How did the far right conquer the British mainstream? 

The British establishment has been using the far-right as a sort of scapegoat for the mainstream’s own racism for decades. It has allowed them to use it as a distraction and displacement of real racism. This process actually emboldens new methods of collective and more powerful mainstream versions of applying racism. The far-right is condemned but not the very ideas it has mainstreamed. The problem we have is that it doesn’t only harm people, migrants refugees and asylum seekers, but what we see now is that the far-right is gaining more power electorally — Reform UK — and even if they didn’t receive that many more seats than Green Party, they are seen right now as an unofficial opposition, and the Green Party is not. It tells you where the temperature of politics is. It moves towards racism and the right — says Aaron Winter, expert on the far-right and extremist politics from Lancaster University.

Interview by Wojciech Albert Łobodziński.

Not a month had passed since the election of the Labour government for the islands to fall into the shackles of a gigantic crisis. Far-right anti-immigrant demonstrations, riots and pogroms took place in the UK from 30 July to 5 August 2024. This followed a serious stabbing incident in which three teenagers were killed in Southport on 29 July. Following false allegations that the suspect was a Muslim, a crowd gathered to demonstrate outside the Southport Mosque, near the scene of the killings, on 30 July. The riots began. Protesters attacked police officers, injuring more than fifty. They burned a police van and attacked the mosque. They included members of the neo-Nazi Patriotic Alternative and supporters of the now defunct and Islamophobic English Defence League. In the days that followed, Belfast and other English cities were hit by rioting. On 31 July, protests were held in Manchester, Hartlepool and Aldershot, and more than 100 people were arrested in London. 

The most serious disturbances took place over the weekend of 3-4 August. Migrant property was also vandalised and hotels housing asylum seekers were targeted. The unrest began to subside on 7 August, after counter-protests had regularly and significantly outnumbered the far-right demonstrators since 6 August, and large anti-racist marches were held across the country on 7 August. More than 40 hooligans were jailed and over 1,000 people were arrested in connection with the riots.  The situation did not calm down until after 10 August. Losses are currently being estimated and those involved in the riots, or who have been encouraging them on social media platforms, are being detained. However, the question is whether the riots will happen again? 

The first question that arises is: could this situation have been predicted?

Some of us have been warning for a while that there is a sort of longer-term mainstreaming of the far-right particularly around anti-immigration, racism and kenophobia. Often it has been based on a false premise, saying that the far-right represents legitimate concerns, maybe in an extreme way, but shared with a silent majority. The latter notion can be exchanged with the people, majority or white working class.

We have argued, for example in the work I co-authored with Aurelien Mondon, that this gives legitimacy to the far-right, by framing it by saying that “if we do not respond with tougher border controls and anti-Muslim rhetoric, we are going to lose the vote to the far right, or they will attack the streets” — none of it has ever been a legitimate concern. What we argued is that it implies taking the far-right’s ideas into the establishment thinking and portrayal done by mainstream media. 

What do you mean?

The British establishment has been using the far-right as a sort of scapegoat for the mainstream’s own racism for decades, it has allowed them to use it as a distraction and displacement of real racism. This process actually emboldens new methods of collective and more powerful mainstream versions of applying racism. In the same way, it will later condemn the far-right but not the very ideas it has mainstreamed.

The problem we have is that it doesn’t only harm people, migrants refugees and asylum seekers, but what we see now is that the far-right is gaining more power electorally — Reform UK — and even if they didn’t receive that many more seats than Green Party. They are seen right now as an unofficial opposition, and the Green Party is not. It tells you where the temperature of politics is. It moves towards racism and the right.

But at the same we’ve also got far-right violence on the streets. For them, the mainstream version is good enough, it is what allows them to call the Tories not strong enough on emigration, despite the hostile environment, or the Labour as left, which they are not. They’ve been firmly trying to grasp far-right political positions and ground in this segment of the electorate. What’s going on now is both the build up of the mainstreamisation process and the emboldening of violence. 

How would you place recent events in this context?

When it comes to the latest developments since the grooming gangs case from 2018, we’ve seen the constant attempts of the far-right capitalising on tragic events by calling for a mob justice. Now they are opportunistic using the murder of those three girls in Southport. We also saw that in early 2023 in Knowsley where people were protesting outside a hotel dedicated to migrants with the intention to destroy it. But at this point the far-right wasn’t blamed for that. It was again represented as legitimate concerns.

Later in the year, we saw the far-right exploiting the Armistice Day so that it could be used as a pretext of mobilising people against pro-Palestine demonstrations. And this was supported, signalled and encouraged by then Homesecratary Suella Braverman, who is personally quite far-right on the issues of grooming gangs, asylum seekers and overall emigration. So we’ve seen it coming up not only from the far-right, there has been a steady build up.

