territories they annexed or invaded, and the tacit consent of many more, during the late 1920’s/30’s through Goebbel’s lies and Leni Riefenstahl’s attractive propaganda films. I also can’t ignore how many German Christians were part of that complicity.
So, what do we see as the attractive package(s) that the far right are trying to sell us?
Thoughts, anyone?
Thinking about that, I suggest we include the cultural and historic context in which all that evil happened. The stories they were already telling themselves. I think the far right hitched their appeal to that of epic, romantic visions of a heroic, betrayed, resurgent German nation whose noble and exceptional destiny was visualised as playing out against a backdrop of (say) Wagnerian opera. I don’t think the appeal was rational. To be honest I think we over-estimate the rationality of the majority of people. I think the appeal was emotional and sentimental, dominated by swelling muscles, rousing choruses and waving flags. And we see the same sort of nationalistic, bombastic, wish-fulfilling tales are being told by Hollywood and by British cinema and TV. People believe there is such a thing as a totally English person who is unlike anyone born anywhere else in the world, for instance. Any rational approach to that, any reference to the swathes of ever-growing knowledge we have about human prehistory and history would dispel such a notion in a moment: but the idea of a people waiting for a once and future King to come and re-instate them in Albion lingers and is easily evoked by the likes of Farridge, not openly but by a haunting inference, maybe.
@ Inga Marie Hopwod
That’s EXACTLY what I was fishing for, and is v helpful, esp the 2nd bit about the England/British vision. THX!
Ever come across British Israelism? (we are the 10 lost tribe of Israel, a bit like the Book of Mormon).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Israelism
It was quite popular in rural Strict & Particular Baptist Chapels in Kent and seems to have got popular in the late 1880s. It provides an origin story (completely without foundation) for “English exceptionalism” and took root also in USA.
What is terribly sad is I know quite a few people, (who maybe don’t pay as deep attention to politics as I do) who claim they support Reform and Farage. However when I ask about their views on specific policies they are often the opposite of what I believe Reform intends. If I try to point this out they generally don’t believe me and tell me “no that’s not what Nigel would do, you should listen to what he says!” I am at a loss as to how we stop the Country going the way it appears to be.
We have to build narratives
I’m more a Groucho Marxist that a Karl Marxist.
There is a lot of heat and light over the term ‘Christian’ but….
Nations have philosophical and Social ‘norms’ The Dutch approach to Euthanasia for example goes much further that I am sure even its advocates in the UK would privately support but is based in the Calvinism that = at one stage about half the Country shared.
Similarly any attempt to deal with Russia needs to understand what they have experienced through World Wars, Napoleon and Revolution.
These are nations who we share a limited cultural heritage with – now attempt to talk to the Chinese, Japanese or Koreans – there are special ‘flight safety’ manuals for Koreans to cope with their cultural differences.
So, in one respect Britain/The Netherlands/Russia are not Christian countries BUT it shapes our thinking in ways we do not always realise
I accept the influence
But it needs to be the benign nature at the core of the faith, not the malign form too often seen church teaching.
Thé far Right are social darwinists, hostile to thé poor and disabled.
They are Also hostile to thé French, Roman catholicism, and law , apart from case law.
They support leaders With maximum discrétion to pur sue vague objectives – like make america great again .
They support agression , préparation for war , and bélieve in thé supériority of théir own sidè in future conflicts with inferior races.
In short They are à danger.
I recently had two revealing encounters locally.
A passing acquaintance told me a while ago that her husband had been waiting for over three years for a minor operation for a condition which had nevertheless rendered him unable to leave the house! Recently I met her and her husband in the street. He looked well and I expressed my supposition that he must finally have been treated, and successfully. His wife in her own way said how pleased they were that they could resume a more normal existence but how the delay was all due to the influx of foreigners who get preferential treatment by the NHS. Othering immigrants
The second encounter was with a well-healed local estate agent. We were chatting about the recent election and she said she had voted Conservative her whole life, her family were all Tory but she was quite content with Labour’s win because she felt that the current leaders were sensible and their idea that we should pay for GP appointments seemed to her to be perfectly reasonable and necessary to improve the health service. Othering the poor
The far-right parties are knocking on an open door.
Thx for those v helpful examples Hannah V.
The “vision” in those 2 real life stories, I take to be…
1. A vision of an NHS without unreasonable waiting lists, and a welfare system that supports the sick when they need it. (Money, Manpower, Materials) – a GOOD vision.
2. A vision of an economic system that rewards hard work, properly resources primary care, including a decent triage system for accessing it. (Policies, People, Processes)
Another GOOD vision.
We don’t have either at present, but then, we aren’t told the truth about WHY. (neoliberal economics, unfair subsidies, & regressive taxes which privelige wealth & increase inequalities of wealth & income, and politicians who lack integrity within a political/media system that makes it easier to demonise others with lies rather than solve the problems).
Of course the far right are lying about why we don’t have those things (by othering immigrants and othering their version of the scrounging feckless poor – just like Ch5’s exploitative dishonest “Benefit Street” mockumentaries did, during my time managing a food bank). None of the far right’s lying incoherent “policies” will right those wrongs, they will make them worse. But that isn’t the point.
BUT, BUT, BUT – the vision the far right are appealing to (dishonestly) is SOUND. It’s one we can engage with, its one we have answers for (but when did you last hear a politicial leader articulating such answers? About 5 years ago.)
