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The far-Right is coming for Farage Ethnonationalists sense an opportunity

A sense of febrility and fury is growing. (Mark Makela/Corbis via Getty)

A sense of febrility and fury is growing. (Mark Makela/Corbis via Getty)


January 14, 2025   7 mins

Nigel Farage is a study in contrasts. He’s the Dulwich College-educated former investment commodities broker who has defined his political career in opposition to the establishment. A Thatcherite disciple, his project is the ruin of her party. And, for a man regularly decried as “racist” and “far-Right”, Farage’s embrace of civic nationalism over ethnic grievance has hardened a sense of distrust on the outer reaches of the British Right as to whether he is really their guy.

Between the riots of last summer and record migration rates of 900,000 in 2023, a broader feeling of discontent has been supercharged by the return to the headlines of Asian rape gangs — in particular, the apparent failures and cover-ups by establishment politicians. Farage’s softer nationalism, as well as his online spat with Elon Musk over support for the activist Tommy Robinson, has presented parties to the Right of Reform UK with an opportunity. Reflecting a resurgent brand of impassioned ethnonationalism, they feel like their moment has come.

At heart, the ethnonationalist believes that nationhood — and the resultant social and political benefits — can only truly be shared by those with a common race. Their movement is fuelled by the sense of a coming threat, the idea that a racial identity dating back over a thousand years could be wiped out. The flood of immigration in recent years and the ensuing change to Britain’s ethnic make-up has given succour to ethnonationalist arguments, and these are growing louder on the political fringes.

The far-Right in the UK was once dominated by the British National Party, led in its heyday by Nick Griffin. The BNP reached its peak in 2009 when it secured two MEPs and a little under a million votes in European Parliament elections — spurred on by migration figures that had reached around 200,000. Later that year, the party received further notoriety when Griffin appeared on the BBC’s Question Time, during which he managed to refer to the Ku Klux Klan as “almost totally non-violent” and claimed that “a lot of people find the sight of two grown men kissing in public really creepy”.

“If anything, these hard-Right groups seem to thrive on national chaos.”

But the 2010 general election, in which the BNP failed to win any seats, marked the beginning of the end for Griffin. He stood down as leader in July 2014, before being expelled later that year for allegedly harassing BNP staff. The party has now been essentially inactive for the past half-decade. Tommy Robinson may be the poster boy of the English far-Right, yet the English Defence League he co-founded has effectively been defunct for years too. Just as many on the ethnonationalist Right judge Farage to be a liberal in populist clothing, Robinson is also widely dismissed in those circles as a self-promoter who isn’t serious about building a coherent and lasting movement. That work is being done further below the surface.

For it is the personalities involved in Griffin’s fall a decade ago — a chain of events encompassing power struggles, ideological splits and murder threats — who are furthering the cause of Britain’s ethnonationalist Right, threatening to spill its grievances on to the streets.

One key figure is Mark Collett, who leads Britain’s largest and most proactive explicitly white nationalist group. Called Patriotic Alternative (PA), by its own count the organisation has over 16,000 supporters. Collett starred in the 2002 Channel 4 documentary Young, Nazi and Proud, produced when he was leader of the BNP’s youth wing. The film describes him as one of the party’s “best and brightest”, while a proud Griffin refers to him as a potential successor as leader.

Mark Collett, veteran British nationalist and leader of Patriotic Alternative (Martin Pope/Getty)

But after admiringly claiming in the documentary that “Hitler will live on forever” and admitting that he was a “Nazi sympathiser”, at a time when Griffin was attempting to detoxify the BNP brand, Collett was temporarily expelled from the party. He returned, rose to become publicity director, and again positioned himself as an heir to Griffin. This progress was undone in 2010, a matter of weeks before the general election, when Collett was accused of plotting a BNP palace coup before being arrested for allegedly threatening to kill his leader.

His new organisation is similarly controversial. PA has been linked to National Action, a proscribed terrorist organisation, and it was namechecked last year in Parliament in relation to the new Government definition of extremism, accused of promoting neo-Nazi ideology. Unsurprisingly, Collett’s hard-Right group has thus far been unsuccessful in registering as a political party, its applications rejected at least four times by the Electoral Commission. With both the group and Collett himself banned from Twitter for, among other things, celebrating a 2023 riot outside a Merseyside hotel housing refugees, online operations have largely moved to the messaging app Telegram, where the PA leader has over 20,000 followers.

There, he argues that immigration initiatives are “all part of a concerted effort to destroy the country”, and following the death of Jean-Marie Le Pen he posted a tribute praising the National Front founder’s “pro-White ideas”. The obituary concludes: “Le Pen’s memory today urges us to continue struggling unapologetically for our worldview, which is neither right nor left, but White.”

Central to Collett’s belief system is the idea of “remigration”. The euphemistic term for forced mass repatriation of immigrants is one well-used on the Right, and increasingly heard in the mainstream. The view was adopted by the far-Right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) which came first in last year’s national election, and invoked again at the weekend by Alice Weidel, co-leader of Alternative for Germany (AfD), who called for “repatriations on a large scale”. When US President-elect Donald Trump proposed remigration in America, the policy was compared in the press to ethnic cleansing. The term disgusts even Marine Le Pen, who split with the AfD over proposals to “remigrate” Germany’s foreign population.

Kenny Smith, Chairman of the Homeland Party. Credit: Kenny Smith/X

Remigration is also vital to the platform of another burgeoning force on Britain’s nationalist Right: the Homeland Party, which was established in 2023 by former PA officials who had lost patience with Collett’s messianic brand of leadership. Unlike PA, Homeland managed to register as a political party at the start of 2024, though a Home Office official had previously expressed concern that the group would try to force a successful application “by stealth”, using different names or applicants with no far-Right background. Several of Homeland’s activists have been revealed as former members of neo-Nazi groups, and have engaged in Holocaust denial. Party chairman Kenny Smith, who led the breakaway, is alleged to have recruited armed members and in 2022 pled guilty to firearms offences.

Perhaps in an attempt to counter these optics, Homeland’s website has endeavoured to convey a political platform that reaches beyond immigration concerns, addressing proportional representation, fixing road infrastructure, and preserving the green belt. Homeland will fix your potholes. Indeed, in leaked audio from the group’s first meeting, as reported in The Times, Smith, another BNP alumnus, told activists: “The organisation needs a focused approach to winning power, taking control of budgets and policymaking in places. Ultimately we want local authority, and then who knows beyond that.”

But its shiny website can’t conceal the uglier views aired online. Consider its posts on TikTik, including a clip criticising the England national football team for featuring “Africans” such as Bukayo Saka and complaining that “we have to pretend that David Lammy and Olakemi Olafonteu Adeoke [sic] are both British or English”. The latter is otherwise known as Kemi Badenoch, and Homeland accounts consistently refer to the Tory leader using her full Nigerian birth name. Smith has posted that she “needs to return to Nigeria”.

This is arguably feeding the rising anti-immigration tendency among the young. As Paul Jackson, an expert on Britain’s far-Right, tells me, “social media has transformed far-Right politics and allows for the easy sharing of quite extremist positions.” He adds: “youthfulness and rebellion are core tropes of the far-Right, and in recent years the online space has become filled with far- and extreme-Right messages designed to appeal to these sentiments.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, around 70% of its 700-odd members are aged under 30.

But if Homeland has attempted to hide its extremist elements beneath a reasonable-sounding policy platform, other groups aren’t so cautious. Collett argues that electoral politics is “a waste of time, money and resources”, with PA instead turning to initiatives such as raising money to support the families of convicted rioters.