What’s going on now is a result of the longer-term strategy of the so-called protest-counterprotest strategy of the far-right. I think that these are incorrect terms for what they are doing, they are euphemisms because they are not protesting anything, they are attacking, terrorist and confronting certain communities, some people label it as pogroms, and I believe they do it quite correctly. It’s combined with the build up of legitimation.

At the same time, I think it’s occurring in the context of this election. Some have said that it’s taking place because there is a left-wing Labour government. I think that it’s not true. The far-right has been looking for a moment to stick a claim on power while there is a shift in power. They did it both before and after the elections. 

And now we are facing a new situation, the Conservative Party has annihilated itself, giving ground not only to Starmer, but also to the right-wing opposition in the form of Farage and others like him.

The removal of the Tories and removal of their vote, the Reform UK performance, all of it created this context we’re in, and all of that enables Nigel Farage to act as if the Reform UK is the legitimate opposition, that is the voice of the protesting people and disenfranchised conservative electorate. Despite the argument that if we take on these anti-immigration positions in the mainstream, the far-right will be depressurised and taken care of, the pressure will be removed, and their threat will be removed, they are on this ascendance and in the streets. This manoeuvre has made the whole situation worse for all the people, many of us said that again and again that media talking about legitimate concerns or Keir Starmer referring to these events as “a thuggery”, which displaces what’s going on from anything that is ideological and political, just emboldens and strengthens the far-right. 

And is this complex dialectic of struggles and complementarities between the far right and the Tories complementary with the long history of the right in Britain?

I think it’s in line with the history of the Tory Party. Margaret Thatcher actually did the same manoeuvre in the 80s when the National Front was on the streets, with the slogan of people having “legitimate concerns” of being swamped — by the migrants. What happened then repeatedly gives a credence of legitimacy for the far-right ideas.

Interestingly, it also pushes people to declare that at some point that “we do not like fascism and extremists but we are concerned legitimately”. Issues of racism and xenophobia get placed in the far-right bucket, in which the colonial history and racist governmental practices are somehow forgotten, we called that with Aurelian Mondon the so-called illiberal racism versus liberal one. 

What did you mean by that?

Anything that is not nazism might be acceptable if you keep comparing it to nazism, or segregation in America, or Apartheid in South Africa. This helps us build a myth of defeating fascism and its different iterations, and declare ourselves liberal, multicultural democracies. But then comes the slogan, “it has gone too far”. This phenomenon can be summed up by the notion of cultural racism, neo-racism or, as we called it with Mondon, liberal racism. These ideas that it’s not race, it’s culture. Here there are a myriad or popular tropes in which this attitude might be summed up: “I do not dislike people because of their races…; I am not racist, but… it has gone too far; I am not racist but the NHS is suffering, who’s taking all the places?; I am not racist but crimes are on the rise; and so on”. What occurs here is that when racism is more tied to extremism, fascism and so on, the more the liberal racism creeps in, it’s creating a space for different types of racist attitudes that still allow racism to flourish. In the end when the far-right mobilises, just like it did at the beginning of August, it can be then scapegoated by the likes of Tories, Farage supporters etc., and create a space for their kind of racist policies, under the emblem of “legitimate concerns”.

The hoodlums on the streets can be a representation of these “legitimate concerns”, and at the same time they can be scapegoated as being too extreme, illiberal, but representing an important issue, that has to be handled  with more technocratic, but still working on racists tropes, approach. They can also be very useful as a tool of terrorising communities and social groups that potentially might be willing to stand up to the racist radicalization of public discourse.  We saw it with Thatcher, Johnson, Breverman, and Brexit par excellence. But this dialectic means that sometimes the far-right can slip in and out of that subordinate position of being just a mere tool of technocratic politics, depending on its power and potential. 

So we are at this point right now.

The Tories have been saying for years that if you do not vote for us, the Labour socialists will come in, or the far-right. They have created that comparative displacement. Then Labour said that if you do not vote for us, the Tories will come in, and they are very close to far-right. However now we have Nigel Farage was trying to mainstream the far right, following and improving on the BNP’s strategy in the 2000s, the nationalistic notion of “white working class” left behind by multiculturalism and ethnic competition. 

At the same time he’s trying to distance himself from what has been going on in the streets. 

Farage’s stance right now is: “I condemn the violence on the streets, but I am your greatest hope to get their — far-right — ideas to be represented without violence. At the same time, Tories and Labour are referring to legitimate concerns, or calling it “pure violence” totally compartmentalising it and protecting a politics of racism which they believe is essential to their electoral and governing success. And so I guess it’s true that one is fostering the far-right by doing this, but even if one manages to stop the far-right, it’s done with their ideas rendered into a new form of more liberal, technocratic racism. We have observed that with deportation, militarisation of polling in migrant areas, disintegration of public services dedicated to the frequently racialised the poorest segments of society and so on. 

Is it true that the Tories have introduced an open-doors policy, at the same time stating that they were fighting against illegal migration? 

No, I am not convinced that the Tories’ policy on immigration comes with an open-doors label. If you see what the successive governments have been doing, especially with the hostile environment towards migrants, that has created very hard conditions for migrants and asylum seekers. Britain has always had a strict border control policy, it was a myth that it wasn’t like that because of the EU.

I think it has always been convenient to have immigrants as cheap labour, that can be easily controlled and exploited,  and at the same time scapegoat for an insufficient public sector that has been successfully privatised. At some point, that logic has gone to its limits, could one have mentioned excessive migration if even international students had been counted into it?

From my perspective, it’s simple as divide et impera politics. Conservatives always wanted to show the public the highest numbers possible to justify real, material policies that would have an effect on everybody, like privatisation, neoliberalisation and cutting public spending. Saying we did that and… we cut the number of foreign students to save some money. Even though these two policies haven’t had anything in common. But the effect works, they did something, firstly scapegoating one of the vulnerable sectors of society. I am seeing it from my standpoint, as a migrant myself. 

So why has it happened now?

We have to understand that there are certain periods of history when it begins to be an inevitable part of political discussion. The moments in which voices defending open borders, or just anti-racist policies are considered problematic are the ones of major historical changes or crises because then migration can be weaponized as a scapegoating mechanism.

I think, going back to austerity in 2010 when the Tory coalition came in, was one of these moments, and right after the whole process has been sharpened with coming years, we have seen the weaponization of migration and racism that we are facing today. Importantly, it was not only about that, previously there were the unemployed, those excluded from the labour market and others who appeared in the debate under the banner of laziness and social pathology. At a certain point, these groups may create a voting block, and then it is always useful to use a migration card, by which you can control people that you scapegoated in the first place, by saying that their misfortunes took place because of the migrants for example. “They took it!” and all of these false rumours, based on a zero-sum game vision of the economy that is false. 

When I hear people say that migrants are stealing jobs, taking too many social benefits, occupying too many social housing flats or hospital beds. The bottom line is: “we do not have enough”. The very people who are fighting against way too demanding migrants, they signal that their own needs are not served by the state. But in a scapegoating manner, that isn’t changing anything but dividing the society, especially the most exploited sectors of it. Nevertheless, it’s a cry for help.

Absolutely. And the thing is that if you turn the situation, if you acknowledge power, the stage and the economic system you live in, the people will show solidarity and strength of political unity against inequalities and gaps created by one economic system created by specific political forces. If you tell one group of people: “that is your country, and they are stealing it” you can distract working people and continue the process of weakening the state.

Combined with the militarization of the police, border protection and other solutions that are profitable for the private and technological sectors. Even if things happen along the way, like Brexit, that are clearly bad for the economy and society as a whole. Interestingly, Brexit, being the child of racist slogans from the right, did not stop it from stopping this rhetoric. It strengthened the latter even more.

The most absurd story was the NHS case. On the one hand, migrants were to take hospital beds, and the expenses themselves — previously supposedly going to the EU — were to be allocated to improving the health care system. However, after Brexit it turned out that the NHS was collapsing. Why? Because there is a shortage of nurses and doctors of migrant origin.

And that works in the big scheme of things. People start complaining about not only the immigration, but also about the whole idea of the NHS, while, of course, they are being supported with specific incentives from the mainstream media. Now talking about privatisation of the NHS is not something uncommon, it has become mainstream. Even though there is no logical implication to think so. It always ends up at the same pace, exacerbating inequalities to enable this. It doesn’t mean that the ruling classes don’t want a working medical system. They want one, but they want to profit from it. 

What are you making of the data provided by YouGov about the latest trends in society?

If we look at the data of YouGov, we can see that what’s going on is a far-right mobilisation, not some kind of fringe demonstrations that represent the silent majority. We can see that while looking at the data.

What we are seeing right now — even though protests were not as huge as you can make it from just scrolling X, or any other platform — is what I’ve mentioned above, it’s mainstreamisation of far-right posture against immigration by the media, by the politicians and talking heads. The BBC has once labelled the protests as “pro-British marches”, just like the far-right would like it to be presented. The other tropes are the fictions of the fascism known to us for decades, the killing of children, mixed with the whole narrative of them being the future of the nation, their whiteness being important and so on. This entire biopolitical mixture is a far-right trope that made the exploitation of this tragedy so easy. 

On the 10 August we saw anti-racist demonstrations in the country, which appeared to be somehow successful. Many people had been too frightened to go out, and later they declared their pride for their communities being so mobilised against what had been happening, the far-right stealing the streets of many old red bastions, like Liverpool and other working-class fortresses. Have we seen a significant change in the national atmosphere? 

