Against Reactive Anti-Fascism

Beyond Reactive Anti-Fascism

The violence and racism witnessed in Southampton and Belfast last month was both shocking and expected. This is not the first time working-class communities have been confronted by far-right riots and pogroms. Time and again, the far-right has weaponised isolated incidents of violence to terrorise marginalised communities while exploiting the anger and insecurity produced by economic decline.

The challenge confronting the working-class and socialist left is not just to oppose the far-right when it mobilises, but to build the forms of working-class organisation and solidarity that can deprive it of the conditions in which it grows. If the far-right feeds on poverty, insecurity, social fragmentation and political disillusionment, then defeating it requires more than counter-protests alone. It requires rebuilding a genuinely anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist movement rooted in working-class struggle and capable of delivering material improvements in people's lives.

'Pure Cold Rage' – The Roots of Working-Class Anger

Even the most ardent free market capitalists would concede that the British people have been let down by a perpetually failing economic model. The admission by the soon-to-be Prime Minister, that the last 40 years has given us wide inequality under neoliberalism is a rhetorical sleight of hand to court progressive-leaning votes, rather than a sign that wholesale systems change is on the horizon under his leadership. But the need for this rhetorical flourish stems from the fact that the ruling class recognise that large sections of the working-class are angry with the status quo – and rightly so.

This anger did not emerge in a vacuum. In 2023, 21% of all Britons lived in poverty (a 52.9% increase from 1970). The so-called cost-of-living crisis has been compounded by soaring housing costs with social and private renters in 2023, paying 23.6% and 28.1% of their income on housing respectively. That represents a 171.2% and 198.9% rise since 1970. Contrast this with the huge increase of wealth amongst the ultra-rich. Between 2009 and 2024, the total wealth of the richest 20 families in Britain grew from £66.5bn to £303.0 bn – an increase of 355%.

Nearly three years of a live streamed genocide, backed and funded by a Labour-led government, should leave us under no illusions that the solutions to our crumbling public infrastructure, environmental breakdown, social atomisation and worsening social mobility, will not be found in the corridors of Westminster. For many, this has deepened the sense that the political establishment is either unwilling or unable to address the crises shaping everyday life.

The Politics of Managed Decline

The legacy of privatisation ushered in under Thatcher and expanded by every government since, has not been dismantled but rather built upon by the current Labour government. Whether it's the catastrophe of Thames Water or the plan to reintroduce new private finance into the NHS, dressed up in new language, but repeating a pattern that has already cost the NHS £44 billion in PFI debt is short-sighted and profit driven.

The government's plan to finance 80% of new Neighbourhood Health Centres through public-private partnerships isn't happening in isolation. The GPs who are supposed to staff these centres are already in open conflict with the government. These plans are happening while GPs are being pushed to breaking point by chronic underfunding, with thousands of qualified GPs unable to find work because practices can't afford to hire them, all while the BMA plans on balloting its members on a Plan B — a means-tested, subscription-based model for primary care, modelled on NHS dentistry. For the first time in 80 years, free access to a GP is genuinely on the table. Rather than reversing decades of marketisation, the government appears intent on extending it into yet another corner of public life.

In the period 1980-1996 Britain racked up 40% of the total value of all assets privatised across the OECD. Is it any wonder that huge sections of the population not only feel disempowered but vehemently opposed to elites and the political establishment? Yet rather than addressing the causes of this anger, governments and much of the political establishment have increasingly redirected it towards the most vulnerable in society. This has been reinforced by figures such as Burnham, whose agreement with Reform live on air that immigration detention should be expanded only serves to legitimise a politics of scapegoating.

Immigration as a Cudgel

The internal Labour coup and impending coronation of Burnham as Prime Minister does not represent a break with the political trajectory that has brought us to this point. Promises of expanded immigration detention and tougher border controls will not undermine the far-right; they will embolden and legitimise its core arguments and encourage demands for even harsher measures.

The recent surge in support for Restore during the Makerfield by-election is further evidence that concessions to the far-right do not diminish its influence but expand it. What begins as political rhetoric soon reshapes media discourse and, ultimately, spills out onto the streets of working-class communities.

The immediate need for community protection and mobilisation is paramount. But unless we address the material conditions that give rise to despair, alienation and resentment, we will find ourselves confronting the same cycle again and again. We need a coherent alternative that focuses the anger we see in the streets, into one that provides tangible solutions aimed at a sustained rise in living standards in working-class communities.

Practical Solidarity

It's important to remember that the anger felt across the working-class manifests in different ways. Most are driven to inertia or indifference, while others are persuaded to violently attack their own working-class communities who have far more in common with them, than the architects of their living conditions. Of course, there are those of us who also go out in the streets to confront the far-right, in support of our working-class brothers and sisters.

The tenant organising and practical solidarity offered to families in the UK during the 1930s both strengthened working-class communities, while repelling far-right support. This is one historical example we can look to as a guiding point just as we can look to the work of the Black Panther Party and their free breakfast programme during the late 1960s and 70s. The work of Acorn, the London Renters Union, Greater Manchester Tenants Union and others provides contemporary example of how to deliver tangible victories for renters and working-class communities. This must be built on further in our trade union struggles.

Racism is produced by capitalism, both in its “good” times, but especially during times of deep crisis. It divides our class to the benefit of the ruling classes, so fighting racism, day in, day out, is a central part of working-class self defence. The question is how to build this out and strengthen international solidarity at a time when we are more atomised than ever before, when online connection has become the default, and when the cost of living is having such widespread impact globally. These factors hinder working-class communities from carving out the space to meet and organise.

The lesson from these examples is that the far-right is not defeated simply through moral condemnation, nor solely through reactive mobilisation when violence erupts. It is defeated when working-class people experience collective power in their everyday lives; when tenants stop an eviction, when workers organise their workplaces, when communities defend one another, and when solidarity delivers tangible victories.

If the crises of our time are international, then our response must be international too. The task before us is not merely to resist the next far-right mobilisation, but to build the institutions, relationships and movements capable of making their politics irrelevant. That means rooting anti-fascism in the daily struggle for housing, dignity, public services and democratic control over our lives. The question is not whether working-class people are angry. The question is whether the working-class and socialist left can organise that anger into a force capable of transforming society before the far-right succeeds in doing so first.