The hurricane from the Right

Abstract

In Race & Class 65.2, two key articles examined the British war on woke (Hugh Davies and Sheena MacRae) and the role of Tory ‘post-racial’ gatekeepers (Rima Saini, Michael Bankole and Neema Begum). This commentary draws out the lessons for activists, from the two articles and campaigns on the ground, as to how far-right ‘theories’ and ideas are becoming mainstreamed by the media, politicians and academics.

On 3 October 2023 the home secretary and would-be next Tory leader Suella Braverman was warmly received at the Conservative annual Conference for decrying a ‘hurricane of mass immigration’, calling the Human Rights Act the ‘Criminal Rights Act’, and declaring that she stood with ‘the hard-working common-sense majority against the few . . . the privileged woke minority, with their luxury beliefs’, which included saying that a man can be a woman. ¹ She was, she said, telling the ‘unvarnished truth about what is happening in our country’ and she was not squeamish about being smeared ‘as racist’. Every far-right idea or trope found its way into her bilious rant – foreign prisoners, who should be ‘booted out’; grooming gangs, who should be tracked down; the police, who had to be allowed to catch criminals; gender ideology, vagrants, white privilege, anti-British history, political correctness – all the obsessions of the far Right − got an honourable mention. ²

How did we come to this?

In recent years, there has been a ‘cultural revolution from the Right’, with what were once considered extremist ideas travelling into the heart of Britain’s political culture at a time when the state itself has become more authoritarian on a range of issues. Nativist, racist and bigoted views are now being defended in parliament in the name of free speech. Aggressive protests outside asylum accommodation are commonplace, and outside abortion clinics; Drag Story Hour events and cultural installations celebrating the contribution of the Black British community have also been targeted. In the pages of mainstream newspapers, influential hard-right cultural commentators use their privileged access to the media to wage ‘a war against woke’, mobilising conspiracy ‘theories’, ridiculing those who campaign against structural racism as perpetuating ‘woke myths’, whilst also claiming to speak for the working class, by which they mean white and native workers. ³

Context

Part of the answer for this lies in the authoritarian drift in society as exemplified by a raft of new laws − such as the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, Public Order Act, Judicial Review and Courts Act, National Security Act, Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act and Illegal Migration Act – all introduced since the re-election of the Conservative government. ⁴ These are the culmination of decades of neoliberal economic policies that have disinvested from communities, dramatically widening the gap between rich and poor and entrenching inequality, which has also been racialised. ⁵

Today’s hard Right encompasses the rebellion within Conservativism that now links itself to US politics through Conservative Political Action Conference and National Conservatism Conference, new electoral vehicles like Laurence Fox’s Reclaim Party, media outlets like GB News and Talk TV, conservative think-tanks like Policy Exchange and associated academics who provide a quasi-intellectual veneer. And it also draws support from the mainstream press, with the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and The Sun’s coverage of migration issues, particularly during the government’s ‘Stop the Boats’ campaign, inspiring increased far-right activity. ⁶

Racist rhetoric associated with Enoch Powell in the 1960s is being revitalised, this time under the banner of the Great Replacement conspiracy theory which holds that white European populations are being deliberately replaced, particularly by Muslim populations, and are at risk of being wiped out through changing demographics due to migration, miscegenation or violence.

As a general election looms, the Right has become adept at using social media to spread conspiracy theories like the Great Replacement as well as disinformation around climate change, covid-19, Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, ‘15-minute city’ planning and so on. The latest manifestation of this is the social media campaign against London’s ultra-low emission zone (ULEZ) which pushes the Islamophobic theory that the mayor plans to ‘exempt Muslims’ and other ‘minority religions’ from the charge, leading to a marked uptick in racist social media messages, referencing ULEZ, sent to London mayor Sadiq Khan. ⁷

Mainstreaming far-right activism

We need to recognise that the activities of the far Right are on a spectrum – some look like what one would expect, in terms of violence on the street, but we have to note how targets are changing and also how the creation of narratives and mobilisations over local issues on social media are being harnessed by the Right.

