The Far Right Is Moving to the Mainstream

'So why was it a surprise that on 23 June 2016, following a referendum campaign in which immigration was a key issue, 52 per cent of voters opted to leave the European Union?

I am not suggesting that those who voted to leave the EU are ‘far right’ – those wanting to leave span the political spectrum. Rather I see the surprise elicited by the referendum vote as symptomatic of a political complacency in how we understand and engage with what we conveniently think of as a pathological fringe. The tendency to label uncomfortable and contentious views as ‘far-right’ and treat them with disdain led to a failure to recognise how extant anxieties have become infused with increasingly mainstream frustration with the contemporary practice of politics. In this sense, the referendum provided a one-off opportunity to ‘be heard’.'

And 10 years later - they are still not listening. They will reap what they sow.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/why-dismissing-uncomfortable-views-as-far-right-risks-political-complacency/

I agree. Walk in your own political shoes. People should stop trying to ram their politics down other people's necks by demonising anyone who disagrees with them, accusing them of immorality or stupidity or being a proto facist or whatever the trendy abuse term is at any given moment. Its hardly persuasive.

Exactly

LSE of economics has published articles on how counterproductive it is to wrongly malign populist centre right policies as far right.

The word has cheapened to such an extent there was a trend of black, brown, women, men from all walks of life proudly stating they were far because they don’t want men in their bathrooms etc.

The Left should have learnt lessons from The Democrats in America that lost 20% of black male votes and large majority of legal Hispanics to the republicans. This is happening in the UK, many Black and Asians are gravitating towards right leaning parties. Instead of dealing with the issue the left call everyone racist or say BAME are not about to be against illegal immigration because our parent or parents were born overseas. Our parent(s) followed the rules of the UK upon entering and believing BAME cannot support such a position exposes their racial bias and stereotypes far more than those that lean conservative.

I can not wait to see the faces of those when the electorate finally get to put a cross at the ballot box.

Ultimately, whatever you call these parties (and Reform are not "far right"), their policies are popular. If that's what people want, isn't that democracy?

I don't think we've moved towards the far right collectively, in one unipolar direction, but that which was once centrism is disappearing. The earnest debate, to both speak and listen, the intent to understand the other side, to try to find the middle ground, is vanishing. Instead, there's a line, left/right, and everyone stands on one side or the other, waving their placards, and nobody wants to listen to anyone who doesn't agree with them. Just in this thread itself, you can see it -- people making ideological statements which may or may not benefit them, or anybody else, but yet everybody feels it is necessary to state their position, to show their colours. I am not an exception. I have a position, too. But, I don't think it benefits anybody, including myself, to try to persuade or dissuade people to share my opinion here, or anywhere else on social media because I do not want to participate in feeding the beast.

It's looking ugly out there, and I worry about where we're collectively heading.

I think that often, the left/right dichotomy is obscurantism, and the only real winners are the people with already full pockets who exploit the dichotomy to further their own ends.

For the bird of democracy to fly, I think it needs both a right and a left wing, yet, the bird also needs a core, neither right nor left, but a stout middle. I believe the bird looks thin, right now, and wonder how it shall remain in flight.

How exactly is exercising the legal right to claim asylum "immigration fraud"?

Immigration is excellent.

Immigration fraud (asylum seekers) isn’t.

Abyone who thinks that’s far right ie unacceptably Nazi is welcome to their opinion.

But not the respect of the majority of Europeans of every colour.

Quite. Disagree with Labour lunacy? Far Right! Racist! Means nothing anymore.

😂😆Ah an American article written by a British Labour supporter. William Davies - this article he also wrote, bout Labour having 'the expertise to fix the foundations' (2024) didn't age well did it?

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n22/william-davies/a-crisis-in-credibility

Exactly. Unfortunately, leftists have cried wolf too many times over the last decade or so. The grooming gangs scandal was dismissed as a "far-right conspiracy" for many years. Female athletes get called fascists if they object to competing against men. Lesbians get called bigots for not wanting to sleep with men. There was a bizarre article in the Economist last year saying that white people having children is "part of an insidious plot to create a whiter America".

