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.
These ideas would take effect through the German constitution, the “Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany”, which includes provisions allowing federal and state governments to proscribe extremist organisations, subject to review by an independent judiciary; The Federal Constitutional Court can dissolve a political party if concrete evidence exists proving its goal is to impair or eliminate liberal democracy; and every German citizen has the right to resist any force that seeks to abolish the constitution, provided there is no alternative option.
While it would be assumed that the AfD, or the Alternative for Germany, would be banned under the Basic Law, this has not happened, as neither the Bundestag, the Bundesrat, nor the federal government has asked the Federal Constitutional Court to consider a ban. In February 2026, a Cologne court issued a temporary injunction preventing the German Intelligence Service from classifying the AfD as “confirmed right-wing extremist” despite finding strong suspicions of anti-constitutional efforts within the party, with co-leader Alice Weidel calling the verdict a win for “democracy and the rule of law”.
So the safeguards exist, but they set a high bar, and the AfD has shown it will use the courts to fight them, with mixed results.
What does that mean for Britain?
We don’t have the same constitutional rights in place, with it often being down to the discretion of the Home Office as to whether any particular extremist or fascist group is banned. Even then, the German far right is weaponising those rights to fuel support by framing itself as a dissenter against the system.
The answer already exists, and has done so for years: education and praxis in our communities. And no, I don’t mean you need to have read Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto to participate.
But learning about what the far right is saying, who’s funding them, and comparing their messages to the facts is a good start. Push back against people at work or at home who repeat the far-right lies; it doesn’t need to be aggressive, just simply saying, “No, I think you’re wrong, and here’s why” – if it’s safe to do so. Seek out anti-fascist publications like Searchlight and Hope Not Hate, sign petitions, share their far-right exposes, and even offer to write or research for them if the opportunity arises.
You don’t need to be a hero to fight back against fascism, but you do need to be active, aware, and alert to the danger it poses.
* Jack Meredith is a member of the Welsh Liberal Democrats and Wales Chair for Centre Think Tank. His writing focuses on democratic reform, social justice, economic democracy, and the institutional foundations of effective government. He has written for Lib Dem Voice, Liberator, Fabians, Centre Write, Nation.Cymru, and Bylines Cymru.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Quite simply, the best book title. Ever.
The Joy of Six 1604
Farage and the snooper
The Future of this Blog.
Money can't buy you love (or votes it would appear!)
Catherine Hodgkinson
expats
Anthony Acton
cim
PM
23 Comments
Some timely reminders from Jack. Certainly our abstention last week on MOD Bicester could not be deemed brave đ˘.
And in France at the moment it’s coming from the far left. Two different extremes.
â The normalisation of fascism is becoming a common occurrenceâ
I disagree. What I think we have is too many people shouting âfascismâ whenever they see a protest they strongly disagree with. For example, it is perfectly acceptable for people to protest peacefully against illegal immigration and the governmentâs failure to prevent boatloads of mainly young men paying to cross from France – it is not acceptable to describe these people as fascist for seeking to exercise their democratic right to protest. If we use the word fascist too readily, it normalises the word for use to describe peaceful protesters – and that makes the word more acceptableâŚthe last thing we should want.
@Jason Connnor
It’s funny, usually I’m the one pointing out the issues of both extremes! My piece is more focused on domestic issues, using an international examples for comparison, but definitely: totalitarian ideologies continue to plague liberal democracy.
Exactly Jason ; It needs to be called out on all sides. Numerous videos of Young Bob online being attacked by students who’ve little in the way of any coherent argument.
As for France – the statements from the Polish pm and Hungarian pm just about sum it up.
Jana, Spot on. Too often people on the illiberal left and even worse many people who chose to describe themselves as progressive adopt the word fascist to describe anybody they don’t like. It seems to have taken over from the term bigot in that regard as the favourite one word debate stopper for those who think they have a neat, easy solution to big problems.
As Lib Dems we need to be very careful not to get too closely entwined with those who agree with us about a problem but who think the main part of the solution is to demonise those people in the community that they cannot be bothered to at least try to understand.
I’m with Jana on this one. Fascism is defined (Cambridge Dictionary) as: ‘A political system based on a very powerful leader, state control of social and economic life, and extreme pride in country and race, with no expression of political disagreement allowed.’ It is extreme. Unfortunately, too many on the left define quite reasonable opinions as extreme, when they are not. It’s a crude attempt to shut down much needed debate. Which is quite ironic in that it’s denying political disagreement.
