Once again, the far right is advancing across Europe, emboldened by the outcome of the 2024 presidential election and the return of Donald Trump to the White House. To turn back extremism masquerading as populism, I believe there are lessons we can learn from our battle against the extreme right in Barking in 2010, when we crushed the BNP.
The context is different. There was little social media before 2010; we hadn’t been through a pandemic; there was no major war in Europe and no serious challenge to a rules-based international order.
But there were factors at play then that are relevant today. Turnout at elections was on the decline. In Barking, east London, the 2001 general election voter turnout was 45.5%, down from 61.7% in 1997. Our research revealed that it was anger, not apathy, that kept people at home. Anger that the politicians were not listening to what mattered to voters; anger at the loss of local jobs at Ford in Dagenham; anger that successive governments had not built decent, affordable housing for local families; anger at the way immigration was transforming the local community yet politicians refused to even engage in a debate on the issue.
