Manipulators of Far-Right Thugs Have Lost Control
The stars aligned for the far-right in 2016, with the marginal vote for Brexit and then Donald Trump gaining power. Some very wealthy white nationalists had waited decades for that alignment. The violence we have been seeing in the UK (and are likely to see in the US over the coming months) is due to that alignment ending and racist ethnonationalists realising that their sinister dream is fading by the day.
It’s important to put the wave of far-right riots in the UK, attacks on minorities and attempts to burn refugees alive in context.
That context ISN’T the murder of three girls in Southport. Those who linked it to that online were maliciously and deliberately spreading disinformation. The suspect is a British born Christian teenager.
A key element of the actual context is decades of simmering rage — and sometimes the violent bubbling up of the rage of those who are stunted by far-right dogma. Some of that has been very visible and some has been seething away from our view.
The diversity of the far-right
It’s important to say that the far-right is (ironically) quite diverse. We have the overt neo-Nazis (see image of a fascist who travelled from Stoke to Sunderland to participate last weekend) and violent hooligans who take to the street to smash stuff and people up at the drop of a hat.
We also have the relatively prosperous ‘influencers’, who provoke the street thugs, sometimes from afar. These often find ways to fleece their street thug cultists and those who don’t attend rallies / riots— but only participate vicariously, through something akin to ‘sponsor a fascist’.
Some of those influencers / instigators are overtly far-right, such as the career criminal thug who calls himself Tommy Robinson. Or Katie Hopkins, a failed reality TV 'star' who leveraged her vile comments to be made a 'journalist’, which she also failed at because she was too vile for even right-wing tabloids.
Then we have the likes of Nigel Farage and other privately educated Brexcrementalist ethnonationalists, who claimed for years that they just wanted independence from the EU. Yet have since shown themselves to be the racists most of us always thought they were.
Then there are the more rabid Tory hacks and politicians who (historically) held it together just enough to avoid looking like the racist sociopaths on the burning streets — but have let slip emough racist and misogynistic crap over years for us to be suspicious that inside they have far-right leanings.
Tories have pushed xenophobic, anti-refugee narratives for over 14 years — and some have recently been flirting with the idea of merging with Nigel Farage’s nationalist Reform UK party. But since violent racist thugs have been on the streets parroting xenophobic Tory slogans, such as 'stop the boats’, some Tories have been frantically backpedaling to try to distance themselves from the far-right.
Of course, the desperate backpedaling could, to a large degree, be down to the fact that the Tories have a leadership contest. It wouldn’t be unheard of for power-hungry Tories to put self-interest above all else.
True colours
Though most Conservatives who think they have a chance of being Tory leader have been biting their tongues to avoid sounding suspiciously like far-right rioters, some right-wingers have had their true colours exposed by the flickering flames of burning refugee hotels.
Some right-wing MPs and commentators have attempted to distract from the severity of the situation and muddy the water with infantile whataboutery, including by babbling ‘two-tier policing’ conspiracy theories.
Just as, what some imagine to be the start of a civil war, has exposed hundreds of racist, hateful and sometimes thieving thugs, it’s also exposed those who might normally claim to be 'normal' Conservatives as pretty damn far to the right.
This is what they waited for, some really hope for civil war
Why so many shy and not so shy far-right ideologues think this is the time they’ve waited for is an interesting question.
Labour getting a landslide across the UK has upset the far-right — not to mention the far-right apparently winning, then losing, France and Trump suddenly on the ropes due to Kamala Harris. These are important current contexts but there are bigger historical issues at play — and much more powerful people than the likes of Tommy Robinson and Farage.
Putin and his regime in Russia is of significance too — as trying to destabilise European countries and the West in general is something he finds preferable to building a functioning democracy for Russian people. However, a small, shadowy group of English speaking ethnonationalists might be of more significance, along with the narratives of scientific racism going back to before Cecil Rhodes’ era of racism-driven colonialism.
From scientific racism to the 1960s
As extremist movements gain traction, those involved often let slip important things, which lets us see their true intentions and their vulnerabilities. When those narratives come from very different segments of a movement, we know it’s of significance and widely held.
The far-right website Breitbart has been funded by sinister billionaire Robert Mercer and managed by the white supremacist criminal Steve Bannon. Far-right figures associated with it have talked about feminism being akin to cancer and diversity being the enemy of society. They have repeatedly pointed to the 1960s as the apparent origin of all they despise and fear.
A decade which most people who know about it are likely to regard as producing incredible progress in liberty, music and thought, is portrayed by Breitbart propagandists and other far-right misogynists and racists as horrific.
The manifesto of Norwegian Nazi Anders Breivik, who murdered dozens of children in 2011 to get attention for his twisted manifesto (in the hope of causing civil wars across Europe), echoed views of the so-called ‘alt-right’ pseudo intellectuals linked to Breitbart and beyond.
Despite being severely neglected by his wealthy father and cared for with great concern by his mother, Breivik blamed women for problems in society. From his perspective, the ‘rot’ of feminism and multiculturalism started in the 1960s. This isn’t accurate as both have much earlier roots.
Hope
Hopefully the far-right riots in the UK will burn themselves out soon and many thugs and their exploitative, machevellian influencers will be jailed. It is likely to be a tough summer though — especially for refugees and other minority groups.
Oddly enough, the thing that gives me the most hope is narratives coming out of Breitbart commentators and Breivik’s manifesto (which I discuss in detail here) about the 1960s and its influence.
Their view is that if they can’t turn the tide back now, there’s no hope for their agenda as multiculturalism and feminism will have indelibly changed societies. To that I say GREAT! For once I hope the far-right is right.
Footnote
It should be noted that Robert Mercer is just ONE relatively prominent rich man pushing a white supremacist agenda. When their far-right footsoldiers hit the streets, the Machiavellian billionaire bigots and their malignant millionaire generals are nowhere to be seen.