For example, on 20 September 2023 in Dublin, around 200 people gathered near Leinster House, the Irish parliament, to protest against the government. Politicians, their aides and journalists were threatened. People walking to work were racially abused. Two women had urine thrown at them and a number of high-profile legislators, including the Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald, were trapped in a car park. Most unsettling was the erection of a set of mock gallows covered with portraits of prominent Irish politicians. What brought 200 people to undertake such a violent, hateful and, as the Irish deputy prime minister put it, ‘fascist-like’ protest? Organisers called it a ‘Call to the Dáil’, ostensibly in protest against the government’s protracted hate speech bill. But a number of other issues featured in speeches and on placards and leaflets handed out during the day: against housing asylum seekers; concerns over sex education and ‘gender ideology’ in schools; Covid-19 and vaccines; ‘globalism’ and the World Economic Forum.

In this hatred towards elected officials, the judiciary and anyone deemed to represent ‘the elite’, campaigners in Ireland saw a parallel with the post-Brexit climate in the UK and the murder of the British MP Jo Cox. When Cox’s far-right murderer appeared in court after stabbing and shooting her days before the EU referendum in 2016, he gave his name as ‘death to traitors, freedom for Britain’.

The fallout from both the Brexit vote and the pandemic has toxified our political culture, from ‘world government’ conspiracies, to resistance against clean air and net zero initiatives, to demonstrations against asylum seekers’ hotels, drag artists reading to children and virulent hostility on social media, to Black Lives Matter activists and feminists – with the latter drawing on a violent incel subculture which became more publicly obvious following a shooting rampage in Plymouth in 2022. ⁸ Whilst Covid-19 lockdowns may never return, the mass movements and online networks against coronavirus measures across the globe have left a legacy of growing extremism wherein genuine anxieties, about the cost of living crisis, a lack of affordable accommodation, in-work poverty are being perverted and radicalised. Confusion and a lack of information on a particular issue can end up as a gateway to more extreme, overtly far-right attitudes.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman, a qualified lawyer, has done more than most to mainstream far-right narratives, describing those seeking sanctuary as an ‘invasion’, ridiculing police officers for taking the knee during BLM protests, decrying ‘woke rubbish’, encouraging moral panics over ‘trans ideology’ and even suggesting that LGBTQ+ people seeking asylum from persecution are unworthy of protection. ⁹

Hope not Hate finds that as mainstream media coverage of migration and asylum issues increases, articles from these newspapers are shared on Telegram, often alongside extreme racist language. Following the ‘shock-jock’ tactics of Fox News in the US, TV stations such as GB News amplify and broaden the reach of far-right protests, as their anchors argue that ‘asylum seeker hotels are disproportionately affecting the working class’. ¹⁰

Recognising far-right inroads for the deceitful and divisive campaigns they are can be hard to do since they can focus on areas where there are genuine concerns, such as jobs, benefits and housing. And they utilise seemingly common-sense slogans to then push emotional buttons about ‘us’ and ‘them’, the national as opposed to the international, individual advancement as opposed to social solidarity. What is significant is the way that such far-right ideas are rapidly being incorporated into the mainstream of society, law, politics, public discourse and ‘learning’.

Issues and slogans

‘British Jobs for British Workers’ / ‘Our own people first’

Regrettably, the slogan ‘British Jobs for British Workers’ was mainstreamed by Chancellor Gordon Brown in a speech given three weeks before he became prime minister in 2007. ¹¹ The slogan was then, in 2009, used on banners by refinery and power workers during unofficial strikes over UK construction jobs being awarded to European workers. ¹²

Since then, nativist arguments about immigrants needing to be stopped from stealing ‘our jobs’ and taking advantage of our system have been enshrined in policies for immigrants such as the ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’ condition, hospital charges for undocumented migrants, and a range of visa fees, which the Conservatives have recently increased by up to 35 per cent to fund public sector pay increases. The Immigration Health Surcharge (paid by international workers, including those working in the NHS, to access the NHS) was also increased by 66 per cent from £624 to £1,035 per year.

Stop ‘Benefit broods’ / ‘Our human stock is threatened’

Echoes of eugenicist views were evident in the run-up to the introduction in 2017 by the Tories of the two-child limit for child benefit, with the media carrying stories on ‘benefit broods’, demanding that something be done to ensure that parents make decisions on whether or not to have children based on what they could afford. The control of certain women’s capacity to have and care for children is today a key tactic of both the far Right and the hard Right which see it as women’s duty to carry out the reproductive labour that strengthens and purifies the nation. But those who are deemed undesirable – which here includes those on welfare – have their rights restricted. The two-child benefit policy can be seen as one aimed to control fertility and reduce the number and size of ‘undesirable’ families who are seen as unproductive and a burden on the welfare state.

