Far Right’s Death Spiral of Desperation

The Tory media have had a field day covering the riots of a few hundred far-right thugs, over the weekend, in several cities in Britain. Of course, they never make the connection between these far-right thugs, and the fact that, for years, they gave huge amounts of air-time, and column inches to the likes of Fartage, and other ultra-nationalists, and themselves focused on immigrants and refugees, as convenient scapegoats for the problems of British capitalism, for which neither they nor the Tories, Labour, and certainly not the likes of Fartage, had any solutions.

The gutter press, when they were not attacking nameless, fictional benefit scroungers, ran lurid stories about immigrants being given houses, cars and all sorts of ludicrous concoctions that a gullible readership of bigots and gammons, who appear to be addicted to the cortisol rush from being driven into ever greater degrees of irrational rage, sucked up. Now, of course, sections of that media, seeing the violence of these far right thugs, who themselves are clearly not the brightest of people, even when it comes to thuggery and violence, are full of moral indignation.

The images of these morons, is reminiscent of the morons that took part in the farcical coup attempt of Trump on January 6th, farcical in its amateurism, and removal from political reality, and also farcical in the nature of the clown like characters involved, in their animal skin head ware and so on. But, as Austin Powers noted, even clowns and carnies can be scary!

As Trotsky noted, back in the 1930’s, fascism is a movement of the petty-bourgeoisie, which rails at its own impotence, in the face of imperialist capital, on the one hand, and the organised working class on the other.

“Fascism is a form of despair in the petty bourgeois masses, who carry away with them over the precipice a part of the proletariat as well. Despair, as known, takes hold when all roads of salvation are cut off. The triple bankruptcy of democracy, social-democracy and the Comintern were the prerequisites for the successes of fascism. All three have tied their fate to the fate of imperialism. All three bring nothing to the masses but despair and by this assure the triumph of fascism.”

(New War Flows from Versailles Banditry)

It has all of the weaknesses of the petty-bourgeoisie, based on the internal contradictions of its heterogeneous nature, and individualism, which can only be held together on the basis of adherence to some authoritarian, charismatic leader. It drags along with it, similar individuals from the lumpen proletariat, and criminal elements, and at its height, when the labour movement has failed to provide adequate solutions, even sections of the workers, who look on in despair as their own leaders line up behind the bourgeoisie and imperialism, rather than offering an independent, socialist solution. Indeed, the subtitle of the essay by Trotsky is “Trotsky Urges Firm Revolutionary Defeatist Policy as Only Way to Fight Hitlerism”.

But, Trotsky, also notes the weakness of such fascist movement resulting from its nature.

“It is stupid to believe that the Nazis would grow uninterruptedly, as they do now, for an unlimited period of time. Sooner or later they will drain their social reservoir. Fascism has introduced into its own ranks such dreadful contradictions, that the moment must come in which the flow will cease to replace the ebb. The moment can arrive long before the Fascists will have united about them even half of the votes. They will not be able to halt, for they will have nothing more to expect here. They will be forced to resort to an overthrow.”

(For a Workers’ United Front Against Fascism)

That was in the context in which the Nazis, in Germany, were winning millions of votes, and representation in parliament, though far from being a majority. The Nazis, in Germany, only became the government with the support of the conservative bourgeois parties, in the face of rising support for the communists and socialists. In reality, it was only when the ruling class saw an imminent threat from the working-class that they resorted to fascism. In current conditions, everywhere, including Britain and the US, no such threat exists from the working-class, and the ruling class sees a greater danger from the fascists themselves, and other far-right representatives of the interests of the petty-bourgeoisie.

Fartage and his Reform company won 4 million votes, but, in the process, decimated the Tory Party. So, far from the traditional bourgeois parties, like the Conservatives, Liberals or Labour being a source of enabling a Nazi Party to take office, as happened in Germany, in the 1930’s, the opposite conditions exist! That is what leads to the frantic despair of that reactionary and immiserated petty-bourgeoisie, and its far right political representatives. Its that they know that, despite the reactionary nationalist rhetoric of Starmer and Blue Labour the gig is up for Brexit, and their nationalist agenda. As is indicated in this video, the material conditions and political pressure, on Starmer and Blue Labour now comes from the other side, from a progressive internationalism that will ultimately force it to face reality, and reverse course on Brexit.

