THE wave of far-right riots is not dissipating. The horrifying assault on a hotel housing asylum-seekers in Rotherham, with a deliberate attempt to burn refugees to death, is a step change placing obligations on us all.
The scale of the response to the online call-outs by far-right agitators forces the left to reassess the reach of fascism in Britain and how we defeat it.
No attempt to rationalise this savagery is tolerable. Tory police and crime commissioner Donna Jones’s (quickly deleted) statement claiming the mobs were motivated by “the desire to protect Britain’s sovereignty … uphold British values and … stop illegal immigration” was a shameful attempt to window-dress race hate. It was a justification of people attacking — trying to kill — other people because of the colour of their skin.
What it does show is the grey zone, the overlap between race rioting and the drip-feed of poison from politicians over years that has nourished it: implying asylum-seekers are criminals, promoting Islamophobic narratives to smear peace protests that raise difficult questions about our government’s support for genocide and apartheid.
Far-right faker Tommy Robinson’s claim that anger has been brewing because “Hamas were allowed to overtake London” doesn’t just echo the bile of Reform UK MPs like Lee Anderson, but the whole political class’s framing of the peace demonstrations, including Labour’s claim in opposition that voting on a ceasefire motion might put its MPs at risk of violence — from a Palestine solidarity movement that has been consistently peaceful.
It reveals too the fundamental dividing line between the politics of solidarity and hope and those of hatred and reaction. We must not be duped by politicians like Lord Walney, who tries to lump peaceful protest and far-right rioting together and claims both are whipped up by foreign powers. The hundreds of thousands who marched again this weekend for Palestine are a line of defence against the far right: authoritarian politicians are not.
Indeed, the reflex invocation of foreign puppetmasters prevents a serious analysis of the roots of fascism’s growth, the reason for which is twofold.
Firstly, the deep social and economic malaise which has affected our society since 2008-9. The results of 45 years of deindustrialisation and public service decline, falling living standards as prices outpace wages, and the erosion of stable communities through the loss of secure jobs has created the soil in which fascism can flourish.
This has been compounded by the failure of mainstream political parties to offer any coherent alternative.
No long-term strategy for the defeat of the far right can ignore the need to break with the neoliberal nightmare and adopt an economic strategy that tackles inequality, delivers universal employment and rebuilds the public sector.
An industrial investment strategy and the rebuilding of Britain’s productive economy are essential to removing opportunities for the growth of the far right, as is working-class political representation, beyond the airbrushed politicians of the mainstream parties.
Secondly, politicians have created bogeymen out of desperate refugees to distract from their complicity in an economic system that screws over the majority of the population.
We must challenge this hateful rhetoric wherever it rears its head. There must be zero tolerance for the scapegoating of the most vulnerable. Politicians’ soundbites about being tough on immigration are a directly contributing factor to what happened in Rotherham.
But we also need an immediate mobilisation to defend communities under attack.
The horrors in Rotherham show we cannot sit out the riots or trust to the police to protect refugees, Muslims or black communities. We must protect our communities and take back our streets.
For much of the left, and for the trade union movement, given the very real threat of violence from the fascists, this will mean relearning the methods used by previous generations to isolate, refute and, where necessary, directly confront the neonazi menace.