Paul Golding, leader of Britain First, outside the House of Parliament. (Credit: Edward Crawford/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty)

If anything, these hard-Right groups seem to thrive on national chaos. Another of the groups which emerged from the ashes of the BNP, Britain First, is similarly described by its leader Paul Golding as a “street defence organisation”. Golding himself has multiple convictions for offences, including acts of terrorism and religiously aggravated harassment, while former members have claimed that the organisation routinely plotted violent attacks on British Muslims and harassed asylum seekers. “I want this country to become a shithole,” Golding told an undercover reporter for a Channel 4 documentary last year. “I want this country to descend into a fucking nightmare, because that’s the only thing that’s going to get people off their backsides.”

The danger here is that as Farage softens his offer, he pushes his more radical supporters towards more extreme organisations. Homeland knows this. As one of its more presentable activists, Pete North, formerly of Ukip, wrote last month, “Farage should note that while he takes the credit for killing off the BNP, he could just as easily revive it” by disavowing Robinson’s supporters and “softening his line on immigration”. North claimed that “for every new voter [Farage] attracts as he moves his party to the centre, the more the grassroots right may conclude that another party better represents their interests.” Meanwhile, Patriotic Alternative has claimed Starmer’s comments about the Tories’ “open-border experiment” as a victory for the “great replacement” theory.

How, then, does mainstream politics respond to this threat? Labour cannot assume that popular anger over immigration will be confined to the comparatively benign Reform UK. Indeed, Jackson predicts that, in the next couple of decades, an openly ethnonationalist party could exceed the level of support the “amateurish” BNP commanded at its height.

As the resurfacing of the grooming gangs scandal and last summer’s riots have proved, the main parties are ill-equipped to deal with such growing resentment. And with powerful figures such as Elon Musk fanning the flames, Nick Griffin’s protégés are poised to capitalise. The sense of febrility and fury is growing; the violent unrest which tore through England’s capillary towns and cities last summer was just a taste. As Starmer’s tenure is increasingly undermined, ravaged by social unrest and economic sclerosis, the nightmare of which Golding speaks may yet lie on the horizon.


is UnHerd’s Deputy Editor, Newsroom.

RobLownie

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UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
4 days ago

Honestly, no mainstream party will end the third world invasion this is clear.

This is true in Europe too.

If Europe is to survive mass remigration must happen at some point. The only question is when … however, it looks like Trump may give us the ‘how’ and the precedent.

Europe is dying. Look at Paris or Brussels or London. I went to Amsterdam recently and was truly sickened. Frankfurt is a horror show. 400 girls in Milan sexually molested at NYE this year by migrants. I could fill pages here.

Ultimately, Farage is a snob and a liberal globalist who has no intention of rocking the boat when it comes down to it. He basically implied that it would be a good idea to take Begum back this week. After all he sprouted a couple of years ago!

As the Dalai Lama so wisely said in 2019, Europe must be for Europeans not Africans, Indians or Muslims. We are not multicultural animals. We never have been nor ever will be.

This is our home … if we lose it, we have nowhere else to go.

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
4 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Where have you seen reports that 400 girls were harassed in Milan? I’d read reports that a (small) group of Belgian ladies were harassed by young men in what sounds like the classic “ring-formation” molestation beloved of certain migrant groups – but 400?
Also: what exactly did Farage “sprout”? Hair? Mushrooms?
Gave me a chuckle this motivation-free Tuesday morning.

Caradog Wiliams
Caradog Wiliams
4 days ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

The Catholic Herald, about three weeks ago. The same report talked of Muslim gangs taking over in Rome.

Gavin Green
Gavin Green
4 days ago

The Catholic Church more like.

Gayle Rosenthal
Gayle Rosenthal
4 days ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

Oh come on, Katheryn! You know he spouted, not sprouted. But maybe he did spout no more than verbiage that is now garbage.
It’s hard to say if it was 400 or 4, or if it took place in Belgium or Milan. Europe has so hardened its censorship, nothing gets reported except hair and mushrooms. You sound like an expert on the inner workings of grooming gangs…. “ring formations” …. HA ! Yeah it’s real funny to consider the reality that women cannot walk the streets in their own towns.
Katheryn, you give ME and the rest of the readers a real chickle !

El Uro
El Uro
4 days ago

I’ll never understand why women so like to be commodity

Victor James
Victor James
4 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Opposition to non-european colonial setterlism ( mass immigration), anti-white hate and far-left politics will become much more normalised going forward – by necessity. But, for a truly successful movement, it must be ‘pan-European’, and not focused on ‘nationalist’ interests.

Gayle Rosenthal
Gayle Rosenthal
4 days ago
Reply to  Victor James

Victor, I agree with you somewhat, however the national interest rationale undermines the EU which is positive. As Geert Wilders says … they are about reforming the EU, not destroying it. But a little destruction of it needs to happen. It was never legally authorized in the first place.

Geoff Cooper
Geoff Cooper
4 days ago
Reply to  Victor James

I think you are correct, but not only because we need to see it as a pan-European existential catastrophe if we allow to become one, though we do. I’m not sure that we in the UK can muster the strength, or even the will to do what inevitably has to be done just on our own. We are no longer a tough, unitary people with culture and faith and a strong sense of ourselves as a people like say, the Poles.
We have been so systematically undermined and demoralised and insulted for so long now that I don’t think that todays Englishmen will have the stomach or the b***s to do what is needed until we see other Europeans begin to do it first. Who will it be though I wonder? The Italians, the French or even the Germans?

Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
4 days ago
Reply to  Geoff Cooper

Britain is not yet a failed state but there is every sign it is a failing one, too weak to withstand the dynamic growth of the religion from the 7th Century.

Hamish Allan
Hamish Allan
4 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

As the Dalai Lama so wisely said in 2019, Europe must be for Europeans not Africans, Indians or Muslims. We are not multicultural animals.

Are you talking about race, or are you talking about culture? They are two different things.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
4 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

If Europe is to survive mass remigration must happen at some point.
The idea that you can somehow repatriate all these millions of people is total fantasy. Where are you going to send them?
If Europe is to survive then immigrants must become European. It is multi-culturalism that has failed. Not Immigration per se.

Geoff Cooper
Geoff Cooper
4 days ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

Unfortunately the idea that the immigrants must, or even can become European is the total fantasy that got us into this mess in the first place.

Gavin Green
Gavin Green
4 days ago
Reply to  Geoff Cooper

Immigrants didn’t struggle to become American.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
4 days ago
Reply to  Geoff Cooper

A lot of immigrants – even Muslim immigrants – have been very successful at becoming European. I’ve worked with Indians, Asians and Africans who shared all my values – and even tastes, in some cases.
What went wrong was that left-wing politicians promoted mass immigration as form of gerrymandering and to create artificial GDP growth at the expense of the indigenous blue collar class whose objections they then silenced with slurs like ‘racist’ and ‘Islamophobe’. This was called Blairism.
It’s utterly unrealistic to think you can reverse it. The most that can be done is to halt the process and pursue greater integration of those already here.

Anthony Roe
Anthony Roe
4 days ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

When they become a majority, why on earth would they want to become more European?

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
4 days ago
Reply to  Anthony Roe

Because European rationalism creates greater happiness than misogynistic mediaeval superstition.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
4 days ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

We are not multicultural animals however much we want to be. Multiculturalism will always fail because our innate anxiety of the ‘other’ is bad enough when cultures and ethnicity are similar … when they are widely separated it increases the low grade social anxiety we all suffer from exponentially.

Culture evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to alleviate this anxiety. We can’t just switch it off. We feel much better and safer amongst our own (with good reason if you look at London or Manchester).

I don’t want to see further Balkanisation of Europe which if we are being honest is its only future unless we stop all of this Afro/islamic immigration now.

mike otter
mike otter
4 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

IKR – Damn those Beaker People – coming here with their bronze tipped arrows and fancy pots – absolutely no respect for our stone circles and they don’t even drink liberty cap tea – totaly uncivilised. On a serious note you can’t stop the rise and fall of civilisations and as our birth rate falls in the West we must take action. I think the leftists – labor, EDL, BNP etc have one aim “want this country to [become] a nightmare, because that’s the only thing that’s going to get people off their backsides.” The globalists have another – PnLs, Balance Sheets, share options and damn the effects on UK, USA, NL etc. I expect there’ll be some reckoning and a correction in due course. When it came to stopping the Apache, Nabajo etc the best weapon was the Comanche. Best way to stop Moslem extremists and their leftwing running dogs? A moderate Moslem with good military and law enforcement training inside our tent – peeing out – NOT the other way round!

