“Fascism unites … the scattered masses… all the countless human beings whom finance capital itself has brought to desperation and frenzy… Out of human dust it organizes combat detachments.”
One of the most insightful commentators on first-wave fascism was Leon Trotsky, who repeatedly warned about the dangers posed by early fascist movements. Trotsky’s understanding of the essential nature of fascism led him, early on, to advocate a ‘United Front Against Fascism’ between the various parties of the European labour movement – including Germany’s Social Democratic Party and the German Communist Party (KPD). However, his warnings in the late 1920s and early 1930s about the dangers posed by interwar fascism were largely ignored by the leaderships of left parties and of the trade union movements.
While openly outright fascist parties in the UK are nowhere near becoming mass political parties, some 15,000 far-right and fascist demonstrators attended a protest in London in 2018, called in support of the fascist ‘Tommy Robinson’ (aka Stephen Yaxley-Lennon). At the time, that demo was probably the biggest fascist gathering in British history – bigger than those of Mosley’s BUF in the 1930s, and bigger than those of the National Front in the 1970s.
However, even that was dwarfed by the one Yaxley-Lennon called at the end of July 2024 – in large part as a ‘cultural’ protest at the Trans Pride march – when an estimated 20,000 of his far-right and fascist supporters turned out to hear speeches against immigration. Then, in October 2024 – following the ‘Farage Riots’ of August 2024 – another ‘Robinson’ call-out saw a similar far-right turn-out. Although numbers on the anti-fascist counter-demonstration were much better than for the July demo, the anti-fascists were again outnumbered.
‘Creeping fascism’
Those worryingly-large turnouts in the UK are just one example of the modern ‘creeping fascism’ that the late Neil Faulkner – and others – began warning about in 2019.
As recent elections in many countries on mainland Europe have shown, progressive principles and democracy itself are also increasingly under attack from far-right authoritarian parties. ‘Creeping fascism’ – like first-wave fascism – furthers the interests of the capitalist elites and corporations. Often, this is done by dividing and demoralizing the main victims of capitalist greed and crises. The methods used include racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, disablism, and intolerance directed against all those sections of society deemed ‘alien’ or ‘other’.
Such parties ‘manufacture’ and spread ideas about ‘threats’, in order to stir up latent fears and prejudices, and then seek to ‘capture’ and mobilise those who have been stirred up. Whilst migration in general has long been a ‘theme’ of such parties, the focus is increasingly on the number of climate refugees from the global South – especially those arriving in small boats. In addition, other ‘creeping fascist’ targets include feminism; equal rights for members of LGBTQ+ communities; and ‘culture war’ issues in general. Hence increasing evidence of such parties ‘flirting’ with misogyny, patriarchal restoration, racism, xenophobia, and homophobia and transphobia – all of which are core ‘creeeping fascist’ elements.
Today’s ‘creeping fascists’ – in both Europe and the USA – ‘profit’ from neoliberalism’s myriad crises. Trump’s victory in the USA’s November 2024 presidential election shows what can happen if even the more ‘progressive’ parties fail to offer real solutions for the problems increasingly faced by ordinary people. This helps explain why, in the UK, the July 2024 general election saw Farage’s hard-right populist Reform UK gain five MPs and win over four million votes, with 14 per cent of the votes – putting them third, ahead of the LibDems.
The ‘Blackshirts’ are back
Yet, in some respects, the UK left seems remarkably – criminally? – complacent about such recent political developments on the far right. Hopefully, Farage’s Election Rally in Birmingham – on Friday 28 March – will serve as a belated wake-up call. Farage has claimed that 10,000 Reform candidates and supporters attended – which, if true, makes it similar in size to Mosley’s British Union of Fascist rally in London’s Olympia in 1934.
As reported by the anti-fascist magazine, Searchlight, Farage announced at the Birmingham Rally that his party will be standing in all 1600 seats in the local elections on 1 May – as well as in all 6 mayoral contests and the Runcorn by-election. He also claimed that Reform’s party membership was now over 200,000 – putting it ahead of Tory Party membership by some 25,000. Currently, opinion polls are regularly showing Reform on percentages similar to, or greater than, those for Labour – and ahead of the Tories.
