How to Defeat the Far Right, page 28
While many of us are working tirelessly to improve our democracy, there are others who are trying to subvert it. Protecting our system from nefarious actors – both extremists and state actors – who seek to deliberately undermine trust in our political process by spreading disinformation and deepening distrust between communities should be a core task of the government.
A parliamentary report, published in 2020, concluded that ‘Russian influence in the UK is the new normal [and that] the UK is clearly a target for Russian disinformation.’ However, it also accused the government of not knowing the true extent of Russia’s attempts to tip the scales in the EU referendum and – quite incredibly – doing nothing to actually find out.
What can be proved, though, is that the British far right has sometimes been a useful conduit for Russian state actions. Stephen Lennon has long been a cause célèbre for the Russian state media and one outlet for this disinformation. Lennon received disproportionate coverage from Russia Today (later RT) and from state-owned news agency Ruptly between 2015 and 2020. He was regularly interviewed on these channels and his events often live-streamed, so much so that there are 98 videos of Lennon on the Ruptly website from this period. When my colleague Joe Mulhall bumped into the Ruptly journalist who had covered many of Lennon’s events at a bar one night, he asked him why Lennon was provided with such coverage. ‘I just get told to from Moscow,’ the young journalist replied.
Russian media interest in Lennon was part of a wider Russian plan to amplify extremist voices in order to foster division and discontent in Western countries. The most high-profile Russian intervention was during the US Presidential Election campaign in 2016, when multiple means were used to undermine Hillary Clinton’s campaign and promote Donald Trump. One part of this clandestine war was the St Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency (IRA), an organisation engaged in online propaganda and influence operations on behalf of the Putin administration, Russian businesses and Russian intelligence. The IRA was the brainchild of Yevgeny Prigozhin, then a close friend of President Putin, who went on to establish the Wagner mercenary group. According to a joint investigation by Bellingcat, The Insider and Der Spiegel, Prigozhin’s operations were ‘tightly integrated with Russia’s Defence Ministry and its intelligence arm, the GRU’.5
The Russian propaganda operation has been busy in the UK. A report by CREST in December 2017, produced in collaboration with academics at Cardiff University, identified the systematic use of fake social media accounts linked to Russia, which amplified the public impacts of four terrorist attacks that took place in London and Manchester in 2017: ‘The evidence is that at least 47 different accounts were used to influence and interfere with public debate following all four attacks. Of these, eight accounts were especially active, posting at least 475 Twitter messages across the four attacks, which were reposted in excess of 153,000 times.’6
The report found that many Russian troll accounts positioned themselves as ‘breaking news’ sites, presumably so they could help shape narratives in the immediate aftermath of terrorist attacks in order to ‘try and sow seeds of antagonism and anxiety’. Many were tweeting incessantly with highly opinionated and strongly ideological viewpoints. ‘Another day, another Muslim terrorist attack. RETWEET if you think that Islam needs to be banned RIGHT NOW!’ was posted immediately after the Manchester Arena bombing and retweeted 3,606 times.
The CREST report also noted that these false accounts were directing messages at ‘thought communities’ more aligned with their own online identities: ‘There are multiple instances of them “@-ing” Tommy [Stephen Lennon], former leader of the English Defence League and Nigel Farage. The purpose being to try and stir and amplify the emotions of these groups and those who follow them, who are already ideologically “primed” for such messages to resonate.’
HOPE not hate’s Patrik Hermansson found that one of these Russian accounts belonged to a ‘David Jones’. Claiming to be from ‘Southampton/Isle of Wight’, his pro-Brexit and anti-Muslim Twitter account amassed over 100,000 followers during its four-year existence and tweeted 137,000 times. This account also had dozens of interactions with Lennon on Twitter during 2017 on issues ranging from ‘Muslim rape gangs’ to the dangers of Islam. The vast majority were retweets, but there were some original tweets as well, similarly tagging Lennon.
Analysis by the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) found that a significant number of the 600 Twitter accounts it analysed, either directly tied to the Russian government or closely aligned with its propaganda, had ‘tweeted prolifically in Robinson’s [Stephen Lennon’s] defence’. Speaking to the Guardian, ASD social media analyst Bret Schafer said: ‘The clustered focus on the Tommy Robinson case in late May [2018] suggests that Russian-linked accounts saw his arrest as a clear opportunity to amplify political divisions both in the UK and abroad.’7
In February 2020, Lennon was invited to Russia by journalist Edvard Chesnokov, who was deputy international editor at Komsomolskaya Pravda, one of the most popular newspapers in Russia. Lennon was greeted on his arrival by Alexander Malkevich, a journalist and head of the Foundation for National Values Protection, a Russian not-for-profit NGO, and held a press conference under the theme ‘What’s Going On with Free Speech in Europe?’ Lennon was introduced as a politician and journalist. The EDL founder told the audience that not only had he been jailed for making a video but that he had also been ‘illegally’ banned from Twitter for ‘supposed extremist statements’.