Last edited 4 days ago by mike otter
Simon Blanchard
Simon Blanchard
4 days ago
Reply to  mike otter

With a heavy heart I agree.

Geoff Cooper
Geoff Cooper
4 days ago
Reply to  mike otter

When the chips are down, there are no moderate Muslims.

Gavin Green
Gavin Green
4 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Not rocking the boat? What was Brexit if not that?

If Europe is for Europeans does that mean you accept Europeans in the U.K.? Free movement?

Last edited 4 days ago by Gavin Green
UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
4 days ago
Reply to  Gavin Green

Yes but again it has to be done slowly. It wasn’t which resulted in Brexit as the mass movement of people made everyone’s life much worse. Certain countries should have been more restricted than others and benefits should have had a 5 year start point.

Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
4 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

I think Musk’s problems with Farage is he is a talker not a doer.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
3 days ago
Reply to  Jerry Carroll

Yes, you may well be right and can add to that a U turner when he smells mainstream acceptance.

Anna Bramwell
Anna Bramwell
3 days ago
Reply to  Jerry Carroll

He’s a professional politician, not a soldier.

Phil Day
Phil Day
4 days ago

While the author is right to recognise the threat that is posed by extremists l see no future where this country will vote to be governed by thugs, yobs and bigots.
That said, the number of people who are genuinely concerned about the damage that has been done by uncontrolled migration (along with the manner it has been handled) in recent years is now at a very high level. These people are not extremists and their views, concerns and ideas are not ‘far right’ by any reasonable understanding of the term yet they are still dismissed and disregarded by the legacy parties.
They do, however, feel the country is not being governed in the interests of the existing population and Farage, through Reform, is offering them a voice and a route towards gaining enough influence to address those issues. Personally, I’m quite happy with the direction Farage is taking the party and would not be a member if I thought for one second that it was or would become an extremist organisation.

Stuart Bennett
Stuart Bennett
4 days ago
Reply to  Phil Day

I agree, I don’t see anything that suggests acceptance of an Ethno-nationalist Far Right in the UK. Apart from a few hateful crackpots we snort at with a healthy derision and turn away from, the concerns being voiced relate specifically to economics and culture, not race.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
4 days ago
Reply to  Stuart Bennett

As ethno-nationalism becomes ever more popular and accepted in Europe and the US you’ll find that it will become more accepted in the Uk.

We (the West) are destined over the next 25 years to be over run with the third world and their cultural ‘issues’.

Africa will double is population by 2050. 1.5 billion extra people. They are not going to stay there.

We are not multicultural animals (although we can be multi-ethnic if it is done very slowly … which it obviously isn’t being) ….… living in close proximity to large numbers of people who look different, behave and dress differently and have wildly different worldviews increases the low grade social anxiety we suffer with to fever pitch.

Throw in the third world behaviour ie crime, assault, grooming, terrorism, unfair use of resources, perceived 2 tier legal and justice systems favouring the immigrants etc and you have a recipe for genocide at some point.

Most genocides have been caused by enforced multiculturalism of some kind.

Culture evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to alleviate this anxiety and we can’t ignore the fact that we are visual animals that are designed to make value and safety judgements all day.

So, the more we see our homelands disintegrate and descend into ethnic squalor, the more ethno nationalism will seem acceptable.

Gayle Rosenthal
Gayle Rosenthal
4 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

You’ve gotten it so right but in the end, so wrong. We humans are hampered by our lack of foresight. Hell, we don’t really even have hindsight ! I can’t decide if I agree or disagree with your statement: ” Most genocides have been caused by enforced multiculturalism of some sort.” ….. Are we Jews so lacking in culture that we have cornered the market on Nobel Prizes ? Are we so lacking in at least the Judeo part of Judeo Christian values that we offended the Germans enough for them to murder us at a genocidal level ?
Genocides happen over the goods, status, and territory of one over the other. Nazis wanted our stuff and resented our status. And Nazis wanted to erase Jesus’s Judaic roots. If there had been an Israel in 1939 the Kristallnacht would have started a mass migration of Jews to the Jewish Homeland. When Muslims are truly targeted and in response they bring their weapons far deadlier than machetes out from under their homes and mosques, we will see who has the will to rule, the ethnic Brits or the bloody Sharia of Islam.
Will that happen in UK and Europe ? It’s not a matter of if but when. Displacement is happening at a breakneck speed. And Phil Day doesn’t understand that UK’s “thugs, yobs and bigots” are the electorate and the ethnic Brits. Yes, the violence is inevitable, but Brits still outnumber the Islamists and Muslims have homelands everywhere in the Muslim East and in Africa.
And to answer the question in the back of your minds …. yes Kemi Badenoch is definitely a Brit, and a patriot at that.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
4 days ago

Yes the Jews were different but what was the difference between WW1 where Jews fought and died alongside their Christian brothers and WW2 where the same Christian brothers turned them into ashes? Economic destruction which led to jealousy.

Having said that the ‘other’ with the Jews isn’t as great with our more recent arrivals due to Jews being with us for 1400 years or more. But it’s a great example of what happens when things get tough economically … We look for emotional salvation to fix and explain our dis-ease … ie we need to blame someone. Add to that clear catastrophe that third world multiculturalism has been for Europe and the backlash has the potential to be enormous. The Jews have always been a great benefit to Europe and indeed the world. Most people recognise this today.

Finally, Kemi is British legally but not ethnically nor does she have any skin in the game which is important. History matters. She was asked recently if she felt Nigerian and she said no she felt that she was from a particular tribe in Nigeria only. You can’t feel British and feel that you are from a tribe in Nigeria where she grew up. This is not to bash her as I quite like her. (but don’t believe many of her statements) it’s just reality.

Rishi Sunak has already decamped to the US … he had no skin in the game either. This is the problem.

M To the Tea
M To the Tea
4 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Then we need to cancel the World Bank and IMF so we don’t end up with Africans coming here because we forced them to grow GMO crops and remain completely under our neocolonialism and plundering tendencies! What’s good for the goose is good for the gander in this scenario!

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
4 days ago
Reply to  M To the Tea

I totally agree but Africa will always be a basket case for multiple reasons but mainly due to the African malaise which existed long before colonialism and has continued to this day. Read Thomas Sowell.

mike otter
mike otter
4 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

I’d love to see the pride in the UK that most US, Spanish and even Russians feel for their homeland, but this doesn’t mean to say we have to embrace ethno-nationalism. Like its little sister, socialism, ethno- nationalism descends into a purity spiral that becomes a circular firing squad. I saw some graffiti a while back in Villalonga (Valencia) – Top line said “Freedom for Valencia – against Madrid – no to Bourbon Rule”, now crossed out, beneath that “Freedom for Villalonga – no more rule from Valencia”. On the return trip i saw that too had been defaced and “Free La Corona” sprayed below. La Corona is a small hamlet NW of Villalonga – farmers of goats, fruit, beans and marijuana. Only a few surnames there amongst the locals – fiercely proud but with a better understanding of humor and politics than most anyone in Northern Europe. Perhaps its because they still learn history at school and beleive in the Holy Trinity?

mike otter
mike otter
4 days ago
Reply to  mike otter

I really wanted to add “freedom for C/Antonito No’s 3,5,6 & 8” but it was broad daylight and i had no spray cans to hand.

denz
denz
4 days ago
Reply to  Stuart Bennett

Do you believe diversity is our strength then Stuart?