All well and good, but what is a fascist? What are their policies? And are they on the right, left or both? You need to be able to identify your enemy in order to destroy him.
Not withstanding Badenoch’s one good moment in her conference speech, other members of the Tory frontbench are saying that certain faiths are incompatible with Britishness, are with only the thinnest of veils essentially asserting that the average migrant is inherently more dangerous than the average UK citizen, are claiming that it would be a jolly good wheeze to deport people who have a legal right to be here because they aren’t British enough, and are still advocating the Rwanda scheme which is essentially state-sponsored people trafficking to a government that has a very low tolerance of criticism. Fascism doesn’t start with a dictatorial and exclusionist government that removes rights from people it finds inconvenient, it ends with one, but for the purists I would point out that these are people who aspire to be the government. Vigilance, especially liberal vigilance, cannot wait for the jackboots to turn up. There’s nothing contradictory about listening to people you disagree with while calling out sickening, hateful, populist rhetoric from those who seek the keys to power – indeed any good liberal needs to do both. Good article Jack.
Fascist, Communist, Zionist, Anti-semite, even Lib Dem, are all words used as insults by those who hold strong views and care not what the strict definition of the word might be, if indeed there ever can be a strict definition giving that language itself is forever changing.
Better therefore to criticise specific views and policies and why they are morally wrong, impractical, or dangerous than label them with a catch-all term.
“⌠it is perfectly acceptable for people to protest peacefully against illegal immigration” except that the immigration-related protests that we hear about are not at all peaceful. The Cambridge Dictionary definition of a fascist system of government is quoted above, but many fascist leaders started out as street thugs. If we’re not careful we could see Prime Minister for Life Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.
@Graham Evans
Sure, words don’t have precisely fixed definitions. On the other hand, fascism (and its cousin eugenics) used to be an openly-claimed political ideology. Now they try to hide it a bit because of some “incidents” in the 1930s and 1940s, and find different names for themselves. The blurring of the definition is deliberate.
If you want to fight against fascism (and do the Lib Dems want to do that? I sadly don’t know) then having the guts to call it what it is rather than mumbling around “far-right authoritarian racists” or other even softer euphemisms (by pretending they’re just “populists”, for example) is a necessary start to avoid conceding ground and legitimacy to them straight away.
Sure, we may disagree on exactly where the boundary between fascism and other forms of authoritarianism sits. But there are not that many people in that grey area compared with the ones clearly on one side or the other, and it’s not as if the “Liberal Democrats” should be being friendly to any non-fascist authoritarians and dictators either.
@Jana
The UK long ago decided that racism was not acceptable free speech. It is legal to protest against illegal immigration, not acceptable to use racism to do so. Thatâs what the far right in UK politics are doing.
It is difficult to decide whether Farage is a nasty right winger or a Russian stooge .
The problem is that being ‘understanding’ of anti-immigrant views led to the holocaust. 12 of my family died in the holocaust, including my great aunt and her cousin, my mother’s disabled cousi. My grandfather died in 1945 after having been imprisoned and starved, which left him too weak to survive a vital operation. You can perhaps understand why I do not tolerate racism and have no sympathy with those who express anti immigrant feeling. Had Farage or his ilk been in power in 1939, my mother would have been returned to Germany and almost certain death.
We have illegal immigration for 2 reasons. Firstly we are no longer part of the EU’s migration system and secondly because successive governments have closed almost all legal routes. It is time the LibDems spoke up about immigration and explained how NHS and social care and much of farming and the building trade depend on immigration and what the result would be of stopping it.
Rather hoped that my first comment could not be misread, but just to be clear, I think we should SUPPORT the siting of the centre at MOD Bicester.
@Ruth Bright
â⌠just to be clear, I think we should SUPPORT the siting of the centre at MOD Bicesterâ
I assume from this that you do not live near MOD Bicester?
It is always easier to vote in favour of things when not personally affected.
It suits those who benefit from immigrants providing cheap labour in areas like hospitality or the NHS to foreground small boats and asylum seekers, rather than the much larger numbers of “legal” immigration. Other wise higher wages would be needed… and maybe some of the NEETS would have jobs.