The RIA-FAN news agency reported Lennon as saying that all the problems he was talking about were connected to Muslims: ‘This is not just about one-off crimes by individuals but about gangs of migrants raping underage British girls,’ said Lennon. ‘You can’t believe the British media! I’ve seen their manipulations, how they make up lies about me … that’s why I’m here. Because all these issues are relevant in Russia.’ Lennon also called for the break-up of the European Union, denied Russian involvement in the Salisbury Novichok poisonings (targeted against former Russian intelligence officer-turned-defector Sergei Skripal) and claimed the EU was destabilising Ukraine and that then-German leader Angela Merkel had plans to lead a NATO invasion of Ukraine.
‘We can cooperate to preserve our Christian values, culture and identity,’ the Englishman added. ‘Russians see Putin as the defender of their country. He is a strong politician. The West doesn’t have enough strong men. Western politicians are emasculated.’
Lennon’s host Malkevich has a colourful past. As well as being the head of the Foundation for National Values Protection, he had previously been head of USA Really, a Russian propaganda outfit that was sanctioned by the US for election interference after running a troll factory in Russia that disseminated disinformation during the 2016 US Presidential Election. USA Really was linked to, and believed to be funded by, the Russian oligarch and founder of the IRA Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Malkevich would later be involved in a number of other pro-Putin initiatives to undermine democracy and support the involvement of Russian businesses and troops in Central African countries. He’s clearly an important cog in Putin’s soft-power operations around the world, so for him to be so centrally involved in Lennon’s visit to Moscow can only suggest that it was considered to be in Russia’s strategic interest to have him there.
Improving democratic structures and making voting easier can only take us some of the way along the journey to a more engaged and responsive political system. Participatory democracy should be more than a single vote every few years. We need to create structures and a mindset where participatory politics creates opportunities for people to be more actively engaged in decision making. This can be done formally, through the creation of consultation processes and even Citizens’ Assemblies, but it can also be done organically, through campaign groups and existing networks such as tenants’ associations and faith networks.
This will always be more possible at a local level, but the process of mobilising communities around specific issues can still be scaled up if necessary. Often, the best campaigns are those organised and operated from outside formal council or business structures. A great example of this has been the Living Wage Campaign, started originally in East London by The East London Citizens Organisation. Launched in 2001, one of its biggest triumphs was securing an agreement to ensure all those who worked on building and servicing the stadiums for the 2012 London Olympics received a basic living wage. Councils and businesses have also adopted the living wage, which is considerably higher than the minimum wage. All of this was achieved by mobilising communities, bringing unions, campaign groups and faith networks together and old-fashioned organising. According to Citizens UK, the alliance behind the effort, the Living Wage Campaign ‘won over £2 billion of additional wages, lifting hundreds of thousands of people out of working poverty’.
To achieve a real increase in participatory democracy, we need nothing less than a democratic revolution. It is part organising, part mindset change. It’s convincing ourselves that we can create change if we organise ourselves and mobilise against those standing in the way of the change. This means we – as in the wider progressive movement – need to change the way we operate too, especially if we really want to engage with working-class communities. We need to be better at listening to local people rather than coming into communities with preconceived ideas and telling people what to do. It means embedding ourselves in the communities we want to engage with rather than dropping in from the outside. It means addressing the issues of concern for local communities rather than deciding the issues beforehand. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it means having a willingness to listen to people who might have different views rather than showing an immediate intolerance to attitudes and opinions with which we might not agree.
HOPE not hate was founded on the view that you need to take people from where they are, not where you are. We have had to listen to people and treat them with respect, even if we didn’t always agree with them. We accepted that we had to understand why people might think differently from us, and we learnt quickly that we needed to earn the right to be heard, even if it meant dealing with their issues before we could raise ours. Above all, we found that the best resource for building resilience and challenging hate almost always came from within local communities, so our job was to identify, support and amplify those voices.
Increasing democracy – and participatory democracy at that – is a powerful antidote to the populist far right. It can challenge the widespread perception that current politics has failed, challenge the perception that nothing can change and, when linked to campaigning, can break down perceived barriers and divisions between communities by organising around issues of shared concern.
An emerging concept to challenge far-right populism is democratic populism. One of its leading advocates is Chantal Mouffe, a French-born academic at Westminster University, who has developed a theory of left-wing populism as a response to the failure of the social-democratic project, with its adoption of a centre-right line in its response to the 2008 financial crash and its embrace of austerity. The consequence of this, she has argued, has been its abandonment by its traditional working-class base, which has turned to far-right populism. Adopting a left-populism, she argues, would rebuild the boundary between left and right and offer a counterweight to the appeal of the far right.
Explaining the difference between right-populism and left-populism, Mouffe says that ‘the former tends to restrict democracy while the latter works to extend and radicalise democracy. A left-populism is not opposed to democracy and institutions, but instead corresponds to what I call a radical reformism.’8
Another person pushing this approach is Ricken Patel, the founder of the online global campaign group Avaaz. ‘Democratic Populists respect democracy, listen to all voters (including those who support the other “side”), seek to serve not 51% of people but the large majority of people, and are willing to face conflict with various actors to do it,’ he says.