‘Breaking Point’ / ‘We will not be replaced’ / ‘Stop the Boats’

The unveiling of Nigel Farage’s June 2016 EU referendum poster of a queue of migrants and refugees with the slogan ‘Breaking point: the EU has failed us all’ was, hours later, followed by the murder of the Labour MP Jo Cox by a white supremacist who repeatedly shouted ‘Britain First’ as he shot and stabbed the pro-refugee rights MP. The subliminal message of UKIP’s poster is clearly that Britain is being overrun by immigrants. The failure to take action against UKIP’s incendiary poster, despite a complaint by Unison to the police that it incited racial hatred, has emboldened the far Right to amplify the Breaking Point message. Today, Patriotic Alternative leaflets handed out at anti-asylum protests say ‘Stop the Invasion: We will not be replaced’ and a banner drop at a summer camp in the Peak district declared ‘We will not be replaced’, ‘White Lives Matter’ and ‘White British Minority by 2066’.

One of the first pieces of legislation proposed by Rishi Sunak as prime minister was the Illegal Migration Bill. It was quickly sold in the media as the Conservatives’ ‘Stop the Boats’ bill, with Home Secretary Suella Braverman – a day after a far-right attack on a migrant centre in Dover – calling for an end to the ‘invasion of the south coast’. The embracing of the far Right’s ‘kick them out’ message is also reflected in the government’s proposal to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda or the Ascension Island in the South Atlantic.

‘It’s political correctness gone mad’ / ‘they’re turning a blind eye out of fear of being called a racist’

Also in discussions around ‘British Pakistani grooming gangs’, an issue exploited by the English Defence League for over a decade, there has been little difference between the positions adopted by the mainstream parties and barely any concern about how the racialisation of sex crimes plays out on the streets, despite the fact that Muslim communities in northern towns have been systematically targeted in provocative far-right and so-called ‘counter-jihadi’ incursions which have included Britain First and the English Defence League, with Muslim communities, in the face of police indifference, having to defend themselves, leading to the notorious case of the Rotherham 12. ¹³ After the British prime minister said grooming gangs are hard to prosecute due to ‘political correctness’ (and that ethnicity data will be handed over to police to assist with investigations), the Labour party responded by publishing an advert which claimed that Rishi Sunak, who is of South Asian heritage, does not support jailing child sex abusers − thus playing into racist stereotypes.

Today, the Muslim grooming gang narrative and the moral panic around the migrant ‘invasion’, are fuelling attacks on asylum housing in the UK and Ireland. Such moral panics draw connections between the presence of Muslims or asylum seekers and acts of sexual violence against (white) women. Such narratives are used by the far Right to gain footholds in communities, by feeding off anxieties about crime, economic insecurity, housing shortages and diminishing healthcare. When Home Secretary Suella Braverman announced a consultation on child sexual abuse, she added fuel to the fire by accusing professionals of turning a ‘blind eye’ to it out of fear of ‘being called racist’.

‘White Lives Matter’ / ‘All Lives Matter’

The slogans ‘White Lives Matter’ and ‘All Lives Matter’ emerged in the US as a riposte to the renewed activism of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement after the police killing of George Floyd. After a surge of popular support for BLM, expressed particularly by sportspeople who took the knee, the reactionary slogans travelled to the UK. In 2020, a Burnley football fan lost his job at the aerospace manufacturer Paradigm Precision after unveiling a giant White Lives Matter banner at a premier league fixture with Manchester City. ¹⁴ And in 2021 Patriotic Alternative scaled Ben Nevis and erected a giant White Lives Matter at its summit. ¹⁵

Perhaps most disturbing is the rehashing of White Lives Matter themes in numerous private police WhatsApp groups that, over the last year or so, have been exposed for their racist, sexist and homophobic content, leading to gross misconduct hearings and dismissals. It is noteworthy that the Metropolitan police chief Sir Mark Rowley recently banned officers from wearing the Thin Blue Line badge, which, in the US, is firmly associated with white nationalism. ¹⁶ Significant, too, is the fact that Suella Braverman questioned Rowley’s decision and herself used the phrase ‘Thin Blue Line’ to show her support for the police in her 2023 Conference speech. ¹⁷

The far Right’s whiteness agenda cloaks an unspoken appeal to white supremacy. Here it’s hard to spot any difference between the far-right worldview and the international identitarian movement (Alternative Right) whose core belief is that white identity is under attack from pro-multicultural and liberal elites. Such beliefs have been cited as inspiration in the manifestos of extremist mass killers at Christchurch (2019), Buffalo (2022), El Paso (2019), Bratislava (2022), etc.

