THE so-called Unite the Kingdom far-right demonstration earlier this month was the largest such mobilisation in this country in its history, with as many as 150,000 participants chanting anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and pro-Israel slogans, tearing apart Palestinian flags and assaulting bystanders, peaceful anti-racist counterprotesters and police officers.

The scale of the turnout went beyond the numbers usually managed by far-right agitator “Tommy Robinson” and shows, worryingly but unsurprisingly, that the Farageist racist message is cutting through to people in the most deprived parts of our society.

These people believe the false narrative that deprivation and collapsing public services are because of migration rather than because of the cuts and other policies to serve the interests of elites that have been imposed by successive Tory governments and now by the right-wing Labour government of Sir Keir Starmer.

Despite the violence of the crowd, cheered on by racist speech, ultimately only 23 people were arrested at the far-right demonstration, a stark contrast with the peaceful sit-down protest by anti-proscription activists, largely elderly or disabled people, where the Met arrested almost 900 non-violent protesters.

This mismatch is one clear facet of the way in which Starmer’s language, policies and priorities are fanning the flames of fascism in our country.

The scapegoating that has fuelled the growth of the far right has been made possible by the systematic amplification of its message, not only by the mass media — which was eagerly platforming Nigel Farage long before he was in Parliament or a numerically significant political force — but also by Starmer and his allies, both in opposition and in government.

In 2023, for example, then-shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper sided with the Tories and Farage to denounce Gary Lineker’s comment that the level of hate speech in Britain’s political landscape reminded him of 1930s Germany.

In the run-up to the 2024 election, Jonathan Ashworth pandered to racist narratives by telling Newsnight viewers that “people coming here from the Indian subcontinent do not get returned, they get put up in hotels and they can stay in these hotels for the rest of their lives.”

Within a month of Starmer getting into power, Cooper, then home secretary, announced an anti-immigrant “blitz” on nail salons, hairdressers and car washes in a blatant example of trying to appeal to the Farage base.

In May this year, six months after attacking the Tories for being too lenient on immigration, Starmer made a notorious speech that was compared to Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” racist incitement when he said immigration was turning Britain into “an island of strangers” and described the immigration system as “almost designed to be abused.”

The racist incitement and fascist enablement of the Starmer government have not been limited to rhetoric. He and his front bench have boasted of and even inflated the numbers of people they have deported.

His support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza and his abuse of anti-terror legislation against non-violent anti-genocide protests have fostered Islamophobia and allowed the far right to openly express hatred toward Muslims and Islam, as we saw all too clearly during the recent demonstration.

But this is not the only facet of Starmer’s fostering of far-right hate and dragging Britain further into fascism.

Since taking office last year, Starmer has refused to depart in any meaningful way from the Tories’ 14-year-long war on the living standards of ordinary people and the vital public services they rely on, redoubling austerity and continuing to describe social security and other aspects of the welfare state, including the NHS, as “unsustainable.”

To distract from these realities, he has gone even further in whipping up nationalism and resorting to increased militarism, insisting that the NHS must “reform or die” and that Britain must constantly spend more on arms.

Starmer’s whole approach seems designed to create the ideal conditions for the growing far-right current to evolve into full-blown fascism.

Indeed, it can easily be argued that in many senses fascism already arrived with the Starmer government, particularly in its assaults on freedom of speech, its repression and criminalisation of protest and the imprisonment of political opponents from the anti-genocide and climate change movements — even before trial — as well as in his continued demonisation of refugees and anyone he can treat as “other.”

This month’s far-right protest came after months of mass racist intimidation outside hotels housing asylum-seekers and the orchestrated campaign encouraging racists to paint roundabouts and hang St George’s Cross and Union Jack flags on lampposts and monuments.

Rather than clamp down on expressions of racism, Starmer reacted by boasting of always sitting in front of a flag at home, suspending the system for dependents of asylum-seekers to apply for refuge, boasting of those he had deported and promising to replace “asylum hotels” with what amounts to concentration camps in warehouses and on military bases.

Arguably, this was not just disgusting in the eyes of the left and others; it was not even appealing to the racist right. The main chants at the far-right rally, alongside “Stop the boats,” were questioning Starmer’s parentage and personal habits.

But Starmer’s attempts to outflank Farage on the right allowed Robinson and others to claim that “Politicians all of a sudden are finding courage and they’re parroting the things that we have said for 15 years.”

While those who voted for Labour in last year’s 2024 general election might have thought they were voting for the “Change,” as that was Starmer’s campaign slogan, to all intents and purposes Labour appears to think its job, on behalf of the elites whose wants it clearly prioritises, was to continue the programme of class war and austerity that the chaotic Tories had proven unable to complete.

Voters have deserted Starmer in their droves since the election — fewer had backed him than Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour in both 2017 and 2019 anyway —  while the support Starmer and his allies have generated for racist views and policies has seen backing for the so-called “Reform UK” burgeon.

Just this week Reform UK announced plans to abolish indefinite leave to remain, make migrants ineligible to claim benefits and introduce repeated English standards test every five years, framing migrant workers as undeserving and a drain on resources, fuelling division, xenophobia and scapegoating. 

With the foundation already laid by Starmer, Reform UK’s barbaric scheme is racial capitalism in its purest form: exploit migrant labour when profitable, then criminalise and deport them when political expediency demands it. This assault on migrant workers is part of a global pattern. Reform UK manufactures a crisis to justify their racist agenda.

Few could seriously argue that pandering to the racist right is doing anything but destroying the Labour Party and its chances in the next general election — Labour’s polling is at record lows — but promoting the growth of right-wing opposition provides those who want to take the country into outright fascism with the basis and narrative they want, while heaping fear on the tens of millions of us who need a country in which all are treated equally and fairly regardless of race, religion, disability or income.

What appears to be the deliberate fostering of the far right mirrors what is happening in France, Italy, Germany and other countries and is already entrenched in Hungary, Argentina and elsewhere, as was also clear from the far-right rally, which hosted fascist speakers from the French far right, the so-called Danish People’s Party and the openly racist Alternative for Germany.

All this masquerades behind populist rhetoric designed to deceive the unwary, but it is funded by billionaires and pro-Israel donors with an agenda to worsen the lives of ordinary people and to shorten the lives of many.

With mass finance and media coverage ranged against the interests of ordinary people and a government prepared to resort to any measures to further the interests of elites, the British people desperately need a new political force, but the new “Your Party,” the foundation of which I have been working on for the past two years, has had some “teething issues” this month, much of which reminds me of the 1981 film Reds starring Warren Beatty.

With a poisoned British politics and a government fanning the flames of fascism, neither time nor politics are going to wait for the left to sort out its ideological, democratic and political differences. Election results in France showed a little of what can happen if the left gets its act together. Nothing must be allowed to get in the way of our unity and resolve to drive fascism off our streets and out of our politics.

Claudia Webbe was previously the member of Parliament for Leicester East (2019-24). You can follow her at  www.facebook.com/claudiaforLE and x.com/claudiawebbe.