Undercurrents on the fringe right

There is growing disquiet on the fringes of the British right. The Reform party seems hellbent on alienating its online activist base. Firstly by disavowing any notion of mass deportations, and more recently, denouncing the Tommy Robinson demonstrators.

While I am generally unsympathetic to Reform these days, I can see Richard Tice’s point. The Tommy Robinson street movement is a rabble of malcontents and political grifters. Ukip has fully endorsed Tommy Robinson largely as a life support machine for what is otherwise a defunct party. The whole reason Farage was forced to start a new enterprise was because of the people who moved into Ukip after his departure. Ukip has since repositioned as an anti-Islam party, skimming the atmosphere of ethnonationalism, and now, under new leadership, is dabbling in Christian nationalism. It’s profoundly unserious.

Then there’s the man himself. Tommy Robinson is by no means a man an aspiring political party should want to climb into bed with. Reform doesn’t have that luxury.

The latest march in London was a means to air the new Tommy Robinson documentary. After making a number of allegations following an incident of an alleged racist attack on a Syrian schoolboy, he found himself in court and, having lost, is under strict orders not to repeat the allegations - which this latest film does.

The film should be watched. I don't believe this would pass any test of journalistic ethics, nor is the anecdotal evidence given necessarily enough to exonerate him, but it most certainly does pass the plausibility test.

That Robinson was sued for libel, however, is entirely on him, in that there are ways of expressing doubts and floating alternative narratives without making direct accusations. This is part of a long standing trend with Robinson where he fails to do the preparatory work before making an allegation. Something a real journalist would do, not least to avoid precisely this kind of ruin.

This is further aggravated by the fact he has such a large audience. He shoots first and asks questions later. He is also just as guilty as the media of proliferating bogus news stories without proper verification or context if it suits his narrative.

He could have made a follow-up documentary on this without repeating the allegations he made. He could have explored how the media absolutely would spin a lie without regard to the truth (or the consequences of their misreporting) and how they never come clean when they get it wrong. There is plenty of material to make that case alone.

He's right, though, in that there is very much a story here. We know from previous scandals that local authorities would go to extraordinary lengths to cover up their own complicity. Robinson is also entirely correct to draw attention to the fact that this was cynically exploited by Islamists to further their own agendas. The whole thing is rotten. However, there is no reason why he couldn't have made all these points in a documentary without committing contempt of court. He of all people should know this by now.

If he doesn't know this, and didn't seek legal advice during the editing process, then we can only draw one of two conclusions. Either he's a bloody fool who simply doesn't learn, or that he's rather adeptly martyring himself for his own purposes - which would make him a grifter. Either way, he is not a political prisoner. Contempt of court is a serious offence - and he knew full well the stakes involved.

Ultimately, a real journalist would be able to break this story without putting himself at the centre of it. But that's just not how he rolls. As such, Reform is right to maintain a healthy distance. They already have one loose cannon.

Reform could have played this smarter though. If I were Richard Tice, I would’ve made the following statement:

We are a political party and we do not align ourselves with street protest movements of any kind. We're focussed on delivering change via the ballot box. There is no point taking to the streets to send Starmer a message when he isn't listening. Voting is the way to get the attention of politicians. Tommy Robinson has an unswerving ability to make himself the centre of attention, soaking up enormous resources and energy in the process that could be better directed at building up a party machine locally so we can get the changes we want. We are the only party positioned to deliver any of our shared goals. Tommy Robinson is an unhelpful distraction.

But there's a problem with that in that Reform isn't pushing policies and agendas that disaffected voters want. Instead Reform is alienating its own base. Denouncing the entire movement as "that lot" is not that far off Starmer calling people "far right thugs". In doing so, Tice is setting the direction of travel towards the centre, reinforcing the view that Reform is just going to end up becoming the Tory party. Reform should really be beating Tommy Robinson at his own game, but instead is creating the very vacuum TR is happy to fill.

As such, it appears that neither Ukip or Reform are useful vehicles for political energies, and attentions are now turning to the Homeland Party. The party seems to have got Hope Not Hate and the far-left pretty rattled. They believe Homeland is "dangerous".

The main reason for this is because they don't understand it. They don't understand where this new wave of "far right" activity comes from. It doesn't come from the Tommy Robinson end of politics, and it doesn't draw its following from the traditional recruitment pool. It's a younger demographic and it's mainly attracting educated and intelligent men. It's an entirely new undercurrent in British politics that the left simply don't know how to address, and they fear it because their traditional smear and intimidation tactics won't work.

They know how to deal with the neo-Nazi inspired far right which spawned the BNP. You just give them enough rope to hang themselves. But this ain't that. Homeland is an online phenomenon breaking into real world politics.

This is something we're seeing across the West, and though we see manifestations of it in Europe (AfD et al), the English variant is something different. It's influenced by American very-online fringe politics. It's an evolution of the 2016 alt-right which could be described as Fratboy nationalism. Fratboy nationalism is ethnocentric, but it's more of an America First movement. It is isolationist, anti-globalist and it's at war with all tenets of modern liberalism.

I don't know if it can be accurately described as fascism. That one is for philosophy scholars. Fascism is lazy shorthand because it’s right-wing and antisemitic. It breaks away from the traditional conservative right and the anti-woke right over the issue of Israel. As Ralph Leonard (Unherd) puts it "Their gripe with Israel is part of a general conflict with neoconservatives, whom they see as more loyal to abstract “globalist” values than to the concrete heritage of the American people, and as giving special consideration to Israel in matters of foreign policy." This is not traditional antisemitism, but to the casual observer it looks and sounds identical.