International vehicles for the repackaging of Alternative Right ideas are the US Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and the National Conservatism Conference (NatCon) which met in Budapest and London in summer 2023. Nigel Farage, former leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party and then the Brexit Party, has spoken more than once at the US CPAC− a group which has aligned itself with anti-woke causes as well as the Great Replacement theory.

The National Conservatism (NatCon) conference set up by the Washington-based Edmund Burke Foundation, which met in London in May 2023, substitutes Christian nationalism for white nationalism. While never openly supporting the Great Replacement theory, it remoulds it in quasi-scientific language and threat scenarios around population movements. And in emphasising the ‘demographic threat’, it plays to what Sophia Siddiqui describes as the ‘birth-rate agenda’, ¹⁸ which provides a space for anti-immigrant, demographic and ideologically anti-feminist agendas to converge.

It is significant that amongst attendees at the NatCon Conference were Conservative ministers Suella Braverman and Michael Gove, and MPs Jacob Rees-Mogg, Danny Kruger, and Miriam Cates. Cates is an evangelical Christian who argues that the biggest threat to our society comes from the ‘liberal individualism that has failed to deliver’ babies, with the solution being to ‘reduce immigration and build more homes’ in order to support ‘family formation’. ¹⁹ Danny Kruger and Miriam Cates, co-founders of the New Social Covenant Unit, recently launched the New Conservatives, a pressure group of Red Wall Conservative MPs campaigning for a dramatic reduction in immigration. In this way, Cates and Kruger follow the logic of Policy Exchange’s senior fellow, the sociologist Matthew Goodwin, another participant at NatCon, who argues that immigration and ‘higher fertility rates’ amongst migrants are ‘the main driver of population growth’ and pose a threat to indigenous democratic and cultural security. ²⁰ Goodwin was recently appointed as a commissioner of the Social Mobility Commission which has a remit ‘to challenge employers, the professions, universities and schools to promote social mobility’. ²¹ In addition, Cates, who opposes the protection of women entering abortion clinics from abusive protests, mirrors far-right proponents of the Great Replacement, who blame global elites and feminism for aiding replacement through increased abortion rights and access to contraception.

The individuals and organisations that came together under the NatCon banner cannot be considered fringe. They have had a significant impact on government policies such as the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, which creates a fertile environment for bigoted ideas to pass into the mainstream under the guise of ‘viewpoint diversity’. ²² This is part of a wider ‘anti-equalities agenda’, supported by Conservative ministers Kemi Badenoch and Suella Braverman and former prime minister Liz Truss, that uses the ‘war on woke’ to press for changes to the Equality Act and other laws meant to protect vulnerable minorities from racism, homophobia and transphobia. ²³

Some may be driving forward a ‘set of ideas’ that could allow for legislation in favour of white nationalism. For example, Eric Kaufmann, a senior fellow at Policy Exchange, has argued for ‘racial self-interest’ to be considered a legitimate point of view which could be factored into policymaking decisions. ²⁴ (The specious argument about racial self-interest not being racism could play on socially conservative views amongst working-class people, in relation to racial and sexual minorities and amongst trade unionists who may be ill-informed about what they could perceive as non-class-based politics of identity.)

Targeting local issues

Below we examine some examples of how far-right campaigns are attempting to lay down roots in communities by harnessing their ideas to local concerns.