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
4 days ago
Reply to  Stuart Bennett

Culture is downstream from race, Stuart. We don’t have magic soil –immigrants aren’t magically transformed by contact with the land. Go walk around a minority-British neighborhood and you’ll see what I mean.

Russell Sharpe
Russell Sharpe
4 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

“Culture is downstream from race”
I would suggest that it is downstream from religion.

mike otter
mike otter
4 days ago
Reply to  Stuart Bennett

Absolutely – if you showed an Alien biogs/pics of Sir Roderick Spode and Sir Kier Starmer and asked which was parody they’d have to guess. Unless ofc Schturmer is wearing his black shorts, in which case the Alien would imagine Spode to be the despotic leader of the UK and what remains of its empire!

Last edited 4 days ago by mike otter
Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
4 days ago
Reply to  Phil Day

While the author is right to recognise the threat that is posed by extremists l see no future where this country will vote to be governed by thugs, yobs and bigots.
Have you considered that the extremists are the people in charge? The ones who turned a blind eye and want to buru the grooming gangs. The ones who hassle and arrest people for social media posts while turning real criminals loose. The ones who persist in ignoring the border despite the majority of the country wanting something of substance done about it. You are already governed by thugs and bigots – they put the illegal before the citizen and are actively suborning British culture to the invading mob.

Gayle Rosenthal
Gayle Rosenthal
4 days ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

I quite agree. And, the comment “thugs, yobs and bigots” is rather like Hilary Clinton’s comment about “deplorables”. U.S. voters never forgave her and never will.
As for Ethno-Nationalism …. this term is ill understood. The extremist radicals who demonstrate in the streets of Europe for a Palestinian state fail to understand that Palestinians are largely just garden variety Arabs from Egypt and Saudi Arabia. ‘Palestinian’ is not an ethnicity. And it was never a nation. ‘Arab’ is an ethnicity. And their weapon is Islam. But this doesn’t save them from being labeled ethno-nationalists. They ARE ethno-nationalists who serve the project of Arab-Islamic colonization of the planet. They were repelled in the Crusades.
In Arabia, the monarchy, which is a large extended family of sheiks and their progeny, are at the top of the heap. European and American leaders kowtow to them because the command vast resources of oil and minions of Muslims. West also make common cause with them to curb the Muslim Brotherhood, which will come back to bite the Arab monarchs in the butt… which Turkey’s ethnic Turks, Iran’s ethnic Persians, and Egypt’s ethnic Copts just might also line up for in the near future.
As a whole, the article was pretty spot on …. and diplomatic to a fault.

mike otter
mike otter
4 days ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

Spot on – they are extreme because they advocate a closed society with one supreme ideology and all other thoughts or deeds outlawed. They will use any means to defend their extremism: rape gangs, narco trafficking, negligent arson and if all fails “curated” terrorists and false flag attacks. They have learned to dresss like students, housewives or in a suit and a tie. Though strangely their hairstyles never seem to change that much. Basically its a case of the smartest thing the Devil ever did was convince poeple he doesn’t exist!

Deborah Grant
Deborah Grant
3 days ago
Reply to  Phil Day

I hope you’re right. I don’t think Reform have the answer. Their relentless focus on immigration misses the key reasons why we have needed immigrants: to do the jobs Brits can’t or won’t do.

People want more and better public services, so work avoidance, stagnant productivity and a declining European birth rate means we have to import economic growth.

John Dellingby
John Dellingby
4 days ago

I do find it amusing based off one or two of the comments here (will likely increase in number) think that this is the direction Reform need to turn to. Through a combination of hard work, clever politics and establishment incompetence and malevolence, Reform are polling at 25% and growing. By spring, they might regularly be leading the polls (no wonder Labour were desperate to cancel the local elections in Kent and Essex in May).

Yet, invite people like Robinson in or pander to the types of people mentioned in this article, they will plummet closer to 2.5%. Yes, people are livid at our politicians over mass immigration, foreign rape gangs, illegal migrants breaking in and foreign born residents being prioritised for key services over UK citizens, but they won’t vote for glorified thugs and overt racists. Reform need to win in places like where I grew up in rural Norfolk, the quiet, beautiful places that are quintessentially English as well as the suburbs of our towns and cities. That is the path to power. Most of the people who live here view folks like Robinson and Collett with disgust, they should not be pandered to or everything that has been achieved will be for nothing.

Lancashire Lad
Lancashire Lad
4 days ago
Reply to  John Dellingby

This is absolutely the case, and though those downvoting this perspective may not like it, this is indeed the view of the majority who would be far more disgusted with a descent into ‘national socialism’ than any other option.

The points made about “low level social unease” are, however, valid and must be addressed. There’s an equivalence that can be drawn between trying to foist (for instance) trans-activism on a population as a way of trying to defy human nature, with trying to foist uncontrolled immigration on communities.

The term “reactionary” is relevant here. There may be a natural reaction but we shouldn’t allow it to consume us. Farage, in taking a stand against mere reactionaries, is getting it right.

Gayle Rosenthal
Gayle Rosenthal
4 days ago
Reply to  Lancashire Lad

Caradog Williams ….True… and you put your finger on the reality. The article and many comments pose two alternatives in response to Islam and I guarantee it’s not that nuanced and it is not about political parties. The third is that Islam wins or Islam loses. But …. Islam is nothing if not patient. It must be expelled completely. So …. it won’t be politics that win or lose. It will be a struggle in the streets that will determine Europe’s fate. And the young people will need to join in, not only with babies but with a conservative turn to the common sense right. Elon Musk is correct. The AdF and ethno-Brits are Europe’s only hope. I add Marine Le Pen, who rightly expelled her father from the party and who has garnered a lot of support from the French who want to remain French.

mike otter
mike otter
4 days ago
Reply to  Lancashire Lad

Considering the attacks on Jews & their properties whilst cops look the other way we are way beyond the descent into national socialism. We have touched down and are already getting baggage off the conveyor. This baggage has numerous labels: Morton’s Fork, Hobsons Choice, Hell or High Water, Buridan’s Ass etc.

mike otter
mike otter
4 days ago
Reply to  mike otter

Also i see unherds captcha system is showing pictures of fire hydrants – is that a good thing to do under current circumstances? Considering the ” success” of LA’s leftists in terms of creating “a shithole” this might give UK labor ideas and you may find areas of grassland, heather moors etc are ablaze this summer and the hydrants dry. Obvs in the unlikely event of the UK not being too wet….

Caradog Wiliams
Caradog Wiliams
4 days ago
Reply to  John Dellingby

There are those people who think and maybe they are commenters on UnHerd. Whatever they think, they are a tiny minority of the population. In general, they are older and they see clearly the way things are going. They may believe that their logic will dictate the way things will happen in the future. They are surely wrong.
Reform will not persuade Labour voters. Reform will not persuade voters who have always voted Tory – by definition they don’t want anybody to rock the boat. At best, Reform will get 20-30 seats in a hung parliament. This is because people in the UK have a death wish.
IMO, the one key issue in the UK today is the ever-increasing number of old people. Nobody talks about it. ‘What about the young?’ is the cry I hear every day – as more and more women refuse to have children because of their careers. At the next election, a third of the population will be old – depending on your definition. This will include about two-thirds of the contributors to UnHerd, who want to put things right as a last gift to the world. Old people will be more afraid of the increasing number of immigrants, will be afraid of taxes on their children when the family home is passed on, are perhaps afraid to go out in streets without police. But will they vote? If they do vote they will vote for more of the same – because that is what old people do.

AC Harper
AC Harper
4 days ago

Reform will not persuade Labour voters.

Unless the current Labour government continue to make a mess of everything. The Conservatives have already been punished for their indolence and that could happen to Labour for its incompetence.

