The View from K92

As a child of the Communist Party, I was born into the labour movement. I’ve been part of it ever since. Whenever my commitment wanes, the thing that’s most likely to revive it is the threat of fascism. Alongside the naked lying, the thing that’s most infuriating about false accusations of anti-Semitism against the left is that, for many of us, it’s the spectre of Hitler and the Third Reich that motivates us.

During my nearly 60 years, almost all of them living in east London, I’ve seen the NF, BNP, EDL and assorted neo-Nazi groups come and go. Each of them presented a real danger, particularly to my black and Asian neighbours and friends. But, thanks largely to grassroots organisation and resistance, they have all been repulsed and never moved beyond their thuggish base. But today, I am more worried than ever that “it can happen here”.

The defection of Lee Anderson to Reform UK could be far more significant than the opportunism of one political amoeba. The peril lies not in him, or the swivel-eyed, hate-filled bigots he’s joined, but in the opening political chasm and social conditions that are likely to define the next decade.

We are faced with an economic malaise that has not fundamentally improved, at least for working class people, since the 2008 crash. It’s been significantly worsened by COVID, particularly in the speculative property industry that has become a mainstay of the UK economy. One very important feature of this crisis, fueled by the housing emergency, is the impending bankruptcy of scores of local councils and the resulting loss of the essential services they provide.

It is quite possible to envisage civic breakdown and the kind of widespread political disillusionment, anger and despair that fascism feeds on. It is this that Reform UK and a likely to be whipped post-general election Tory Party, will try to exploit, with their appeal to popular nationalism and scapegoating of immigrants and minorities. Attempts to suppress and criminalise political protest and resurgent militarism are already in train.

But another essential condition for the rise of the far-right is the collapse of a viable alternative. To the extent that the Labour Party and trade union leadership ever represented this, they are now catastrophically failing. In some cases, far from presenting a challenge to the forces of reaction, they are echoing them.

In his 1935 novel, “It Can’t Happen Here”, Sinclair Lewis writes:

“Why are you so afraid of the word ‘Fascism,’ Doremus? Just a word—just a word! And might not be so bad, with all the lazy bums we got panhandling relief nowadays, and living on my income tax and yours—not so worse to have a real Strong Man, like Hitler or Mussolini—like Napoleon or Bismarck in the good old days—and have ‘em really run the country and make it efficient and prosperous again. ‘Nother words, have a doctor who won’t take any back-chat, but really boss the patient and make him get well whether he likes it or not!”

We have been warned.