Predictably, several speeches were directed at Muslims, migrants – and “Marxist agitators” working in schools: all typical ‘culture war’ issues. Farage’s speech pushed a Trump agenda: pulling Britain out of the European Court of Human Rights; ‘funding’ the NHS through private insurance; and ‘downsizing’ the state in the way Musk is doing in the US via his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Farage actually called for “a British form of Doge, as Elon Musk has got in America. Let’s have a British Doge.” It’s worth recalling that, in Renaissance Venice, the Doge was an autocratic ruler – and that the term ‘Duce’ (as used by Mussolini) derives from ‘Doge.’
Time for the left to act!
For several years now, various left groups – including Transform, Left Unity and Collective – have been engaged in earnest discussions to form a broad mass radical party, well to the left of Labour. The far-right/’creeping fascists’ now have a party – with a clear and recognisable logo – that operates across all the nations of the UK, and which is designed to ‘rally’ its supporters: whether it’s those who’re increasingly frustrated and angered by the mounting impacts of neoliberal austerity, or the ‘usual suspects’ of assorted intolerant reactionaries. While we, on the left, still have…sod all!
While local community-based initiatives resulted in 6 Independent Left MPs being elected in last July’s general election, there is no over-arching programme for these 6 MPs, never mind a single recognisable unifying logo. And while on-going local initiatives in places such as Liverpool and Newcastle – to name but two places – are encouraging and very positive, they are not enough! We need a new party of the left that, like Reform, can be easily recognised across the whole of the UK.
Part of the delay has been down to some who feel it essential to get good left politicians – like Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott and John McDonnell – to announce their support for the launch of such a left party. Somewhat like Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot – in which Godot never arrives! Quite frankly, such politicians should be asked – now! – how many deaths in this new round of austerity are they prepared to accept before they finally pull their collective (pun intended!) fingers out and start helping to build a mass left party!
A chink of light
0n Saturday 29 March, over 2000 people attended a ‘Summit of Resistance’ announced as an opportunity to “build a movement of hope and turn the tide on despair.” It also stated, under the slogan ‘We Demand Change’, that the meeting was about demanding “an end to forever wars and permanent austerity. An end to racism and rising fascism. An end to a government serving its billionaire donors rather than the people of Britain. We demand a better life for all.”
These would definitely be some of the key messages that a left party posing as an alternative to Farage and Reform would need to put forward. There is space for such a left party – probably more than at any time since Corbyn’s highly successful 2017 movement. So it was great to see that the Summit, the day after Farage’s Birmingham rally, included a session called Party time? A discussion on Left Strategy. It was addressed by Andrew Feinstein who stood against Starmer at the general election, by Noor Begum, fresh from her triumph in trouncing Labour in the Iflord byelection two days earlier, Zoe Garbett, Green Party member of London Assembly, Richard Boyd Barrett TD from People Before Profit in Ireland . However though Im sure there was interest in the topic amongst the many attendees, from the subsequent write-ups it doesn’t seem to be a priority area for the main organisers and promoters of the day.
Further we on the left start from a big disadvantage – in that we don’t have multi-millionaire donors. But, to be successful in countering the threat from Reform, we’ll need to set out a positive vision of the changes we want to see – not just have a checklist of all the things we’re against. We need to present a radical alternative to neoliberalcapitalism and a vision of the world transformed.
Red-Green Alliance?
It’s now clearly too late for the left to get anything up and running in the month we have left before the local elections in May. But there is next year’s locals when yet more seats will up contested and , assuming it doesn’t come before 2029, it’s not too late for the next general election. Even so, it will be a difficult task to build something substantial and effective over the next 4 years – but, as the long-time environmental campaigner Wendell Berry said in 2013, in an interview titled ‘Confronting the Consequences of Runaway Capitalism’: “We don’t have a right to ask whether we’re going to succeed or not. The only question we have a right to ask is what’s the right thing to do?”
In the short term, some on the left are beginning to suggest maybe an anti-Reform electoral pact between the Green Party and local independent left groups will help block the election of Reform councillors. It is, however, worth remembering that the Green Party in 2025 is not as radical as the Green Party was in 2015. Since then, the ‘realos’ have had the upper hand; and, as 2019 showed, they’re at least as likely to form a pact with the neoliberal LibDems.
But we need to get moving – now – with or without Corbyn and co. As Trotsky unambiguously warned the German left at the end of 1931, as regards the rising Nazi Party: “Make haste, … you have very little time left.”
NB Featured image is a composite image of Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch