Quit pandering to far right migrant narrative

Radical democratic reform must be at the heart of our response to a resurgent far-right says Phil Vellender

July 27th’s large London march by the “EDL”-Right, coupled with the recent explosion in violence on our streets, constitutes the most significant far-right activity since the Second World War. Dangerous as the conspiracy theories, racist chants and speeches on display at last month’s London march were, this 30,000 plus gathering is a harbinger of a deeper crisis, one which not only speaks to the parlous state of this country’s political system, but also to the shockingly unequal distribution of political and economic power it both facilitates and maintains. It’s no coincidence that the Right is on the march again, barely a month after Britain’s general election demonstrated the degree of disaffection by another low turn-out.  Like it or not, the return of the Right to our streets speaks to a growing realisation that the UK’s creaking democracy simply doesn’t work anymore. Our oft-mentioned “democratic deficit” is a product of the manifest inadequacy of a system of government and an uncodified constitution which concentrate too much power in hands of the Crown (i.e. ministers and civil servants). It is this unfit-for-purpose democracy that has created the prevailing climate of disengagement, which the Right is now enthusiastically exploiting.

The Right marched in their thousands in July because, as in Italy, Austria, Germany and France, UK mainstream parties, aided and abetted by Nigel Farage, have accommodated arguments previously confined to the far-right and normalised them. Witness Starmer and Cooper’s inadequate managerial answers to Patel, Braverman and Jenrick’s inflammatory rhetoric around the “small boats” moral panic. Labour certainly responded poorly in opposition, but once in government, it has continued its retreat from any principle-based position. Instead of arguing the case forcefully for the evident benefits of immigration and the need to respect migrant rights, Cooper has repeatedly hit back at Tory lies by claiming Labour will roll up the “gangs” more efficiently, cut the numbers coming here more quickly, seal an as yet unexplained deal with the French authorities and activate an “effective” Border Command.

Words matter and the adoption by the mainstream media (and then Labour) of the Tories’ term “illegal”, instead of the less loaded term “undocumented”, in relation to asylum seekers, has played a significant role in the othering process. Labour could have immediately debunked this Tory sleight of tongue by demanding the reopening of safe routes, whose closure led to asylum seekers adopting “irregular” means to enter the UK in the first place. Labour should have insisted that no asylum seeker is actually “illegal” until their application has been processed and rejected.

By the time the Tories had enshrined this erroneous, right-wing term in law with their “Illegal” Migration Act, Labour had been reduced to mechanistic quibbling about the numbers. In an unlikely turn, it fell to a Tory, Tim Loughton, to make the case for safe routes, as he skewered a hapless Braverman at a Select Committee hearing in late 2023. He pointed out that if you shut down agreed, safe routes to the UK there will be obvious consequences. However, Cooper ignored Loughton’s logic. She could have effectively countered Braverman and Jenrick’s poison by suggesting that having accepted fleeing Ukrainians here in numbers following Putin’s invasion, it would have been blatantly racist not to treat fairly those escaping from similar life-threatening conditions in Africa and elsewhere. Cooper’s cavilling leaves Labour leaping aboard the racists” “othering bandwagon” once again, just as Ed Miliband did in the notorious “red mug” fiasco of 2015. So it is we find fascist National Front propaganda of the 1970s seeping into 2024’s political mainstream. The idea that Labour will resile from its racist, crowd-pleasing rhetoric now, especially in the face of a reinvigorated, rioting far-right, is fanciful. Cooper is as cynical as the rest and pandering to racism appears to have won seats on July 4^th. Does Labour care if a few more “brown people” end up under the bus, or, more precisely, drown in the Channel? I think not.

Fascists detest all democrats, especially republicans, as much as they hate socialists, that’s why Mussolini and Franco killed them. And they had good reason to, for a functioning, modern, participatory democracy is the both the antithesis and antidote to fascism and racism. Which is why we urgently need a programme for a radically reformed democracy now.

So what’s to be done? We should ask ourselves why has there never been a viable republican-democratic party in this country and why has no existing party has ever raised any republican demands? Moreover, why has the economistic English Left scrupulously chosen to dodge the issue? Of course, a republic per se is no guarantee of a democratic system of government. However, it is a necessary, although not sufficient, pre-condition for achieving one. To be clear, this does not mean presidential republicanism nor mere anti-monarchism, but, rather, a politics founded on, and drawing its legitimacy from a popular democracy. As the Levellers argued in the 1640s, true sovereignty must reside with the people, and certainly not with our over-powerful Crown-in-Parliament. Because if we want the people to engage, our politics need to engage with the people.