Will Michaels, Hull
Shown on Channel 4 and available on catch-up, this film gives a chilling picture of the far right in Britain, including its international links, today. The documentary makers, at no small risk to themselves, investigated several far-right groupings and individuals ranging from street movements like Patriotic Alternative and Tommy Robinson to ‘Britain First’ which attempts to portray itself as a legitimate political party, to a shadowy ‘race science’ research group the ‘Human Diversity Foundation’ (HDF).
The HDF, an international network of researchers, produces pseudo-scientific information based on the discredited ideas of eugenics. They rehash old racist prejudices, like the claim that races with the biggest sex-drive have the lowest intelligence and use what they label ‘scientific evidence’ to support their odious ideas.
These ideas would be laughable except that ‘influencers’ continually push them through various social media forums and far-right street activists, including Tommy Robinson, and even mainstream politicians either believe or echo these lies to justify attacks on Muslims and others.
Erik Ahrens, a far-right ‘Alternative for Germany’ activist and influencer, is a leading figure in the HDF. He was captured on camera calling for ‘remigration’. Ahrens clearly means the forced repatriation of people not born in Germany. He also called for the establishment of an ‘elite’ group of physical and intellectual leaders to ensure a white future for Europe. He uses the SS as the model for such an elite. At the same time, ‘Britain First’ leaders who attempt, in public, to portray themselves as a mainstream patriotic party, actually want Britain to become a “shithole” because then a far-right or even an openly fascist party could be successful.
A shadowy web of connections link the university educated far-right pseudo theoreticians through to the influencers and then into the mouths of right-wing politicians and street thugs, like those who took part in the riots on 3 August. The documentary makers worked closely with ‘Hope not Hate’, an organisation that monitors and exposes the far right.
The film also showed the physical threats and intimidation that the far right will use to attack anti-fascists. Nick Lowles, the CEO of Hope not Hate, has been a victim of far-right intimidation. One far-right activist was intercepted with a gun after many texts and emails proclaimed that anyone who could kill Nick Lowles would be a hero of the movement.
Nick Lowles himself made the point that something had to be done to stop the far right. Unfortunately, the big weakness of the documentary was the lack of a strategy beyond using the courts to stop fascism. A brief film clip of the battle of Cable Street in 1936, when workers from the East End of London collectively used their strength to stop Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists, shows the way.
The key task is to point out to trade unions and working-class communities the menace of fascism and the far right. Ultimately, we have to struggle to establish a new workers’ party that will fight for all of our communities. That would cut the ground away from the far right and their odious ideas.
