At the core of our fight against the far-right must be a positive, practical struggle to rebuild our communities
In the absence of patient, local agitation for something better, memes about "your real enemies are billionaires" aren't gonna cut it
It's clear that the fight against the far right is going to be crucial, and less than simple, over the next year and beyond.
A decent starting point for considering how it can succeed is the tremendously succesful anti-fascist mobilization that took place in the summer in response to far-right riots. This had two key elements:
- the disciplined and dynamic mobilization effort by traditional organisations of the radical left, their united front organisations, and associated networks of individuals.
- the very popular idea of defending our local communities which turned this pushback from a mobilization of tens of thousands to a mobilization of hundreds of thousands.
Related to the latter we saw, after the flames had died down, a very powerful social movement of builders and other folks who were good with their hands turning out to repair damaged mosques and other community institutions. It was something few on the radical left could have predicted, let alone directed, and it touched something deep in the hearts of millions.
What I'm getting at is this. The core of the push back against the far right needs to be a positive movement to defend, rebuild and improve communities. That's easier said than done but it is certainly doable.
Only through this practical activity can we bring to the fore the real commonalities that exist between neighbours of all ethnicities, and the real emnity that exists between the well-being of communities - many of which have been hollowed out by the free market in land, local authority underfunding, and Britain's lopsided economy - and the poise of the ruling class.
In the absence of any such activity I can't see the point of any more of those memes that exclaim "LOOK REFORM VOTERS: YOUR ENEMIES ARE THE BIlLIONAIRES NOT THE MIGRANTS".
A lot of potential reform voters work in industries with pitiful union density. If we're not actually trying to provide outlets through which people can fight back where they are, then we're in practice asking them to accept that they were barking up the wrong tree, and to lie back and think of England whilst their communities continue to be immiserated.
We are not going to overpower the far right in the discursive sphere alone. To state the obvious, Elon Musk owns Twitter. However once we take things into the practical sphere, into real life communities, the advantage shift to our side. At a very basic level, the typical Reform activist is likely to be the local shit-head. The kind of person who doesn't get on with half their neighbours and lacks the patience and cooperative spirit necessary to save a library. The kinds of people we can mobilise are likely to be the opposite of all that.
Finally I really do believe that a movement to defend and rebuild communities can be at the core of what the left demands in distinction to what Starmerism provides, and can be central to the socialist challenge to the status quo.