Tag Archives: anti-fascism

The normalisation of fascism is becoming a common occurrence. In Britain alone, from cowards wearing balaclavas protesting in Dover to Reform UK’s Suella Braverman referring to the actions of anti-immigrant agitators in Gosport as “people power”, we are seeing this all too often in our electoral politics and on our streets.

It is not going unchallenged, however, with anti-fascist protests taking place across the country in places like Bristol and London, with fascists like “Young Bob” being cuffed and led away by police for aggressive behaviour towards an abuse survivor. Meanwhile, ITV is exposing just how deep the rot has spread within Reform UK with an undercover sting operation lifting the lid on the racism and bigotry that runs within the party, and how little Nigel Farage and his cronies actually care about handling this, with the article highlighting that Farage went so far as to protect a candidate caught in the sting.

None of this is new, of course. So many people are far more experienced than I am in the fight against fascism, having taken part in protests across the 70s, 80s, 90s, and beyond. But what stands out to me is how much more organised and “professional” the far right portray themselves. They’re no longer just National Front hooligans, though the evidence I’ve provided so far suggests they still exist; they’ve learnt how to play the political game.

Take Germany, for instance.

Following World War Two, lessons needed to be learnt from the capture of the state by the Nazis and the atrocities carried out against the Jews in the Holocaust, among atrocities committed against other minority groups, which came in the form of adopting an idea founded back in 1937. Streitbare Demokratie, roughly translated as militant democracy, holds that a liberal democratic society must be willing and able to defend itself against any forces that seek to dismantle democracy using the tools liberal democracy provides, even if those forces command a majority government.