The size of Tommy Robinson’s “unite the kingdom” rally, as well as the violence of some protesters, should serve as a wake-up call for British democrats. It’s now time to abandon the failed fantasies and strategies. Time to accept that Britain, or more specifically, England – as the far right is much less prominent in Scotland and Wales – is not an exception to the global trend.
Here are some home truths from abroad. After this rally, the centre left should finally put to bed Labour’s illusion that it can compete with the far right on anti-immigration issues. As I argued in the Guardian in 2019: “Copying the far right isn’t going to save the left.” If decades of experiences in the rest of western Europe won’t convince Keir Starmer, then hopefully a recent authoritative study on his own policies will. Adopting nativist discourse and policies does not win back far-right voters. It leads to losses for centrist and leftwing parties. Moreover, it raises the salience of the topic and the expectations of the government, which will always fall short in the eyes of far-right voters, as the “unite the kingdom” rally shows painfully.