Caradog Wiliams
Caradog Wiliams
4 days ago
Reply to  AC Harper

One of the weirdest things around is that Labour is still seen as the party of the ‘Working Class’. Around me, Labour wins everything and not to vote Labour means an abstention. Tories are the Toffs. Reform are…

Gayle Rosenthal
Gayle Rosenthal
4 days ago

I tried to reply to your comment above but apparently I hit the wrong hand first. You are also correct about the fact that Labour is no longer the party of the working people. This happened in the U.S. as well. Donald Trump and the GOP are now the party of the working people because the Democrats took up the racial mantle for minorities. Labour is doing so for the Arabs and Muslims.
As for your above comment …..True… and you put your finger on the reality. The article and many comments pose two alternatives in response to Islam and I guarantee it’s not that nuanced and it is not about political parties. The third is that Islam wins or Islam loses. But …. Islam is nothing if not patient. It must be expelled completely. So …. it won’t be politics that win or lose. It will be a struggle in the streets that will determine Europe’s fate. And the young people will need to join in, not only with babies but with a conservative turn to the common sense right. Elon Musk is correct. The AdF and ethno-Brits are Europe’s only hope. I add Marine Le Pen, who rightly expelled her father from the party and who has garnered a lot of support from the French who want to remain French.

Lancashire Lad
Lancashire Lad
4 days ago

Two things:

A great number of Brexit voters in “red wall” territory were Labour voters. Many of them voted Tory in 2019 to “get the job done” before switching back last year. The idea they wouldn’t vote Reform, or that Tories wouldn’t, is therefore mistaken.

Secondly: people in the UK have a “death wish? What nonsense!! Or just speak for yourself.

Gayle Rosenthal
Gayle Rosenthal
4 days ago
Reply to  Lancashire Lad

Well, they almost have a death wish. Have you read Douglas Murray’s The Strange Death of Europe ? Try it. You cannot apply a personal truth to a society so a societal ‘death wish’ is fallacious logic, but that is what makes the idea compelling. Islam is nothing if not patient. I have faith that the young Brits will rally. No one minds a little Arabic blood in their bloodline … Arabs are, by and large attractive and smart. However, to be faced with the choice of an Islamic Culture or a Western Judeo Christian culture is an existential choice. I believe Islam will be spit out by the Western nations.

Caradog Wiliams
Caradog Wiliams
4 days ago
Reply to  John Dellingby

Dare I say it but the coming elections in Wales and Scotland next year will say more than Norfolk. If the Reform surge is real, if it is maintained, if Labour continues to lead the decline, if more corruption appears in government – Reform would certainly win Wales and would have a significant role in Scotland. Then they would be in power for about three years before the next Westminster election. If they performed well, then would take power in Westminster. If they performed badly……

mike otter
mike otter
4 days ago

Wales maybe – Scotland less so – voting system is pretty feudal and in many cities the ghosts of sectarianism walk with the living dead of the SNP.

Iain Anderson
Iain Anderson
4 days ago
Reply to  mike otter

Not sure you no much about Scottish politics or its voting systems Mike. It has a PR system that gives a more representative share of the vote to parties. Feudal would be the lords halve of Westminster . As for sectarianism, it was the SNP who pursued anti sectarian legislation only for it to be repealed by all other parties at Holyrood.

Richard Littlewood
Richard Littlewood
4 days ago

One of the perversions of the non-discussion typified by this article is that what cannot be said is exactly what Tommy Robinson has been saying. Because Robinson claims Islam and the teaching of Islam is incompatible with a successful so-called multi-cultural society, then just because he has said it, then for that reason it cannot be mentioned in the media, because he is the bad guy. To talk about what Robinson talks about would induce a UK wide journalistic and political cognitive breakdown.
So what do we get? More spin. More avoiding of reality.

Last edited 4 days ago by Richard Littlewood
Caradog Wiliams
Caradog Wiliams
4 days ago

Agree with your “More spin. More avoiding of reality” summary. The picture with the article says it all – the English flag, which should be an object of pride, has become a symbol of evil. Why has this type of image become invisible?
In Wales there are flags everywhere, the Welsh flag and the Union Jack. No evil there. What has gone bad about England?

Richard Littlewood
Richard Littlewood
4 days ago

It would take so long to reply to that fully.
A simplified version. Self-hate from an English public school upbringing along with Leftist political views dominant since 1997 and now the ‘elite’ (another word I hate) choose, for psychological and political reasons, to denigrate their own culture and flag.
Unherd is representative of this sick mixture of self-hating Englishness and politics.
Tommy Robinson of course is a proud Englishman. He has to be silenced.

Gayle Rosenthal
Gayle Rosenthal
4 days ago

Perhaps guilt for the British Mandate in Palestine ? Are there Muslims in Wales ? I know Scotland has only about 3% Muslim and Humza Yousaf resigned in disgrace after his ‘everyone-in-power-is-white’ speech. Maybe that accounts for it.
Scotland seemed to embrace child gender transition but not Islam ??? Surprising !

Caradog Wiliams
Caradog Wiliams
4 days ago

There are Muslims in Wales, particularly in Cardiff and Swansea because there are a few mosques around. Not many though.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
4 days ago

The governing class cannot say ‘we love mass immigration because it pushes up house prices and rents and squeezes wages and we don’t care that it’s wrecking public services and pauperising working people’ – that would sound callous – so the only alternative is to stigmatise its critics by calling them racist and islamophobic.

William Hickey
William Hickey
4 days ago

Exactly the point made recently by Douglas Murray: someone discussed something; he’s not nice; therefore, we can’t talk about that something anymore.

Murray contended that was exactly how the Tories and Labour suppressed all discussion of immigration from 1969 on: Enoch said something not nice, Enoch is not nice; so we can’t talk about immigration for the next 50 years.

Richard Littlewood
Richard Littlewood
4 days ago

We get Nazis, Klu Klux Clan, Hitler…
But the elephant in the room goes on its way undisturbed… Islam.
Is Tommy Robinson Far Right? You won’t have that question asked or answered here.
A typical Unherd article. Avoid all the important issues. Just more spin.

Gayle Rosenthal
Gayle Rosenthal
4 days ago

Well said ! You duplicated my remarks above but much more succinctly and poetically.

Richard Littlewood
Richard Littlewood
4 days ago

Whether Enoch Powell was right or wrong when he gave that speech in 1968 hardly matters. It was so long ago and in a different world. A tlme long passed.
That Tommy Robinson might be right freaks out the political and media class so much that they will do anything not to report what he even says.

Gayle Rosenthal
Gayle Rosenthal
4 days ago

Again, well said ! I have followed Tommy Robinson for years. And Katie Hopkins too. The fact that they have jailed him twice now is telling. The smell fear and the loss of power but they cannot smell the stench of Islam.

Dylan B
Dylan B
4 days ago

It genuinely concerns me that every time Two Tier claims that anyone questioning his policies and decisions is far right he diminishes what it actually means.

Much in the same way that idiots claiming that punctuality or the countryside are racist does too.

There are genuine racists out there. They exist. But thankfully they are few in number. If they are increasing in number it is only as a result of frankly dreadful governance of our two main parties.

Actually attempt to fix illegal migration, islamism, grooming gangs, two tier policing, knife crime. They could actually fix the damn roads and it would deny the oxygen that far right knuckle draggers need to exist.

Two Tier & Co won’t do any of these things of course. He will maintain the steady decline into multi cultural tribalism.

Last edited 4 days ago by Dylan B
Caradog Wiliams
Caradog Wiliams
4 days ago
Reply to  Dylan B

One of the funniest aspects of Two Tiers AI speech yesterday was that AI meant that potholes would not be a problem in the future. Presumably, to say that AI will not solve the pothole problem is a far-right attitude.

Nigel Hunt
Nigel Hunt
4 days ago

As a left leaning socialist I am disappointed that the Labour Party has failed to recognised how multiculturalism is destroying the country and destroying Europe. Several European countries are beginning to recognise this but end up having right wing governments and the problems associated with them. Europe should be for Europeans, though where non-Europeans integrate then that works. The problem is that mass migration means that integration does not happen for most immigrants, who live in ghettos and fail to acknowledge Western culture. My fear is that Europe is going to lose all the freedoms and liberality that have developed from the Enlighenment, and it is the so-called liberals who are destroying themselves through their acceptance of alien values – such as the way muslim men treat women.