At its core, democratic populism seeks to find issues and causes that overcome the ‘us and them’ of modern political debate by gaining widespread support, inspiring others to public service and the common good and being willing to face conflict with various actors to do it.
‘Democratic Populists tend to be humanists in the sense of having time and consideration for any person,’ Patel adds:
Their sincerity also tends to show up in how they communicate – not so much the robotic press-release speech of traditional politics (largely driven by a desire to avoid offending various groups), and more just being honest and open with people about what they think and feel. This is sometimes easier for Democratic Populists because what they think and feel is often more aligned with most people. They don’t tend to hide their true opinions, and voters can tell the difference.9
Democratic populism runs counter to our own prejudices, and to the evangelical nature of many activists, whereby we are so convinced of the righteousness of our own beliefs that we lack the empathy or willingness to consider others and compromise, and it also runs counter to vested interests on our own side.
Possible campaigns against water companies over sewage leaks and flooding in areas controlled by Reform councils and mayors, as outlined in the previous chapter, are perfect examples of the type of democratic populist campaign that can bring communities together around a populist goal, and in the process undermine the appeal of Reform.
Back in Abram, Josh Simons has a lot of work to do to ensure the government keep their promise of funding new flood defences in 2027. If he succeeds, then he can show that his intervention can achieve real results for people. If the government reneges on its promise, then he risks being just another failed politician, and his seat at the next election is in real peril.
One of the most vocal people at his coffee morning summed up the challenge he is facing. ‘If he,’ she said, pointing at the MP, ‘achieves that then I will probably vote for him.’ But her anger over the issue and her general disdain for a political system that she felt hasn’t delivered clearly showed she would be a vocal adversary if he failed. With Reform UK showing a strong second in the Makerfield constituency at the General Election, the stakes are high for Josh Simons.
16
Hope
I’m finishing this book as news comes in about Reform UK’s electoral success in the 2025 local elections. The party won 677 out of 1,637 council seats up for election, two mayoral contests, gained control of nine county councils and one unitary authority, and won a parliamentary by-election, beating Labour in their 16th safest seat. And some of its successes were startling. In County Durham, once one of Labour’s safest heartlands, Reform won 65 of the 98 seats available, in Doncaster 37 of the 55 available, in Lincolnshire 44 of the 70 and 49 of 62 seats in Staffordshire.
The general public now think Farage is likely to be the British prime minister after the next election, and opinion polls put Reform UK several points ahead of Labour, with the Conservatives floundering badly in third.1 While the Tories are facing an existential threat to their future, Labour are doubling down on their strong rhetoric on immigration in the hope of attracting back some Reform voters.
As this book goes to print, we are reminded why Reform UK is such a threat and why it needs opposing. During the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election for the Scottish Parliament in June 2025, the party ran Facebook ads falsely claiming that Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar was prioritising Pakistanis over Scots. Ten days later, former Reform Chairman Zia Yusaf told BBC Radio Four’s Today programme: ‘I want to be crystal clear about what Reform UK’s position is which is we will deport everybody who is here in this country illegally which is roughly 1.2 million people.’
Reform UK cheerleader Matt Goodwin was ecstatic, posting on X: ‘If you don’t think Reform is serious about illegal migration you’re not paying attention.’
One only has to look to Trump’s America to see the horrific scenes of immigration officers randomly stopping people of colour on the street, whisking those without papers into vans and even leaving young kids on the sidewalk.
Before the next general election, we have the 2026 local elections to deal with, which will be a far bigger test than the 2025 elections. There will be elections for the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd and all-out elections in the 32 London boroughs and Birmingham, Bradford, Sunderland, Sandwell, Barnsley, and St Helens, to name just a few. There will be elections in areas where elections were deferred in 2025 because of local government reorganisation, plus the normal thirds in most metropolitan councils.
It is not just on the electoral front that we are now facing a threat – but on the street and in our communities too. Much of the anger and discontent that contributed to the 2024 riots still exist, and the release of Stephen Lennon from prison could provide an outlet for that anger. And if all this wasn’t enough, American tech companies are planning to pressure Trump to force the British government to water down the already weak oversight of social media companies. The race riots in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, of June 2025, where migrants were literally burnt out of their houses and a local mosque was petrol bombed, were a deeply frightening development, much of it cheered on enthusiastically by the British far right.
After years of thinking that there was a British exceptionalism to the growth of far-right populist parties of the likes we have seen across Europe, we could now be just a few years from having a far-right government ourselves.
This is the challenge we are facing, and this is the challenge we must overcome. Hopefully this book has explained the threat and given some pointers to what we must do, but time is short, and if we are going to stop the far right – in all its guises – then we need to get ourselves organised now.