In what way?

The meaning of the term “far right” seems to have changed significantly in the last couple of decades.

Well, I didn’t hear Corbyn, that non right wing champion, condemn Jewish tropes, anti. Jewish prejudice from his own party, and violence against them. 🤷‍♀️

I’d never vote Reform, or any far right party, but let’s not be hypocrites here. The left can be as bad as the right.

When you consider that we already live with a far-left government (let’s empty the prisons! Let’s make borders meaningless by rewarding anyone who can make it to British shores!) It’s not surprising that the “far right” is becoming mainstream - because it is.

It’s not far right to say that illegal immigrants should be deported ffs… It’s as basic as you can get

The thing is, "far right" is in itself a spectrum. Reform certainly sits outside of the mainstream right wing politics that has been dominant in our political landscape to date. That doesn't mean that they are as extreme as some who are even further to the right, but they are undoubtedly on the far end of right.

It is NOT Fascist to say ' Those who disagree with me are stupid'. It may be stupid in itself and annoying, but it's not Fascist.

It is Fascist to say 'Those who disagree with me are traitors and need to be locked up/ deported/ tortured/ killed/ denied the vote.'

Elon has all but inferred as has many, Nigel is an establishment plant.

Whether there is any merit to that, I do not know but Elon Musk believes that to be the case and he didn’t like the attacks on Rupert Lowe. Of ALL people to attack, Rupert Lowe wouldn’t be my choice, he has proven himself to be decent.

LSE have warned everyone that using the far right term incorrectly to label voters of a political party will be more harmful than good.

They tried that with MAGA and now look who’s in the WH.

So many of these threads popping up, almost like MN are a shilling platform for a very worried left wing party smirks.

Far right and far left are thrown around too casually these days. It’s like the word centre has been deleted from journalism because it’s not clickbait friendly.

If you want changes to the immigration system, think net zero is too costly for the average person or won’t centre trans people over women then you’re considered far right now. In the recent past, people with those opinions were the majority and considered pretty centrist.

I agree with you @SadiraOfTyr

i do think though that the ethnonationalism is also a reaction to some of the well meaning but unrealistic liberalism and virtue signalling that we have seen in recent years.

For example, on the thread about the proposed asylum scheme there is genuinely a poster saying that she (I assume) thinks we should offer asylum to 25 million Afghan women and children. Obviously this is not going to happen, but even apart from the fiscal realities of this, I don’t think that most people in Britain would actually want to live in a society that suddenly became almost half Muslim and from a conservative Afghan culture (and I think it is a massive stretch to say “all these people would be so grateful they would just become culturally British”) - that’s an uncomfortable thing for a politician to say (let alone talk about more realistic limits, cultural concerns and integration) , but I think it probably is true and it’s not racist to think this, otherwise I think that racism and xenophobia have really lost their meaning. So whilst I think we should not encourage the dark side of what Restore and Reform are promoting and dismiss the mad conspiracy theories about replacement, I do think that we have to seriously examine some of the more ridiculous “right thinking” opinions that are blocking sane discussion and policy making, because there is a bit of a vacuum that is encouraging this stuff.

It is not a 'New York Times assessment of what is happening in Britain'. It an opinion piece written by a left wing writer who lives in London. If you were going for a similar style to the article headline you could describe him as 'far left'.

Well, Elon Musk certainlyb regards Farage as a bit too liberal, and has been funding Restore.

Yes, there were concerns about asylum seekers (on lorries at the time, before ferry and channel tunnel security was tightened up) and about the impact of immigration on the jobs and housing market.

But rhetoric about ethnic purity, civilisational erasure and 'replacement theory' were very much on the fringe, and usually associated with white supremacists and neo-Nazis (Combat 18, BNF, White Defence League etc). They are now absolutely a mainstream talking point of the right.

I’d have had no issue if you’d just quoted those. Public opinion in the US is irrelevant. A link would be helpful too.