Paul Thompson
Paul Thompson
4 days ago
Reply to  Nigel Hunt

OK, I’ll bite: What are the “problems associated with right-wing parties”?

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
4 days ago
Reply to  Nigel Hunt

That Labor has genuinely failed to recognize that is inconceivable. The evidence is too obvious to miss. The party is less an alignment of political interests than a religion that refuses to question any aspect of its dogma. To do so is to commit heresy. Look at how the left treats its own members who deviate on any single topic.
The only way any of this changes is for the leftists in charge to be subjected to the consequences of their decisions. I used to think that might apply to left-leaning voters, but that hasn’t happened. Some in California are noticing the govt failure and malevolence around them, but no one expects them to vote for a Republican next time.

Gayle Rosenthal
Gayle Rosenthal
4 days ago
Reply to  Nigel Hunt

Don’t be totally disappointed, Nigel. Multiculturalism, as TR points out is not all bad. It is Islam that is destroying the multiculturalism project. And Richard pointed this out above. I’m a huge fan of Kemi Badenoch. She is what is good about multiculturalism. And the feminists, lesbians and gays absolutely fear Islam. So yeah … let’s be multicultural without any Islamic proponents who conduct mass prayer in the streets, riot on behalf of the non-nation of Palestine, and gang rape women by the dozens.

denz
denz
4 days ago

For those who worry about the Far-Right, I would like to ask, how much immigration is too much immigration?
Is ethno-nationalism by definition, an evil?

Frederick Dixon
Frederick Dixon
4 days ago

“Remigration……increasingly heard in the mainstream”. Excellent.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
4 days ago

This is degenerating into a drinking game, with the trigger words being some version of far right, extreme right, nationalist right, and so forth. These stories almost never explain why the AfD, Reform, Melei, or Donald Trump became viable.
Here’s a clue: it’s because of what the allegedly professional political establishment has done and keeps on doing. Just like alternative media emerged when the legacy bunch lost its way, outlier become viable because people realize that the status quo is actively failing them. Actively failing, with the only question being whether that failure is intentional or not.

Caradog Wiliams
Caradog Wiliams
4 days ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

Almost certainly intentional. If you saw yourself as an intellectual and you wanted to join in with all of your (similarly intellectual) friends in the northern hemisphere, I think you would being having conversations beginning, “We need to teach people that..”. But those people are not ourselves because we can already see the light. We just need to push everybody through the tunnel.

Richard Littlewood
Richard Littlewood
4 days ago

Free Tommy Robinson!

Rob N
Rob N
4 days ago

Britain First may, or may not, be right about much but he is definitely right that “this country to descend into a f*****g nightmare, because that’s the only thing that’s going to get people off their backsides.”

Gayle Rosenthal
Gayle Rosenthal
4 days ago
Reply to  Rob N

It’s called civil war.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
4 days ago

It is interesting how little attention is paid to the leftist extremists who are actually in charge. Who enabled rape gangs for decades.
Whose ruinous policies are injuring every Western nation. Instead we get derivative predictable attacks on those with no power, and who are jailed for on line posts.

Richard Littlewood
Richard Littlewood
4 days ago

Unherd in 2025 = Jeremy Paxman in 2011
It’s quite surreal that nothing has changed.
As Robinson says in 2011 “Are we going to pretend this is not happening Jeremy?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtMR6SBZyeM

Last edited 4 days ago by Richard Littlewood
Gayle Rosenthal
Gayle Rosenthal
4 days ago

Thank you for sharing this 2011 video. At 5:55-6:00 he says he went to high school with girls that are now wearing burkas and forbidden from seeing their families. This touched me deeply because there but for the grace of God went my daughter. She married a modern secular Muslim man and we hardly saw her for 7 years. We weren’t allowed in their apartment. We could only meet in a cafe. But they frequently went to his family. They tried to convert her… the first burka was a flowing colorful house dress ‘for when she got pregnant’. When we did see her or talk to her, she was crying or unhappy. She was young, naive and in love when she married. No children thank God. Under Sharia law the children must be brought up in Islam. Was there a Sharia court in the area ? Probably yes. She is, we are, Jewish. Tommy Robinson is a hero in my opinion and a political prisoner.

Last edited 4 days ago by Gayle Rosenthal
Ian Johnston
Ian Johnston
4 days ago

I can’t recount how often I’ve shared this interview on twitter.

Everything Tommy said then turned out to be true. Yet Paxman spent the entire time sneering at him.

Free Tommy !

Daniel Lee
Daniel Lee
4 days ago

“…the return to the headlines of Asian rape gangs — in particular, the apparent failures and cover-ups by establishment politicians…”
The geographically manipulative euphemism “Asian rape gangs” is itself part of the cover-up by establishment politicians – and journalists.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
4 days ago
Reply to  Daniel Lee

It is easy to understand why all those from the very many countries in Asia which are not Pakistan get upset by this label. We must harden ourselves to telling the truth however much some people wish to avoid it.

Samuel Gee
Samuel Gee
4 days ago

And, for a man regularly decried as “racist” and “far-Right”, Farage’s embrace of civic nationalism over ethnic grievance has hardened a sense of distrust on the outer reaches of the British Right as to whether he is really their guy.

And they are correct. He isn’t their guy. The author has fallen into the trap of adopting invective instead of analysis. Farage is a classical liberal as was Thatcher. That’s not the same as being a Tory. It is far from it. Mainstream media can’t get their heads around this difference so they just label people hard right or sometimes hard left when they don’t fit in the cosy social democratic consensus. That the media labels Farage as “Far Right” doesn’t mean he is and the quoted sentence above shows how confused you can become if you accept meaningless labels devoid of analysis as being factual.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
4 days ago

55% of births in 2023 were White British according to the ONS. The average Brit will reject labels like “racist” and “ethnonationalist”, but will they accept becoming an ethnic minority in their own country? I think not.

J 0
J 0
4 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Rather too late for them (us) to have any other choice now. Whatever you or I think seems to be irrelevant – the trojan horses are here and spewing forth their contents as we read and type.

Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
3 days ago
Reply to  J 0

Islam is the problem though large numbers of immigrants don’t help. BUT Christian migrants from India and Africa are able to fit into the British Culture more easily, as it is still heavily Judeo/Christian influence. .Though the Left are trying hard to eliminate all that.

Roland Fleming
Roland Fleming
4 days ago

I predict that before 2040 in multiple countries in Europe, including the UK, one or more political parties explicitly organised around ethnic/religious lines will gain meaningful traction. It will be one of the most significant factors in the political reorganisation over the next half a century. For clarity, this is simply a prediction based on the logic that democracy is somewhat influenced by demographics. It’s not an endorsement of any political ideology.

Ian Johnston
Ian Johnston
4 days ago
Reply to  Roland Fleming

The increasing assertiveness of increasingly large and hostile ethnic groups in our country, to say nothing of the grooming gangs, MUST lead to an explicit racial identity by the threatened larger population.

Uganda is a salutary lesson in where this can end – if not full-blown Zanzibar, Armenia etc.

Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
3 days ago
Reply to  Roland Fleming

There are already FIVE independent Hamas MPs in Westminster, as many as Reform. There could have been far more, IDS only got in due to a split in the Hamas vote, as was true of a few Labour MPs including IIRC Naz Shah in Bradford.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
4 days ago

If the ethno-nationalists do rise up and become a significant political force – something which I think is, at present, a very remote possibility – the only people to blame will be those politicians in the uni-party, Labour and Conservative, who thought they could simply lie to the electorate and, when that failed, just call anyone who complained, or even just voiced reasonable concerns, about levels of legal and illegal immigration, ‘far-right’.

