Fascism is threatening Britain’s democracy again. We must stop it and put an end to what can only be described as vigilantism writes Patrick O’ Brien.

You cannot pin point a problem unless you name it. The UK has suffered the worst outbreak of rioting in over a decade, sparked initially by the murder of three young girls in northwest England before morphing into anti-immigrant and racist violence in towns and cities across the country. Rioters exploited the brutal killings as a hate filled agenda, targeting muslim communities and multi-ethnic people for attack. Though a teenager has been charged with this heinous crime, misinformation spread like wildfire online, feeding unverified narratives about the culprit, their background and their motivations.

One month after coming to power after 14 years in opposition, Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s faces a crisis of unprecedented violence, combining three of the most explosive political ingredients: insecurity, immigration and the far right. These far-right riots and the ensuing racist and Islamophobic violence are unparalleled. Yet the government’s response is to focus on ‘violent disorder across the ideological spectrum’. This dissimulation cannot go unchallenged. The problem is that left wing parties continue burying their heads in the sand at the problems people are actually worried about and as uncomfortable as the conversation around immigration may be, it cannot be ignored and unfortunately only the right wing parties are willing to address it. The spread of fascism in the 1920s was significantly aided by the fact that liberals and mainstream conservatives failed to take it seriously. Instead, they accommodated and at times normalised it

The street thuggery that accompanied fascism’s rise is not the source of its power or the cause of its eventual triumph anywhere. The street fighting is just political theatre. The clowns who caused mayhem in many UK cities may fantasise that they are following the playbook of the real fascists in the first half of the last century, but they have no understanding at all of the history of fascism. These people are fantasists, posing a policing problem but no political threat at all.

Fascist ideas harks back to some mythical past, and evokes national pride and historic grievances. It appeals to a majoritarian identity, which must find an antagonist, foreign or domestic . The situation is further inflamed by superficially respectable politicians suggesting or at least implying that those joining in the riots are not merely thugs motivated by prejudice but people with “legitimate grievances” who have supposedly been ignored by the “elite”  for instance, Reform UK’s Nigel Farage crying “We want our country back” or high-profile Conservatives using words like “invasion” as they talk endlessly about “stopping the boats” bringing asylum-seekers across the English Channel from continental Europe. Fascism brings a masculinist, xenophobic nationalism that claims to “put the people first” while turning them against one another.  This has been brewing for some time , cultural factors, such as anti-immigration attitudes, particularly against immigrants from the Middle East and Africa, as well as a backlash against progressive and cosmopolitan values or ‘wokeness’ have been the talk of the streets

There is no doubt, however, that anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment has been rising within Europe. It is driven by extremist networks but also by an increasingly xenophobic political discourse emanating from mainstream parties, exploiting legitimate concerns about the country’s ability to cope with asylum applications. That discourse has been enthusiastically echoed by the right-wing press. Yet again there are questions to be asked too about the role of social media platforms, which appear impervious to regulation or restraint. The most egregious example is provided by X owner Elon Musk, who not only appears to have no interest in curbing incitement to hatred on his site, but has used his personal account to amplify far-right voices and predict an imminent civil war. Understandably, his behaviour has infuriated the British government, and may hasten the introduction of stricter legislation.