This, I believe is what's been informing the new breed of British right wing men, and Homeland is the first real world manifestation. But it is not a carbon copy. There's a tweedy Britishness to it which is why it attracts former members of the BNP which to a large extent was a groomer cult - with Nick Griffin as the head vampire.

As such, it is difficult to pin down precisely what Homeland is because it has yet to take form. For the moment it’s defined by what it isn't. There is a disdain for Farage's boomer civic nationalism, and is more ethnocentric than the Tommy Robinson street movement - which is more oriented around the working class. This isn't a working class movement. It is an online movement that transcends traditional class politics.

This is a worry for Hope Not Hate because Homeland are not politically image-conscious in the same way that Reform is. They're tapping into a new generation that wasn't born in the post-WW2 moral universe, and doesn't view history with the same rose-tinted glasses. This is why we're seeing a new wave of WW2 revisionism on the American right. It's not traditional holocaust denialism that was often found on the far-right. It's a recontextualisation. Some of it is even plausible.

This freedom from image-consciousness allows them to push the envelope of acceptability. They may employ “fascist” rhetoric, but to a large extent, they’re trolling the debate and they don't care what you call them. Conformity to the polite society norms does not afford young white men any social status. They are still last in the pecking order. As such, they seek notoriety. It is now an accolade to be name-dropped by Hope Not Hate. This is what HNH don't understand.

What's interesting is the growing split between this new undercurrent and the Tommy Robinson movement. The latter is now quite old, directionless and easily contained. Tommy Robinson is fronting his organisation with "patriot" ethnic minorities, moving into the realms of civic nationalism in order to win mainstream respectability. Something the new far-right doesn't care about. There is now a space race to capitalise on viral TikTok politics (where Farage is a cult figure) which is giving a voice to younger disenfranchised voters.

It's clear from online disputes that the civic nationalist right and the new right are not natural bedfellows, and in fact have a strong dislike of each other. The latter openly discriminates on race, occasionally dabbling in race science, as opposed to discriminating on culture. Meanwhile, schizoid Ukip sits squarely in the middle of this dispute, having its own identity crisis. There is a fight to the death occurring on the fringes of right wing politics. The left live in fear of Homeland because it might very well win that fight and bring unity to what has been a fractious political landscape for a decade or more.

This matters because there is a life-limit on the Reform party which will fold like a lawn chair as soon as Farage retires, not least because its core demographic will be shuffling loose of the mortal coil in the next ten to twenty years. This is a fight to define the next generation of the insurgent right, which will influence the mainstream right whether it realises it or not.

You might scoff, but as far as the average political normie is concerned, the Tory party is already tacking to the far right. The aim of the new right is to drag the Overton Window even further to the right. I'm broadly supportive of this tactic if the end result means we get a genuinely centre-right Tory party without its cohort of Lib Dem one-nation wets. That, ultimately, is what the left fears. If there is a genuine conservative option on the ballot paper, the stay at home apathy vote may return to the ballot box and roll back three decades of Blairism. There's a reason far-left activism is state sanctioned.

Ultimately, the regime prospers by policing the debate to the extent that there is no meaningful choice on offer at elections - and Reform is being sucked into that containment field. Reform can eat into the Tory vote and the Red Wall, but will never re-energise the apathy vote. As such, the fringe right is not concerned with the 2029 election. It is thinking about the post-Farage/Reform political landscape, as well it should, because Reform has already hit its inherent electoral ceiling.

This is all about direction of travel. Robert Jenrick represents a nascent conservative revival - and he may not win this time because the Tory party and the wider electorate is not yet ready to give such an agenda an affirmative mandate. But that time will come as we reckon with the consequences of uncontrolled immigration, institutional paralysis and Net Zero.

By the 2034 general election, the young radicals will be in their age of ascendency, kicking out the boomers and the Gen X dinosaurs, which is why the battle for young minds is raging now. Having learned from the AfD, this is something the Homeland Party understands well. The next Farage figure won't come from inside Reform, or the Tommy Robinson movement. It will come from a radical fringe like Homeland. There are some smart, ambitious young men out there.

That's what worries Hope Not Hate. They are no longer dealing with "neanderthal racists" and thugs. The new breed is smarter than the average leftist midwit and their arguments are more coherent. Hope Not Hate is the regime's imperial guard, defending a dying order. Their tactics are tired and obsolete and they don't know who their new enemy is. This is why they're becoming more desperate and unhinged.

America looks to be about ten years ahead of the curve, with Europe catching up, but Britain has a way to go yet. What we can say is that the left is losing. The advent of Homeland is symptomatic of generational shift, which will no longer tolerate the mediocrity and timidity of Reform and the Tories. Like Ukip back in the day, Homeland doesn't need to win parliamentary seats to reshape politics, and that's why the left is worried. That Reform is now winning parliamentary seats could even be a sign that it has outlived its usefulness. If it is now broadly socially acceptable then it isn't pushing the envelope. Homeland is stepping into that void.

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As a final note, I'd like to apologise to my Substack subscribers for the lack of posting this last week. I have a bout of cervical radiculopathy; a neck condition that causes compression or irritation of the nerves that supply the shoulders, arms and hands. It's incredibly painful and I've basically lost the use of my right arm. For the hour or two in the day when I'm able to type, my brain is in a fog of painkillers. I don't expect it to last more than a couple of weeks. Thanks for your understanding.