Hi Jana that is a very fair point. I always pay careful attention to your comments. However, the use of barracks and other MoD property seems preferable to hotels or use of social housing stock.
When I was a councillor in Peckham/Walworth in London, an area with multiple challenges, I supported the opening of a rehab centre on the boundary of my ward, extremely close to my home. It was unpopular with my constituents but they re-elected me and my Lib Dem colleagues.
“The problem is that being âunderstandingâ of anti-immigrant views led to the holocaust.”
This is both wrong, and bloody insulting to those German Jews who were murdered in the Shoah! They weren’t immigrants, their families had lived in Germany, and before that in the independent German states, and before that in the Holy Roman Empire for generations. In many cases for centuries. One Jewish relative of mine was decorated for fighting for Prussia against France in the Franco-Prussian war. He was a Prussian – later German – who happened to go to synagogue. As many of the Junkers said of Hitler “who is this Austrian with a French hairstyle, an English mustache and a Roman salute who teaches German to hate German?”.
The Nazis weren’t anti-immigrant, they were being anti-people-who-had-lived-there-for-centuries, and to characterise it in any other way demonsrates your presentist ideological devotion.
4,700 Jewish soldiers fought for the Prussian army in the Franco Prussian war. They fought with distinction – many of them received the Iron Cross. When Germany reunified, all Jews received automatic German citizenship. The German Constitution of 1871 officially extended full civil and political rights to Jews across all German states. 12,000 German Jewish soldiers died for The Fatherland in WWI. They were German citizens, native German speakers, and pillars of German culture, science, and law. To label them as “immigrants” is to apply the exact same lie the Nazis tried to tell; that Jews were an external, alien population and not true Germans. By turning the Shoah into an “anti-immigrant/xenophobic” issue you ignore the specific, lethal mechanics of eliminationist antisemitism. The Nazis weren’t trying to “protect borders” from newcomers, they were trying to systematically destroy a population that had been an integral part of the fabric of Germany for generations.
@Ruth Bright
Thanks for your reply. I admire your willingness to support a rehab facility near your home – that is a sign of true character. I do think, however, that housing hundreds of single young men in a facility that will dwarf a neighbouring village is something I could not support – especially as we know that most of these young men originated in war-torn countries and may well suffer from severe traumaâŚ.and, as we know, young men, suffering from trauma, from places like Somalia and Afghanistan, have a far higher incidence of committing sexual assaults than men currently living in the âneighbouring villageâ. It is perfectly understandable why many women will have genuine fear at the prospect of the MOD camp being used as proposed and will feel forced to change their lifestyles such as not going out for walks or jogging as a result.
Adam 20th Oct ’26 – 8:24pm…..The Nazis werenât trying to âprotect bordersâ from newcomers, they were trying to systematically destroy a population that had been an integral part of the fabric of Germany for generations…
A strong argument against ethnic cleansing.. However, if you replace ”Nazis’ by ”Zionists’ and just change one word in your…’systematically destroy a population that had been an integral part of the fabric of … for generations’ What do you end up with?
During the run up to the dreaded Brexit vote Paddy Ashdown made an interesting predictive comment regarding us leaving the E.U. He said: ‘If we leave the E.U. there will be a war in Europe’. Does anyone remember that? It struck me as funny (peculiar) at the time, Well it’s not so funny now. Well predicted Paddy, I for one miss you mate!
@Adam. How little you know about the holocaust.
My grandfather was one of the many Jewish soldiers who fought in the First World War and he won the Iron Cross. He was then rewarded by the Nazis by being declared not to be German (ie an alien or an immigrant) and thrown out of his work as a doctor.
Being anti immigrant is no different from being anti Jewish for the far right in politics. Saying that one ‘understands’ such sentiments is tantamount to supporting them. We must stand up against this racism and anti-semitism not pretend we understand those who espouse it.
We won’t ever get the votes of those bigots and racists, so we have nothing to lose by standing up to be counted. Remember, when you appease a bigot s/he comes back demanding even more bigotry. The Liberal Party had a proud record of opposing racist immigration rules that denied entry to the UK of many with British passports, notably the 1968 Immigration Act.
Now we are mealy mouthed about Free Movement and the increasingly hostile approach to asylum seekers, which is being deliberately confused with immigration by just about all UK politicians. Time to stand up and be counted for Freedom and Liberty.