From Covid conspiracies to climate and cars

During 2020, regional Telegram chats hosted by networks such as The White Rose peddled anti-vax and Covid-19 conspiracies. Users in those groups started to share other conspiracist content, with speculation that lockdowns would be used to fight climate change. As the world opened up and normality resumed, these same networks have brought environmental planning policies into their conspiracy orbit: ULEZ, 15-minute cities and Low Traffic Neighbourhoods are held up as another element of the ‘great reset’ for the elite and global bodies such as the World Economic Forum to exert control over public space and restrict people to their immediate surroundings. Reversing net-zero commitments, Rishi Sunak has appealed to rightwing anti-climate and even conspiracist positions, saying ‘anti-motorist’ policies are against British values. ²⁵

Asylum accommodation

The government policy that has boosted the far Right more than any other in recent years is undoubtedly its housing of asylum seekers – in hotels, in military barracks and on former RAF bases. Far-right activists have mobilised swiftly to protest at asylum hotels and join local campaigns opposing asylum sites. Sometimes posing as ‘independent journalists’, these self-styled ‘migrant hunters’ follow a pattern of infiltrating communities and local Facebook groups, engaging in conversations to rally support and promote racist and anti-migrant content. ²⁶ In Portland, where the Bibby Stockholm is docked, a Facebook group ‘No to the Barge’ has become a hotbed of violent racism and Islamophobia, with users openly discussing ‘bombing’ the barge, how migrants are rapists and should be put into a proposed waste incinerator. ²⁷

Across the country, groups such as Patriotic Alternative deliver leaflets raising concerns over housing provision, suggesting refugees and asylum seekers get 5-star treatment whilst ‘Brits freeze’. A particularly active fascist group organising in and around asylum sites is the National Support Detachment (NSD) led by Alek Yerbury, a former soldier, who has concentrated the NSD’s efforts in Lincolnshire around RAF Scampton, where there was public outcry after a £300m development was pulled to house 1,250 asylum seekers in shipping containers. At the beginning of October 2023, a suspected homemade petrol bomb was discovered near the external fence at RAF Scampton.

‘Protecting’ women and children

More violent responses have stemmed from the weaponisation of gender-based issues. Positioning migrants as a threat to women and girls, the large mobilisation that led to a riot in Knowsley, Merseyside, in February 2023 was prompted by the spread of disinformation through a video purporting to show an asylum-seeking man attempting to ‘groom’ a teenage girl. Utilising the language of ‘child protection’, the far Right has now replicated this sexualised threat of ‘grooming’ against the LGBTQ+ community with a number of protests against Drag Story Hour (DSH). Typically held in libraries, community centres and pub function rooms, such events are held all over the world including the UK. One DSH event at the Honor Oak pub in south-east London has been picketed on a monthly basis by Turning Point UK (TPUK) since February 2023, with serious violence committed against the local LGBTQ+ community and questions raised over the police response. ²⁸ Despite such challenges, the local LGBTQ+ community, anti-fascists, trade unionists and residents have consistently outnumbered the far Right. When local MP Vicky Foxcroft asked Rishi Sunak what he thought of the monthly TPUK protests, he said the government was reviewing its relationships and sex education (RSE) guidance in schools to ensure it was ‘age-appropriate’.

Anxieties over RSE and the apparent proliferation of ‘gender ideology’ and, indeed, inclusive education in schools as a whole, is another fixture of contemporary ‘anti-woke’ organising. Teachers are increasingly at the frontline against such campaigns, and in October 2023, Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, accused equalities minister Kemi Badenoch of ‘grandstanding’ after she demanded OFSTED carry a snap inspection into Rye College in East Sussex, immediately after the Daily Mail claimed a teacher at the school was at the centre of a ‘gender row’. ²⁹ Public Child Protection Wales (PCPW) unsuccessfully challenged the Welsh government in court for its sex education in primary schools, describing a ‘dangerous woke agenda’. When PCPW launched the legal challenge, it gave an interview to the far-right Voice of Wales, which has been involved in ‘migrant hunter’ actions and anti-drag protests. ³⁰ PCPW also attracted the interest of the conspiracy movement, with The Light newspaper describing its legal loss as a victory against the ‘sexualisation of our children’. ³¹ Once again, these far-right moral panics are lent legitimacy by politicians, with Miriam Cates and Danny Kruger’s New Social Covenant Unit producing a report calling for a government review on sex education in schools. ³²

Ramping up the rhetoric

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and, especially, Home Secretary Suella Braverman are now in the business of mainstreaming far-right concepts and ideologies in the UK (as at the Tory Conference on 3 October 2023) and abroad. On 26 September 2023, Braverman was in Washington, DC, giving a speech that questioned whether the refugee convention was ‘fit for our modern world’ and spoke of the ‘misguided dogma of multiculturalism’. She also spoke of the ‘high birth rate’ among ‘foreign-born mothers’, which would add pressure on school places – a clear gesture towards the Great Replacement theory. This birth-rate anxiety featured heavily at the National Conservatism conference in London in May 2023. Braverman’s rhetoric was then condemned by the UN. The leader of Patriotic Alternative, Mark Collet, responded to the speech, ‘we should capitalise on this . . . and steer the national conversation’. One user on Tommy Robinson’s Official Telegram Chat wrote of the home secretary, ‘I can see her standing for PM’. The rightwing media hailed Braverman as a new ‘international superstar of the right’.