Antiracist banner at a demonstration in Liverpool (source).

That’s interesting, but I would say that I don’t think so. In the same way that I said that the far-right is trying to conquer the mainstream media, and the Conservative or other more normalised politicians can counter it by saying: “they are radical, vote for me, I am not such an extremist!”. The other answers would be to appeal to the army, uniformed services, police and gendarmerie, let’s put them on the streets, let’s take control of what is happening. After all, these were the first voices: lock up, punish, control, that’s what Starmer said, but behind him was a crowd of talking heads talking about the army and a broad campaign to control society and the so-called dangerous districts.

Interestingly, of course, it would not only be aimed at the extreme right, but also at other social groups, including those organising themselves into counter-militias or self-defence groups. This situation showed that the racist policing of immigrant communities simply strengthened the extreme right’s confidence in using violence, to which, as expected, there was a response. However, in a larger sense, policing and the introduction of security and control policies will have an impact on society as a whole.

Conservative MP Robert Jenrick proposed a week ago to ban the words: Allahu akbar. Any kind of action like that would be a gateway to other similar solutions. Limiting not only religious practices, but also social expression as such. We saw the same narrative with the “From the river to the sea” chant.

Yes, exactly. This would serve to develop control and limit freedom, and let’s be honest, politicians currently prefer such solutions. They prefer to talk about this or that aspect of the riots and manifestations of social divisions, rather than address the problem as a whole. They say that what is currently happening in Great Britain is an eruption of contradictions in our socio-economic policy, with its racist tinge, and not a matter of “uncontrolled migration” or “legitimate concerts of a silent majority”, that doesn’t even exist.  

In this sense, I do not see an essential change here.

The current anti-racist mobilisations do not come from the government, people publicly recognized as authorities and from the establishment, but from below. Here, the fight has been taking place at the level of neighbourhoods, communities, academics, and people who have been politically involved on the left for years. The media simultaneously criticised both sides of the equation, migrants and the far right, even though the latter was responsible for the riots and violence in the first place.

Media tycoons and commentators have positioned themselves in the form of a mythical centre that adjudicates matters while pretending to be uninvolved and balanced, when this is not the case at all. 

This illustrates perfectly the emergence of what you talked about in your book: liberal racism. 

Exactly. At the same time, we have no involvement with the left at all in this equation. It is simply not on the spectrum of establishment politics in the UK. We have far-right and anti-racist organisations on the streets, supported by some trade unions and rebels from the Labour Party…

Which recommended its politicians to distance themselves from counter-demonstrations, just as they were supposed to do from strikers not long ago…

Great Britain: now, rail workers’ strike. Then, a general strike!

Exactly (laughter). At the same time, because of these decisions, there is no left wing either in the media or at the level of political decision-makers. There are only isolated experts and organisations, but there is no serious political or media force that would be able to represent this perspective. People are therefore faced with a situation in which they hear in the mainstream media that taking part in counter-demonstrations would put them on par with the far right.

Interestingly, when the demonstrations turned out to be a success, politicians who had previously used the rhetoric of “both sides” began to praise them declaratively, and the media and tabloids, which had previously supported the most radical and racist rhetoric, did the same.

Why did the media choose to side with the far right, and why will they do it in the future, regardless of the popular mobilisations we have seen? Because it is useful, either as a scapegoat or as a contributor to even more controlling and undemocratic solutions. Moreover, it allows you to maintain the existing state of affairs, creating a safety valve in crisis. All this will be simple in the coming months due to the lack of a serious left-wing offer in mainstream discourse. So the circle closes.

What do you think the response to this crisis should include?

Firstly, the UK needs a new social contract a new approach to the economy, to society and to public policies. Without breaking the capitalist constraints in their most neoliberal version that the Conservatives have imposed on British society, there is no way to address issues such as racism, for example.

Real wages in Britain have been stagnant for years, or falling relative to inflation, which has been huge recently. Child poverty is also cascading upwards, which is no exception. British people are simply getting poorer. And it’s easier for current politicians to sacrifice migrant communities and the most vulnerable in society.

Without a brave conversation about capitalism and the British model, we will be stuck in this ongoing cycle of capitalism, racism, and the British model that could again lead to an outbreak of violence like those two weeks ago. 

Dr Aaron Winter is a lecturer in sociology at Lancaster University. His research focuses on the far right, exploring its relationship to mainstream politics and violence, as well as race, counter-extremism and terrorism. He is a co-author, with Aurelien Mondon, of ‘Reactionary Democracy: How Racism and the Populist Far Right Became Mainstream‘.

Cover photo: during the Southport riots (source).

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