Far right pose a threat to our democracy

Published by The i paper (5th August, 2024)

So the first crisis of Sir Keir Starmer’s time in Downing Street turns out to be a summer rampage of terror and thuggery stoked by the far-right. These repulsive merchants of hate have exploited the slaughter of three girls at a dance class and the stunned grief of a traumatised community to spread fear and violence.

They claim to be patriots fighting for their nation while sparking assaults on police, attacks on firefighters, beating up of black people, looting of shops, setting fire to cars and a library, smashing up hotels, terrorising places of prayer and threatening refugees.

The massive majority of British people will be horrified by this display of hate and anarchy as it vies for headlines with the heroism of a yoga teacher who protected small children from the Southport knifeman and genuine patriots performing wonders at the Olympic Games.

The real face of our nation was seen with the community-minded citizens who delivered such a beautiful rebuke to the boneheads and hoodlums descending on Southport by clearing up their mess and mending a wall by the mosque. “My lasting memory will not be fear but kindness,” said Ibrahim Hussein, a local imam.

Starmer has rightly pointed out these were not protests but acts of criminality and violence. His record as director of public prosecutions during the 2011 summer riots suggests he will be forceful in terms of legal response.

Yet four wider issues are highlighted by these sickening events – and they go far beyond jailing a few foolish teenagers and hooligan ringleaders.

First, these events highlight the risk posed by the far-right in Western democracies. In the United States, white supremacists are viewed as a key domestic terror threat after mass shootings at black churches and gay clubs. In Germany, with such a dark history of fascist horror, they are seen now as the main internal group hostile to the rule of law.

Three years ago MI5 chief Ken McCallum warned Britain was seeing a rising threat from extreme right terrorism, saying it was behind more than one-third of “late-stage attack plots” disrupted over the previous four years. Drunken yobs chanting “England until I die” while throwing bricks at police are foot soldiers and stooges in a sinister movement.

Second, we have people elected to our parliament who pander to this far-right and intentionally stir up volatile situations to further their ambitions, aided and abetted by influential academic and media voices with substantial audiences. Nigel Farage may wear a smart suit and smirk, but he knew exactly what he was doing when he posted a video asking if truth was being withheld over the Southport stabbings. He could have asked questions at Westminster but chose to stoke tensions.

His slimy sidekick Richard Tice claims that “law and order is breaking down at every level” in Britain, although official statistics show incredible declines in violence, anti-social behaviour, burglaries and car crime over the past three decades. Then he claims information on recent disorder in Leeds is being withheld, when it is in fact publicly available.

There should be no doubt now over the symbiotic relationship between far-right agitators and these newly-elected Reform MPs, seeking to exploit divisions after fuelling the Brexit debacle. If the wounded Conservative Party had absorbed the lessons of its thrashing in last month’s election it would run a mile from such folks, back towards the middle ground. 

Instead we see one culture warrior, Kemi Badenoch, jostling for its leadership while suggesting the sight of mosques under attack shows the need for more integration, while her rival James Cleverly claims Starmer bears responsibility for public disorder by taking the knee four years ago  in opposition to racism. 

The third issue is the incontrovertible evidence that social media spreads deceit and disinformation with such damaging consequences. Once again, we see how easily it is manipulated by malign actors to spread lies. Digital technology has delivered many societal benefits but has a sordid underbelly. It empowers and unites those lurking in shadows such as conspiracy theorists, paedophiles, political extremists and spooks from enemy states. 

Designers created systems intended to maximise time spent on their platforms by exploiting negative emotional triggers, with studies showing their algorithms foster dissent and political polarisation.

Technology giants do almost nothing to curb these toxic traits. The worst offender is X (formerly Twitter), a festering swamp whose owner Elon Musk dismissed teams trying to limit hate speech, allowed far-right rabble-rouser Tommy Robinson back and even promotes his poison from his personal account.

Meanwhile dictatorships such as Russia and China weaponise issues such as the Southport stabbings, spread lies and spray around a “firehose of falsehoods” to confuse decent citizens and foster mistrust in democracies. 

Politicians must act, whether alone in Britain or with allies. They passed a flawed law to protect online safety for children in 2023. Now they should impose tough financial penalties backed by criminal sanctions on executives for any platform that does not tackle the sewage seeping out from social media. 

This is not about censoring controversial views or reports – something I feel strongly about as a journalist whose work investigating Covid’s origins was briefly removed by Facebook. We need to find legal ways to protect citizens and society, just as broadcasters and publishers are subjected to some restrictions for the wider well-being.

The final issue is to focus remorselessly on restoration of faith in politics. One idea is to import Finland’s smart idea of embedding critical thinking in schools to equip future generations with the tools to challenge misinformation.

There is also a need to tackle the corruption that stains Westminster, end the pathetic tribalism and fix the many state failures that offer fertile terrain for extremists and populists to seed with their hate. 

The grotesque violence flaring up from Bristol to Sunderland is contemptible – yet it shows the scale of domestic and global struggles that confront our country and demand communal rebuilding, as seen in Southport.

Categorised in: Crime, home page, Politics, Public policy