If you want to push people into extremism all you have to do is denigrate them and their concerns or wilfully ignore them or, even worse, silo them into a political hinterland where they feel that mainstream politics is simply a waste of time. Nigel Farage, the current ‘bete-noir’ of the uni-party and the mainstream media, is the only sensible, credible alternative to the unappealing status quo. I only hope that those who currently see denigration of the Reform party as a clever and, of course, virtue-signalling tactic will come to their senses and realise the stupidity and danger of what it is they are doing and what might lie in wait.

Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
3 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Currently the most important reason to vote Reform is NOTHING to do with culture or immigration, it is to scrap Net Zero insanity. Two things will drive us backward to a new dark age (Net Zero literally). The most imminent is Net Zero, Islamisation is a bit further off.

Geoffrey Kolbe
Geoffrey Kolbe
4 days ago

“At heart, the ethnonationalist believes that nationhood …. can only truly be shared by those with a common race.”
I suspect what they really believe is that a nation can only consist of a people having a common culture – and in that they are surely right.

Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
4 days ago

“… during which he managed to refer to the Ku Klux Klan as “almost totally non-violent” and claimed that “a lot of people find the sight of two grown men kissing in public really creepy”. The Klan is too small and aged to be anything but harmless and why shouldn’t people who aren’t homosexual find the sight creepy. Who paid for this hatchet job?

Ian Cooper
Ian Cooper
3 days ago

The ethno-nationalists that Lownie refers to are depressing but can a better case be made for the ethnic state, a British Britain? After all Japan has remained Japanese and is anyone calling her racist? Then there is a much wider, more respectable and accepted desire to reduce the amount and speed of immigration, as suggested by Reform; which is actually driven by a desire to preserve the white British. Then again, in the 19th c. ethnic citizen states like Italy or Greece were liberal causes, in opposition to reactionary dynastic Empires like Hapsburg Austria or Ottoman Turkey.
Further consider Britain in 1945. It was essentially a white British country with a common history, common culture and common ‘race’ – yes, there tiny exceptions. But wasn’t there a far greater sense of a national community and sense of social solidarity, and a far greater trust in our government and media? There were acute social divisions but these were family arguments which could be forthrightly addressed and we had the Attlee Labour government reforms – there was some real levelling up.
Compare that with today where England has become Multiracial-land. A sense of ‘us’and ‘our country’ has gone, we’ve become consumers not citizens and we distrust and even loathe our politicians and MSM, mainstream media – now the guard dogs of the establishment rather than watchdogs of the people – and even free speech is under threat. That’s why we read Unherd.
So though we are richer, or some of us are, things are worse and isn’t that largely due to mass immigration – which had, incidentally, no democratic mandate? Shouldn’t we have seen that diversity, a key cause of civil conflict worldwide, is foolish to import? Doesn’t basic evolutionary theory suggest in an imperfect world that having people like you as fellow citizens is wise – follow the science? In our affirmation of multiculturalism we affirm the ethnicity of the minorities so why not our own? Kaufmann in his White Shift predicts with continuing immigration there will be no white British at a point in the next century. Are we sure that’s a social good? If we insist that it is, that we must all be racially beige, are we telling the rest of the world that , and that they must follow us, and what will they say? Yes, there is the USA, but how is it doing?
Now we do know about the hideousness of uber nationalism, the one thing schools tell you about, but isn’t a moderate ethnic nationalism a real good, an essential social glue? We respect it in Ukraine after all. Think about it. If we are white, aren’t we a bit neurotic about race? It is actually part of who we are and it is actually OK. IT DOESN’T MAKE US BETTER OR WORSE, we are all part of a common humanity, but just a little different – if we looked in the mirror one morning and saw a change it would be a shock. All this applies to any race, of course and we just need mutual respect, but for us whites too, and for our countries and our cultures as well. And for the people Lownie refers to, the British ethno-nationalists, Goodhart’s Somewhere People and often left behind too, who in their frustration and anger get it so wrong, and so conveniently can be ignored, might not a firm and fair commitment to the historic population, properly led by the educated, be what we all need?

Andrew H
Andrew H
3 days ago

A quick point: why is an article on the far-right illustrated by photos from an English Defence League rally. Just a reminder: Tommy Robinson’s English Defence League had Sikh, Hindu, Jewish and Gay & Lesbian divisions. It also had many black and mixed race members, as well as some Muslim and ex-Muslim supporters. It may not have been everyone’s cup of tea but it wasn’t remotely a racist or ethnonationalist organisation. I appreciate that the author of this piece probably didn’t choose the photos, in which case this comment is directed towards the editor or photo editor.

Malcolm Webb
Malcolm Webb
4 days ago

Farage and Badenoch have to find a way to unite. Neither can do it on their own . Reform is untried and inexperienced and Tories have a terrible recent history to escape from. Separately they are prone to damaging splits – but together they would be strong enough to withstand the loss of their left and extreme right factions . Come on! Conservative Reform please.

Martin Smith
Martin Smith
4 days ago

The modern Liberal establishment is making the same mistake as Stalin when he classified the Western Democracies as “social fascists”. By putting France and Britain in the same category as Hitler and Mussolini and encouraging the western Communist parties to treat them all the same he missed an important opportunity to make common cause against the real far right.

Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
3 days ago
Reply to  Martin Smith

Ukraine’s powerful are Far Right.

David Graham
David Graham
3 days ago

Who created the national chaos to begin with?

Steven Carr
Steven Carr
4 days ago

The percentage of Israel’s population who are Muslim is about 18%.
And Israel is a successful multi-cultural country.

Oliver Wright
Oliver Wright
3 days ago

Let us consider the options:
Option 1: We attempt to restore the ethnic make-up of the country to what it was at, say, 1950. This would be ethnic cleansing on an unprecedented scale, and could not be achieved by remigration because most of the non-white population were born here and have nowhere else to go. It could only be achieved by doing what the Nazis did but on an even larger scale. There may be some who would actually countenance that (as there were in Germany) but it would be utterly wicked. If a wrong has been done to the native British, it isn’t the immigrants who are to blame but the successive governments who let them in, and indeed at times encouraged them to come. The immigrants themselves, leaving aside the criminal minority, were simply seeking a better life for themselves and their offspring–and who can fault them for that?
Option 2: We attempt to ‘remigrate’ recent arrivals to the countries they came from. That depends on the countries they came from accepting them. If they have retained their original nationalities, and that can be proven, some of those countries may take them, or take some of them. But others won’t, or won’t take many. And even if they did, it would have minimal effect on our overall ethnic composition.
Option 3: We accept the current ethnic composition, but attempt to stop further immigration; and then attempt to integrate the existing minorities. Self-evidently that won’t result in a restoration of the original ethnic make-up of the country. Nor is it likely that integration will be achieved in this century or probably the next, and possibly not for many centuries. So social cohesion based on a completely shared identity will not be restored. That doesn’t, however, mean that we can’t have social cohesion based on a common interest in the prosperity and wellbeing of the country. Singapore, for example, has now largely achieved that, on the unpromising basis of three mutually suspicious ethnic groups, and having had severe race riots as recently as 1969.
That last option–which both Farage and Badenoch seem to favour–seems to me to be the only one that is both workable and morally defensible. There is no going back to the past, however much we might want to.

Last edited 3 days ago by Oliver Wright
Ian Cooper
Ian Cooper
3 days ago
Reply to  Oliver Wright

Could post war immigrants have their citizenship revoked in return for generous compensation, geared to how long they had been here, and then allowed to remain as foreign residents?

Mike MacCormack
Mike MacCormack
4 days ago

All a bit parochial, at least in global terms. Now Asia is on the climb again, after a seven century hiatus, and Europe has lost the will to dominate, so Europe has neither the numbers nor the treasure it would need to be the biggest world power anymore. Sad for us. Not much we can do about it except learn to play nicely with our new co-equals. You can wish all you like, but this coming together on, let’s face it, the only habitable planet we know of is the only way to survive in the long run. So get out the welcome mat and make the best of it.

