It’s not often a warning about rising fascism from Leon Trotsky, and the title of a Beatles’ song, get put together! But, if nothing else, it underlines the fact that we’re living in ‘interesting times’ as regards politics in the UK. And ‘interesting’ here is a reference to that ancient Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times!” This was a curse hurled against ‘unpleasant’ people – as the best times in history to be alive are the ‘uninteresting times’: no famines, plagues, civil wars or wars for historians to write about. 

The first part of this title is taken from the warning Trotsky issued at the end of 1931, at a time when the Nazi Party was having increasing success in local and regional elections in Germany.

His warning was directed to the leaders and members of the German Communist Party, which – like the German Social Democratic Party – was refusing to agree a united front of workers’ organisations against the common threat posed by the rising Nazi Party:

“Should fascism come to power, it will ride over your skulls and spines like a terrific tank. Your salvation lies in merciless struggle. And only a fighting unity with the Social Democratic workers can bring victory. Make haste, worker-Communists, you have very little time left.”

Yet his warnings were ignored – and history soon showed how correct his warning was.

The second part of the title of this piece comes, of course, from John Lennon’s 1969 song ‘Come Together’, from The Beatles’ Abbey Road LP:  https://ok.ru/video/5110172342

The writing on the wall

The recent elections in England, Cymru and Scotland have a message that couldn’t be clearer: the threat from creeping fascist RefUK, and fascist groups such as Restore Britain and UKIP, has now reached worrying proportions. The left – and all progressives – will ignore this at their common peril. That threat is the result of many factors – but, at root, are the real economic hardships that millions of people have been suffering for the past 15 years: austerity, foodbanks, fuel poverty, the lack of affordable decent social housing, the ‘Cost of Living’ crisis, and under-funded public services. Leaving aside the damage done to so many working-class lives and communities by Thatcherism, those economic hardships are the result of policies deliberately imposed by the Tories – and, for 5 years, by the LibDems – after 2010.

Yet, despite having a clear majority in the Commons after the 2024 general election, Starmer’s neoliberal government has failed to seriously address most of those economic hardships. This failure has allowed RefUK – financed by UK and overseas multi-millionaires – to launch a glossy campaign claiming that all the problems are the result of small boats and refugees.

But, compounding all that, Starmer – instead of tackling those economic problems – has actually gone along with much of what RefUK says about refugees and asylum seekers. Surprise, surprise: Farage’s response has been to say that this shows RefUK has been right all along.

The collapse of the spineless

Almost as worrying as RefUK’s election gains are those ‘progressives’ – politicians and members of the general public – who concede ground to creeping fascism by ‘responding’ with comments such as: “But lots of people, from all walks of life, are saying they’re worried about the small boats.” Which only shows that RefUK’s publicity – paid for by the over-rich 1% – is proving ‘successful’.

Anyone with a bit of political backbone would counter such views by patiently pointing out FACTS. Such as that there were no small boats until after Brexit – yet austerity, poverty and foodbanks had grown massively since 2010. Or that the economic problems have been caused by hard-right neoliberal Tory policies – and that RefUK’s ‘solutions’ are policies that are even more hard-right/anti-working class than those of Cameron and Johnson.

You can only wonder if such craven people had been alive in Germany in the late 1920s and early 1930s, whether they would have said – in response to the Nazis’ antisemitic propaganda – “But lots of people, from all walks of life, are saying they’re worried about Jewish people.”

Wringing hands is NOT enough

But wringing hands and sadly shaking heads over RefUK’s electoral gains is NOT the response that’s needed. Crying over spilt milk is never effective. What’s needed is a two-fold response.

Firstly, people need to recognise exactly what we’re looking at whenever we come across RefUK: creeping fascism – which is a modern form of fascism. Just because Farage and his RefUK party don’t dress up in scary uniforms – such as strutting around in jackboots, wearing brown or black shirts – it doesn’t mean they’re not promoting policies that have usually been associated with outright fascism. Farage & co’s expensive suits, blue ties and stupid grins hide a really scary future for the many.

As one of the characters in the 2025 film Nuremberg https://anticapitalistresistance.org/why-fascism-happened/ says about the Nazis’ tactics: “They stoke hatred. It’s what Hitler and Göring did, and it is textbook.”The Nazis, of course, stoked up hatred against Jewish people in order to get into power – Farage and RefUK do it against refugees and asylum seekers. Different victims – same tactic.

Secondly, we need a massive and determined response that will effectively challenge the lies, distortions and fake-news spread by RefUK. Because, make no mistake, RefUK’s performances in these recent elections in England, Wales and Scotland don’t need to get much better before there’s ‘a real and present danger’ of a far right RefUK/Tory coalition government. As a very recent and perceptive article https://anticapitalistresistance.org/reform-win-labour-lose-big-greens-advance/ has said, that would be: “a big threat to the well-being and interests of the working class.  Socialists need to build the broadest united struggles to stop this happening.”

The Together Alliance

So, what, right now, are the best chances of building such a broad united resistance to this rise of the far right? Some on the left are still fixated by the ‘Popular Front vs United Front’ debate. Whilst this was a very relevant and important issue in the 1920s and 1930s – when many countries had large socialist and communist parties, and when trade unions had large memberships – it is a less relevant issue today in the UK. Because, quite frankly, we don’t have any of those political advantages.

The Labour Party – despite still having some good members and MPs – is small and declining; and the current leadership of Your Party seem determined to change its name to: ‘What Party, Where?’ While trade unions today have relatively small memberships, and have been much weakened by anti-trade union legislation since 1979. Finally, to the left of the Labour Party, there are just a variety of parties and groups with small memberships.

The best – arguably, only – chance we have on offer, at present, of successfully resisting the far right, is the recently-formed Together Alliance. https://www.togetheralliance.org.uk/?ref=ed_direct

This year, the Together Alliance managed to bring 500,000 people out for a march against the far right. Encouragingly, instead of sitting on its laurels until organising another mass demo next year, it is now holding meetings in October to build the campaign against the far right: there’s one in London on Saturday 10 October, and one in Manchester on Saturday 17 October.

Those serious about blocking any further far-right/creeping fascist advances need to get involved with one of these meetings. We truly are ‘looking down the barrel’ of a future UK government with a strong far-right presence. As Trotsky warned: we have very little time left!

There’s no room for complacency, and there are no excuses now – we know what we’re facing, and we know what we need to do. As another character in Nuremberg said about why fascism came to power in Germany: “You want to know why it happened here? People let it happen. Because they didn’t stand up until it was too late.”