In the riots over the weekend, the morons could be seen picking up heavy objects to throw at the police, obviously not realising that the bigger and heavier the object, the harder it is to throw it with any force, speed or direction at the intended target! As the earlier video shows, they are so stupid, and probably drunk, as not to know that its not a good idea to stand between your own side hurling those objects and the police, or you are likely to get hit in the nuts by your own side!

Of course, the far right thugs would like everyone to believe that they represent some serious threat, just as did those that turned up to support Trump. To sections of society, such as the immigrants, refugees, and to anyone these morons consider not to be “British”, i.e. white, they do represent a threat, just as the racists and fascists in the US pose a threat to black and Hispanic people there. In fact, given that the far right morons went on a drunken rampage, damaging the cars and other property of all residents in the areas they went through, its not just those sections of society that have a reason to fear them.

That is why Marxists seek to defend those sections of society, as well as organised workers themselves, and their communities, who at some point will come under attack from such thugs, by encouraging workers to form Defence Squads. Rather than the liberal calls for more police power, and reliance on the forces of the capitalist state, we need our own Red Guards to protect us both from the fascists and racists, and from the capitalist state itself, whose own bodies of armed men, in the police for example, have repeatedly been shown to be institutionally racist, misogynistic, homophobic and anti-working class.

Such Defence Squads need to be organised and democratically controlled by workers themselves via their workplace and community organisations. They need to utilise the strength of the working-class, of its numbers and discipline. They need to be trained to fight, not as individuals but as a disciplined unit.

The last thing we should do is to rely on the institutionally racist capitalist police force to provide such defence. In the US, the experience of racist cops killing black people is the most obvious manifestation of that, but every black and Asian community in Britain, has its own experience of it too. Every worker that has been on strike, and been involved in picket duty, knows that this police force is not just institutionally racist, and attracts into its ranks, individuals predisposed to such behaviour, but is also institutionally anti-working-class. The extent of that was shown in the 1984–5 Miners Strike. In South Yorkshire this weekend the response of the police contrasted very badly, in confronting the far-right thugs, compared to its massive numbers and cavalry charges organised against miners at the Battle of Orgreave!

But, Trotsky also pointed out why the far-right fascist thugs are not, currently, a threat to “bourgeois-democracy” whatever the bourgeois liberals, and the social-democrats would have us believe. Precisely because fascism is a movement of the impotent, and angry petty-bourgeoisie, whose interests are imminently contradictory to those of the bourgeoisie, and specifically the imperialist bourgeoisie, and its state, that state will always be mobilised to smack them down, and to keep the lid on their activities, up until such time that it itself feels threatened by the organised working-class, at which time it will first ensure that its state steps aside, and then actively supports the actions of the fascists, to physically break up the labour movement.

As I have set out previously, the petty-bourgeoisie has grown hugely, since the 1980’s, its numbers have grown by around 50%. It is comprised of immiserated declassed elements, that have fallen into a range of self-employment, and precarious small businesses, often only a couple of steps away from the criminal classes, and fringe behaviour. What we are seeing at the moment is a petty-bourgeoisie, whose most politicised elements, in the far-right groups, that is in a state of desperation manifest as a spiral of rage. That those like Fartage who promoted the false solutions of nationalism and Brexit for that petty-bourgeoisie, should now appear on TV, and try to claim that these riots are in some way a response of the working-class, betrayed by the Tories is nonsensical in the extreme, and yet, exactly what could be expected from them.

The reality is that the petty-bourgeoisie and its agenda was tried and failed. It reached its peak with Truss and Kwarteng, and collapsed — in large part because the ruling class responded by using its own power within the financial markets to crash the Pound, and send interest rates into a spiral. If the labour movement had decent leadership, it would have seized that opportunity to present a real, socialist alternative to that chaos, based on reversing Brexit, and building workers unity across the EU. Unfortunately, we do not have decent leadership, and Starmer’s Blue Labour, with its own reactionary, petty-bourgeois nationalist agenda, bears as much responsibility for fanning the flames of racism, and immigrant scapegoating as does Fartage and the Tories.

