Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK (Picture: Guy Smallman)
Reform UK grabbed five seats and well over four million votes—14.3 percent of the total—at the general election. It’s the first time the far right has had a group in parliament. The vote is similar to the one grabbed by the Ukip party in the 2015 election.
But although Ukip peddled racist politics, it had a clear endpoint—removing Britain from the European Union. It shrank afterwards.
Then came the Brexit Party which, as implementing the Brexit vote, hung in the balance—won 5,250,000 votes in the 2019 European elections. But again, that vote was linked fundamentally to leaving the EU.
Farage draws on that rotten history but now is determined to focus mainly on migrants and refugees.
Reform UK came second at the election in 98 seats, 89 of them Labour. In some the gap is large. As Aditya Chakrabortty wrote last week, “From Llanelli to Pontypridd, Reform ran Labour a strong second in 13 Welsh seats—quite some showing for a party whose leader joined the race late.
“The next devolved elections in Wales are less than two years away, and already Labour people worry they may end up a victory parade for the Faragists.”
Farage spots the chance to profit as the working class see attacks on their pay and benefits, a continuing crisis in the NHS, bad and ruinously expensive housing and a shrinking future for their children.
As Labour lets people down, Farage will say their problem is too many migrants, small boats coming across the Channel and a loss of national pride.
During the election he targeted “the 2.4 million people this Conservative government has allowed to settle in Britain in the course of the last two years.”
“The population explosion has devalued the life of ordinary Britons,” he said. “We’re in social decline. And we’re actually in a form of moral decline. We’ve forgotten who we are as a country.”
Farage, while not a fascist himself, certainly flirts with fascist ideas. This legitimises and gives confidence to those who want to spread the politics of hate on the streets.
In a similar way to Donald Trump, Farage paints himself as anti-establishment and on the side of “the little guy”.
He contrasts “half a dozen multinational corporations dominating the thought of politicians” and calls for “real entrepreneurship to flourish.”
Farage claimed that Reform UK is “very, very much on the side of that little guy or woman”.
But Farage isn’t a “man of the people”. He went to public school. He’s a millionaire stock trader whose interests lie in enriching himself and his cronies.
Farage has been careful to maintain a distance from Tommy Robinson and similar fascists. But at some point the parliamentary far right and the fascists on the streets can grow together.
There are formations, such as the Alternative For Germany party, which have gone through years of evolution and bring together electoral racists and fascists.
A group of nasty Reform UK bigots in the Commons makes those who hate Muslims, refugees and migrants think they have a voice where it matters.
It seems to legitimise people’s hate, and makes it even more important that when racists and fascists mobilise on our streets, we claim them back.
Starmer and his cohorts aren’t interested in raising class politics. So their criticism of Reform UK comes simply from a liberal place where everyone should just get along with each other.
Instead we need consistent anti-racism and socialist politics that point at our real enemies—the rich, the corporations and the politicians who support them and the capitalist system.
Activists protested a proposed burqa ban in the Welsh parliament
The neoliberal centre has created the political space for the RN to grow
Reform UK is dogged in scandal, but if its support declines, where do those voters go?
Eight unity demos across England