And that’s how we beat them. Not by mimicing their filthy callous lies, not by demonising their supporters as “deplorables” or “racist bigots” or “thick” (that’s my neighbours you’re talking about), but making sure we PROVIDE the resources (££, people, infrastructure) to guarantee reduced manageable NHS waiting lists and resources for properly triaged primary care, and a sense of fairness, and allowing constructive informed debate about immigration, poverty and social support, that DOESN’T other snyone & is based around truth.
As has been said on this thread, destroy the far right by destroying the grievances they feed on, because of implementing policies that reduce waiting lists, reduce the fear of poverty around sickness & disability and evangelise about the benefits of an inclusive fair diverse society by demonstrating that it WORKS for the benefit of ALL of us. And of course, practice a different economics (where gov’t spending finances tax revenues, not tax revenue finances gov’t spending) and show that THAT works too.
Labour could do that NOW if they wanted. But tragically they don’t.
We have to change that.
We CAN change that.
We WILL change that.
Thanks
I agree with you Robertj this is the way forward additionally we also need, which I think your post implies, jobs and opportunities in our home communities so those communities can ‘take back control’ of their lives and those of their family and local community. I think the real issue is, that, despite apparent near full employment according to the statisticians, the experience for a lot of people is scrabbling and competing for a smaller slice of a smaller and smaller pie while more and more people pile in to share that pie. It’s exhausting. At the same time people feel they have lost control of their local social and cultural environment while local council services, youth clubs, sure start, day centres, libraries have been decimated pubs are closing, high streets are desolate and very few people are attending church, many will need to work on Sundays and/or night shifts. The 24 hour life/work cycle comes at a high price. All the anchors of the community have been destroyed and people are living mainly online.
This is the inevitable outcome of neoliberalism. We need an unrelenting focus on jobs and opportunities rather than getting distracted by personalities. Getting attractive skilled jobs into these communities is no easy task. The Tories ramped up Freeport’s to do this in keeping with neoliberal principles of de-regulation to induce investment. Freeports are being supported and even extended by Labour. The logic of neoliberalism that profits and jobs are created by undercutting competition is deeply embedded in our cultural understanding of how the world works and what we need to do to grow the economy. We need a discussion of protectionism of jobs and opportunities to support communities. Literally back to the Keynesian idea of digging holes in the road in order to create employment or in today’s lingo repairing potholes – no need to dig. But to do this we need a narrative of national renewal that requires wealth to be reinvested in this programme or taxed and invested in this programme. We need to oppose the narratives that wage rises cause inflation and undercutting competition creates growth. Creating a surplus of jobs so people aren’t in endless competition with each other and forced to undercut each others wages to secure a job, and getting a decent wage into peoples pockets for its own sake, because it’s the right thing to do, has to be part of the narrative.
They are not just knocking at an open door they have walked inside and are busy trying to indoctrinate the young voters, and voters to be, on social media. Finance from Musk will enable individual targeting. I try to combat the influence in school, but it is amazing how bloody complacent senior ‘leadership’ is. As a veteran of using numbers, marching and the odd bit of force against the NF in the 70s, this is far, far bigger than the NF were. I see it as an existential crisis for England and Wales, though maybe a lever for independence for Scotland.
I share your concerns
I’ve always wondered how a private company can stand for parliament. When challenged, Farage says he’s about to change the structure but then increases his shareholding.
Re one-nation Toryism, a former National Front member told me (in 1982) that Thatcher had moved her party so far to the right there was no further need for a Fascist party.
What attracts people to the right is mainly greed and a complete inability to see the other side of any argument before rejecting it.
On a very basic level it appeals most to those who are only concerned with their own wants and opinions. They are often poorly educated and not the sharpest tools in the box. – Their basic philosophy is,”My way or the highway”!
So we continue to reap the dividends of cutting basic services and keeping the plebs in their place, falling back on that ancient modus operandi of “Bread and circuses “
Thank you RobertJ for your analysis and propositions building on but ultimately destroying the far right cynically dishonest “explanations” as to causes of our current dire situation and people’s perceptions about it largely shaped by repetitive media propaganda e.g. Farage on the BBC endlessly.
It was encouraging to read this on Labour councillors and 100 local grassroots members leaving the party in Broxtowe because of Labour’s policies:
“From the cutting of the winter fuel allowance for 11 million pensioners [despite Labour’s own analysis from 2017 revealing that thousands of pensioners could die as a result of the policy], to the retention of the two-child benefit cap for struggling families, the increase in bus fares across our towns and cities, the betrayal of Waspi women pensioners to a tepid response to the genocide in Gaza” and “Labour’s plans to scrap two-tier county and district councils.”
” …. another centrist government intent on destroying local democracy and dictating national policy from a high pedestal” putting “the concentration of power in the hands of fewer people and the abolition of local democracy through the current proposals of super councils is nothing short of a dictatorship, where local elected members, local people, local residents will have no say over the type and level of service provided in their area”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/starmer-broxtowe-labour-councillors-b2672965.html
@Hannah V
You mention “dictating national policy from a high pedestal”. Too true!
A perfect example in France, as an arrogant president Macron repeatedly imposes his centrist PM choices, who do not have parliamentary support. The voters have split left and right (after record turnouts in 1st & 2nd rounds), yet Macron refuses to allow either left or right to take their chance at providing a PM. Their constitution prevents an election until 12mths after the last one, so the stalemate continues. Voters don’t like being ignored.
In UK the Labour Party bureaucracy (Labour Together, Starmer & their donors) imposes its will at the candidate selection stage against the wishes of large CLP memberships, and then wonders why they are so low in the polls.