Hi ,
Whether or not Reform UK do well in tomorrow's local elections – and it looks like they'll do very well indeed – they are guaranteed to get enormous amounts of media coverage. And here we are, adding to the problem. There'll be headlines about the UK's new far-right caucus; alternatively, there'll be self-congratulatory statements celebrating that the UK fought them off. In truth, the far right has been part of the UK's political system for decades and it's here to stay.
The media focus on the horse race and the persistent belief that the UK is immune to the European far-right surge (due to our electoral system or the innate nobility of the British people, depending on where you get your info from) has fed a lot of complacency in our political system. There's a strong belief that being forced to run local authorities will damage the outsider parties that have been doing well in the polls, while our governing party has welcomed the opportunity to define itself against an enemy. Labour have been keen to convince people that the local elections are a choice between Labour or Farage, believing that most will choose the former. Both Labour and the Conservatives have adopted rhetoric and even policy modelled on offerings from far-right parties around the world; especially around ideas of cutting government waste pioneered by Argentina's Milei and expanded by Trump and Musk.
The problem is that this misunderstands the appeal of the far right. You cannot become an anti-establishment party by releasing a petition against asylum hotels if your party is also running the literal government. You can, however, convince a lot of people that far-right parties are right about the issues they're raising, which is why immigration and welfare reform have both rocketed up the list of issues people are concerned about.
This is very evident in the rapidly growing support for Reform UK amongst the UK's trade union members. A union organiser in the East Midlands told reporter Taj Ali that he thought about half of all young men in the union back Reform UK and trade union stewards could stand for the party in Wales, while Farage has made appeals to save British Steel by nationalising it the centrepiece of his campaign, as well as calls to nationalise the failing water industry. Trade union support for the far right is not new, nor is the apparent contradiction between mass support for workers rights and the overwhelming hostility of the far right to workers rights.
So far, the backlash to the far right has focused on highlighting that contradiction as much as possible, but there are limits to criticism as a strategy – especially from voices of the establishment when the main uniting factor for the far right is distrust of that establishment.
We know that inequality is a major driver of support for the far-right by undermining genuine democracy, strengthening an economic elite by hurting the rest of us, and fostering widespread mistrust. We need our establishment to start taking the threat of the far right seriously and give up on the idea that they, unlike every other European and Anglosphere country, can simply adopt some far-right rhetoric and win. Instead, political parties, trade unions, and civil society need to stop inequality before inequality stops them.
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