Braverman’s ambition for the Tory leadership is well known. Less so is the role of her political mentor, Sir John Hayes MP, leader of the ‘anti-woke’ Common Sense Group of conservative MPs. Hayes was heavily criticised after writing a joint letter to the National Trust referencing ‘cultural Marxism’, a phrase that appeared in Anders Breivik’s manifesto and which Braverman has also used. ³³ Miriam Cates MP also used the phrase at the National Conservatism conference in May 2023. (The Antisemitism Policy Trust, whilst acknowledging that the term is not antisemitic in itself, has raised concerns about its current usage in political discourse, suggesting that it is a ‘shadowy term openly used by antisemites, neo-Nazis and others with nefarious intent’ and is ‘now code for a Jewish conspiracy’. ³⁴ )

Media and the role of influencers with links to the far Right

The role of new and legacy media is another factor in the mainstreaming of the far Right. The public broadcaster has played a part in elevating hard-right politics. The BBC’s ‘Question Time’ has not only handed Nigel Farage more appearances than any other politician this century, but it also hosted the leader of the British National Party, Nick Griffin, in 2009. But currently our concern should be about the ‘Foxification’ of our news – which refers to the process of mass media, particularly television news, adopting the format, practices and perceived political leanings of the Murdoch-owned US cable network, Fox News. Here ‘Foxification’ of the broadcast landscape occurred through the launch of GB News (in 2021) and Talk TV (in 2022).

Home to a number of Conservative MPs hosting their own shows, GB News has breached broadcasting rules on numerous occasions including for platforming anti-vax conspiracies. The channel has also interviewed a number of far-right groups and supporters, ³⁵ whilst host Martin Daubney promoted a fake story about ‘sexual harassment from refugee boys’ sourced from a ‘Hotels Housing Illegals’ Telegram chat. ³⁶ A Facebook group of the same name was reported as hosting misinformation that led to the violence in Knowsley. Previously a Brexit Party MEP and Deputy Leader of Laurence Fox’s Reclaim Party, Daubney has shared video content from far-right protests with his sizeable social media following. Laurence Fox, Martin Daubney and the anti-abortion ‘deacon’ Calvin Robinson, have all been promoted as guest speakers at events organised by Turning Point UK, an offshoot of Turning Point USA, with links to Conservative MPs which also generates content for the Alternative Right in the US. The role of these media personalities is not just to attract attendees, but to amplify far-right narratives and share selective content internationally. The huge platform of these international rightwing influencers and the apparent coordination between them, makes disinformation a key front in the ‘culture war’.

Robinson and Fox were recently sacked by GB News, following a misogynistic tirade by Fox against the journalist Ava Evans. Whilst Fox and Robinson may be deemed even too rightwing for the home of Nigel Farage and Jacob Rees-Mogg, the removal of these public figures from a national broadcaster may not prevent their rise and increasing influence via far-right and conspiracist alternative media.

Conclusion

The fight against the extreme Right has changed. It is not enough to say, as we did against Nazi-style groups, ‘They shall not pass’ (through our streets or into our communities) – their ideas are passing into the mainstream, gaining traction within the Conservative Party and influencing legislation. There is an urgent need for campaigns of public education on the dangers of conspiracies like the Great Replacement, but also the conditions that have allowed them to spread − so as to join the dots between power, structural racism, exploitation and the crisis in housing and the cost of living. This has to involve combating disinformation online by amplifying evidence-based information and analysis.

Difference (whether this is racial, sexual, gendered or depending on immigration status) is being weaponised and false scapegoats are being presented so as to deflect from the real root of social and economic problems – three decades of neoliberalism and austerity. At a time of economic precarity, we need to dismantle the nativist idea that deprivation and a lack of opportunities is because ‘multiculturalism has failed’, with some groups getting more whilst others are ‘left behind’. The cost of living is a manufactured crisis, and we must call those in power to account for their policies.

18 October 2023