Citizen Diversity
Citizen Diversity
4 days ago

These grouplets that the author describes have always been and always will be grouplets. By contrast they make Reform UK respectable. S-YL would be a millstone around the neck of Reform.
It may be claimed by journalists that Farage looks diminished in the Commons, but in the USA at least, and perhaps for a considerable number of people in the UK, he looks like the Opposition. Farage has observed in the past that the United Kingdom is the opposite of nationalism.
It shouldn’t be at all difficult to bring justice to the girls and young women victims of the ‘grooming’ gangs, except in a ‘community of communities’. ‘Anaesthetic for the communities’ applied instead of ‘medicine’ is evidently no cure for ‘resentment’. No justice, no Labour. No jury trials, no justice.
Additionally, these individuals who lead and speak for these grouplets are even more ignorant than the gentleman who tweets from across the Atlantic. Are these individuals who have praised German national socialism Futurists, as the national socialists were? If they want to preserve the ‘thousand years’ of England, Futurism cannot be the answer.
And their understanding of what made England over this vast length of time and before is woefully simple-minded. The clans and tribes who arrived after the end of Roman rule would never have described themselves in any sort of ethnonationalist terms.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
4 days ago

What is your argument exactly? Nationalists aren’t respectable, and the original Saxons and Jutes didn’t see themselves as ‘English’ anyway, so we have to allow in unlimited immigrants and become an ethnic minority in our own country?

mike otter
mike otter
4 days ago

Labor only hold their current squabbling coalition together because of a vacuum in the space normally occupied by a centre right, mixed economy “establishment”. I consider any party “far right” that thinks skin color causes character, that biology is a conspiracy, that science is racist and that all wealth (except their own) belongs to the party (or the state). So in addition to the wackos above that includes most Labor members, but probably few of their voters. This is an opportunity for a more open society to re-assert itself: The great majority of the puppets being used for the “great replacement” come from conservative cultures with a large “establishment”. They came here to better their lives and escape DAESH, Mugabe, the mullahs of Tehran etc etc. They are more likely to vote for Farage (or Trump, AfD, FPÖ ) because of this. The deportation question is a red herring – fake – same as most accusations against Trump. Grown ups will not deport law abiding tax payers but i bet many would deport criminals who take but never give whether they are migrants or Old Etonians. Labor will have to decide whether they “grow up” – return to Kier Hardie’s mindset – or carry on sharing ideologies with wackos like EDL, BNP, National Actors or the Judean Peoples Popular Alternative (Quantrill Chapter)

Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
3 days ago
Reply to  mike otter

I suppose the Southport Knifeman votes Reform too? Currently there are FIVE effectively Hamas independent MPs in Westminster, as many as Reform have.

M To the Tea
M To the Tea
4 days ago

I’m not “far-right,” whatever that even means today, but I do believe that maybe someone or something sold the idea that abusing, colonizing, and enslaving others, and then saying, “Okay, now come and live among us,” was a good idea—for centuries. Sure, we can talk about going back to before all that—but with a caveat. Let’s also isolate economically and financially and see how fast Europe realizes it lacks the demographics and resources to survive. Without that isolation, what’s the end solution? Do they think they still have power today if there is no others among us? I think the education system has failed miserably!
It’s just common sense. And before you jump at me, take a moment to check yourself. Can we really say racism doesn’t exist until we’ve honestly isolated and seen what it truly means?
Here’s my solution: give these people the platform to share their ideas so we can have a real conversation. Regardless of the identity story, what do they actually think they’ll eat or do? I’m not saying Europe has nothing to offer—obviously, it does—but when we’re so narrowly focused on “others,” we’re not thinking clearly. It’s basic projection in psychology. We’re not engaging with our interiority; we’re just projecting outward.
So let them express themselves and flush out what it is they actually want. I’m not offended by a Nazi! Bring them on! Make their story so real that it loses its fire from the secrecy! 
There is no Europe! Europe went to the world and took the world BUT I do support stop the immigration pipeline and allow fair trade truly! In few years, we may all have a beach house somewhere else because there is no fear of extreme intrusion into any culture! No one wants to leave their country if we did not create a lobsided economic realities!

Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
3 days ago
Reply to  M To the Tea

And who decides whether Islam is lying?

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
4 days ago

Geert Wilders’ deputy Joram van Klaveren converted to Islam (read his book), and other nativist politicians have done the same. It dawns on them that the far right has no serious ideology other than xenophobia, whereas Islam possesses all the features of a real conservative worldview. In hoc signo vinces!

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
3 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Islam and Islamic cultures are fascistic at their core not conservative … unless you feel that conserving a barbaric misogynistic 7c death cult is centre right?

Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
3 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Islam does seem to have a ‘thing’ about young girls though. They murder. rape and blow them up in the UK and Israel, and have been known to do the same in Iran, a country held in thrall by an Islamic religious leadership.

Ruthven sweet
Ruthven sweet
4 days ago

Britain has never proved to be fertile ground for fascism. We can be thugs, but we are not organised thugs, and never have been. Our more intelligent ‘fascists’ are scrawny cranks living in their mother’s back bedrooms. Our stupider foot soldiers of fascism are pasty, unathletic, inarticulate proles like Tommy Robinson. Together they make a very poor show of themselves.

Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
3 days ago
Reply to  Ruthven sweet

Robinson in this interview with Paxman neutered Paxman.better than any politician interviewee I’ve seen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtMR6SBZyeM

Tyler Durden
Tyler Durden
4 days ago

Yeah, NF has two problems:
First, the totem of leaving the EU has gone. Second, his lot have relied too much on the anti-Tory protest vote.
Now the 2nd factor is more interesting because it’s linked to the Tory betrayal on mass immigration. This means that tackling immigration vehemently is the only reason for British voters to opt the populist right.
If Reform had proposed something like the privatisation of the NHS then we could have been talking about something like the formal remoulding of the Right in Britain. Something like the pipedream Reform has of repeating the conservative-populist takeover of the Tories Canadian sister party in the 90s.
But his party wants to be politely popular with the masses rather than the Tommy vanguard which is more focused on Internet politics than parliamentary seats.
In essence then, he and they will remain a protest vote, of continued use to Labour owing to the British electoral system.

denz
denz
4 days ago
Reply to  Tyler Durden

I think you underestimate the revulsion against Labour

Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
3 days ago
Reply to  Tyler Durden

I bet Reform win big next time. 98 IIRC Labour MPs alone look over their shoulder to a Reform candidate in second place. The Red Wall falling was brexiteers heeding Farage and voting Tory. Labour got in because not enough Labour Brexiteers thought Reform could win, so voted Labour. they won’t next time.

Will D. Mann
Will D. Mann
4 days ago

Ethnic nationalism vs Civic Nationalism, a distinction without a difference, the 20% or so of the electorate who are vehemently opposed to immigration simply feel threatened by any one whose different.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
4 days ago
Reply to  Will D. Mann

Quite the opposite – by mixing up global populations and dissolving nations, the end result is that we’re all the same. Today you can go to the same restaurants or buy the same furniture or clothes in Tokyo, Dubai, Lagos, New York or Brussels, and likely speak English in all places.

Nationalists want a world of diverse nations. You want a grey, homogeneous world of coffee-coloured automatons, with no distinction, no roots or history to bind them to anything – and hilariously, this makes you feel morally superior!

Last edited 4 days ago by UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
4 days ago
Reply to  Will D. Mann

We are right to be vehemently opposed to accepting those into our country who are dangerously different, whose ideas and values are so diametrically opposed to ours that there can never be any assimilation, just takeover, which yes, we oppose.

Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
3 days ago
Reply to  Will D. Mann

It isn’t only those who feel threatened who end up dead or mutilated,when Islamists go after young girls, something they seem so prone to do.