Not only is Blue Labour riddled with institutional racism and Islamophobia, describing the loss of support from Muslims, in response to its support for the genocide in Gaza, as “shaking off the fleas”, but it has itself continued to talk about the need to limit immigration and so on, echoing all of the dog whistles of the Tories. A clear majority of voters support re-joining the EU, and 71% of Labour voters support it. Yet, Starmer continues to oppose it. Having set his face against his own working-class voter base, he is bound to disillusion them, as the fantasy of a “Labour Brexit” goes up in smoke. But, especially given that a large majority of MP’s, themselves, now oppose Brexit, particularly Labour, Green, Liberal and SNP/Plaid MP’s, its not surprising that the petty-bourgeoisie, and their hangers on, are not convinced by Starmer, and, whipped up by the likes of the Telegraph, Mail and Express, see only a further dashing of their hopes ahead.

Certainly, Starmer did not convince them, or more or less anyone else, in the election. Those that voted Labour did so with no enthusiasm, and largely to get rid of the Tories. Rather than turning to Blue Labour, those disillusioned, reactionary nationalist Tory voters went to Fartage and his Reform company. In terms of parliamentary influence, they have none, and none for the foreseeable future, though Fartage has used his position for propaganda purposes, effectively. The riots by the far-right over the weekend are not some spontaneous outburst by betrayed workers, as the likes of Oakshott would have us believe. They are clearly organised attacks by small far-right organisations. They are typically aimless and terroristic in nature, seeking to get the oxygen of publicity which the sensationalist media has certainly given them. They are a forlorn hope to win others to their cause, whilst the reality is that they have already seemed to do the opposite.

Those involved are like those supporting Trump, moronic and so appear as clowns, but that doesn’t mean that these clowns are not dangerous to those they currently target to vent their anger upon. It is a reason the labour movement must provide its own protection for those communities, and must put forward its own independent socialist solutions to the problems being faced by them, and by workers in general. As Sraid Marx has written, the last thing we should be doing, at the moment, is liquidating our own independent organisations and programmes, in order to create popular fronts with the same bourgeois forces that have created the conditions, in the first place, that have enabled the far-right to flourish.

Listening to those that the media have interviewed over the weekend, they have all reflected that wishy-washy liberal agenda. Sky interviewed the Chief Executive, the job title says it all, of Hope Not Hate, the moralising, apolitical name of which, also, says it all. The fact that such people come on, and openly state that they do not want to engage in political debate, indicates precisely the pointlessness of such organisations, because, as I pointed out, many years ago, in 2008, at a time when the BNP was on the rise, the real means of defeating racism and fascism, is precisely by dealing with the conditions that enable it to thrive, and that requires a principled, independent, socialist programme. It is certainly, not enough just to take the fight to the streets, or to rely on building a bigger demo, and, following the defeat of Corbyn, by the right-wing, Starmer-rights, it has become difficult to present such a political alternative via Labour either.

However, over the last ten years, the forces that developed that brought Corbyn to power inside Labour, are still a potent force, if properly organised and directed. Most of the organisations through which they operated, such as Momentum, were themselves politically bankrupt to begin with, and proved so, very quickly. But, experience is never lost, and can be built upon. Organising an independent, working class defence of communities against the far right thugs, is a basis for beginning that regroupment and organisation. It can be done via the trades unions, and cooperatives.

As Marxists, we do not fetishize the Labour Party in the way the Grantites and Pabloites have done. But, the reason we argue for working inside it, currently, is that it remains the mass party of the workers, despite its reactionary nationalist leadership, and because, unlike, say, the Liberals or Greens, this open valve into the rest of the labour movement, and vice versa, primarily the unions, exists. Starmer may ban or expel individual members, even on a large-scale, but, ultimately, he cannot ban the role and involvement of those members via the trades unions, without breaking the link with them, which would create new conditions for the establishment of a new mass workers party. We can organise within local Labour Parties, to turn them out to such activities, and begin to argue for the international socialist solutions required to provide a real alternative to the dead-end politics of nationalism, whether it is spouted by the far-right, Fartage, Braverman, or Starmer.

Originally published at https://boffyblog.blogspot.com.