SUELLA BRAVERMAN’S “invasion” speech was no off-the-cuff statement. It happened the day after a far-right inspired attacker threw a petrol bomb at a migrant centre in Dover and, as we now know, following warnings to government that hate speech could lead to exactly this kind of terror attack.

In the face of the biggest cost-of-living crisis for around 100 years, it seems that divide-and-rule racism is the go-to strategy not just for the British government but for many others around the world.

Braverman previously spoke of her “dream” of front pages showing pictures of detention flights to Rwanda. 

She knew exactly what she was doing when she made that speech, exactly as Boris Johnson knew what he was doing when he called for protection of the Churchill statue at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement.

These Trump-style flirtations with a far-right narrative will lead to more violence against refugees, just as Johnson’s call back in 2021 led to a far-right mob occupying Parliament Square and Donald Trump’s interventions helped to create the Capitol riot.

The long-lasting cordon around the racist and fascist right is being stripped away, helping to give space for the fascists to grow.

What was the response to far-right Giorgia Meloni’s election in Italy from mainstream politicians? 

Emmanuel Macron and Rishi Sunak are among those who have already sat down with her with immigration high on the agenda. 

Meloni was even congratulated by Hillary Clinton as Italy’s first female prime minister. But Meloni and her Brothers of Italy are fascists. 

This is no mere term of abuse. They track their lineage back through the Italian Social Movement through to Mussolini.

Just as with Marine Le Pen and her National Rally, Meloni and her supporters have concentrated on respectability and the parliamentary arena so far. 

But it doesn’t mean they don’t aspire to create the kind of street movement the “classical fascist” movements of the 1920s and ’30s produced — a battering ram against working-class organisations, refugees, migrants, Muslims and other communities. 

Meloni is likely to use her position to help her supporters do exactly that. Meloni, Le Pen and the likes of the Sweden Democrats have been legitimised by the overt racism, Islamophobia and anti-migrant and refugee racism used by supposedly mainstream politicians. 

Macron in France, supposedly the great champion of the centre, has used the same kind of language and narrative as Le Pen. 

The previous far-right coalition in Italy saw the Lega’s Matteo Salvini head up appalling policies on immigration and prosecute those attempting to save refugees from the sea.

Trump’s “wall” to keep out migrants and everything that went with it gave space to the far-right Proud Boys and others in the US to grow and organise, and his overt and covert backing gave them the feeling of legitimacy to try their botched attack on Capitol Hill.

The more the mainstream uses the language of the far right, the more it gives them confidence and legitimacy, the more they will grow, and at present it seems the more that the mainstream right will be prepared to invite them into the fold.

The scapegoating of refugees and migrants, Islamophobia, anti-semitism, Sinophobia, anti-south-east Asian and anti-Gypsy, Roma and Traveller racism have become the common language of governments attempting to deflect criticism from mishandling of everything from the Covid-19 pandemic to economic and environmental crises. No wonder the far right is able to gain a hearing.

The present period is incredibly dangerous. Wars like those in Ukraine, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere and climate chaos and poverty are forcing growing numbers to flee their homes as refugees and migrants. 

Rishi Sunak’s government, despite the fact that he and Braverman are the children of migrants, are prepared to add fuel to a growing fire that could lead to the now splintered far right in Britain regrouping and coming back onto the streets.

We have to reject the politics of division. Stand Up to Racism is working with Care4Calais and the TUC to mark the anniversary of the tragic deaths of 31 people and an unborn child in the Channel a year ago, with a vigil in Parliament Square at 6pm on November 24.

We cannot allow their deaths to go unmarked — we have to remind Braverman and Sunak of the human cost of the hostile environment.

Care4Calais has been doing fantastic work with the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS), challenging the Rwanda deportation plan, and we were proud to work with them both to bring together a mass lobby of the Royal Courts of Justice earlier this year. 

The court is still deliberating on the legality of this appalling plan. PCS of course has also challenged Priti Patel’s lethal channel “pushbacks.”

We are again working with the TUC to build a mass protest in London on Saturday March 18 next year as part of an international day of action to mark UN Anti-Racism Day and a major conference in the run-up to the protest “fighting for anti-racist workplaces” on Saturday February 4.

Alongside opposing the endemic institutional racism in Britain, so boldly exposed by the Black Lives Matter movement, though denied by the government, despite such horrific examples as the Child Q case and the recent police shooting of Chris Kaba, we have to build a movement that stands with refugees and migrants and does not allow working-class people to be divided at a time when we desperately need unity on the picket lines, in our communities and on the streets.

And we cannot allow fascists like Meloni and the Brothers of Italy to be normalised. Sunak and Macron may think it’s OK to meet her, but if she comes to Britain we will need mass protests to oppose her.

Just days after the anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogrom against the Jewish community in Germany at the hands of the Nazis in 1938 we have to remember that the price of silence is too high.

Weyman Bennett is co-convener of Stand Up to Racism (standuptoracism.org.uk).