It could never happen here, we are frequently told. Donald Trump’s fascist shitshow, trampling over democracy in the former land of the free, riding roughshod over the old world order, the world’s police officer as serial offender. No, it could never happen here. Except that it already has and if we continue to sleepwalk towards the abyss it will happen again.
The first time it happened was, as you may recall, in 2016 when the far right, along with the far left in yet another demonstration of the horseshoe effect in politics, succeeded in their long campaign to detach us from our friends and neighbours in Europe, the EU that Winston Churchill foresaw as the best way to achieve a lasting peace. Under the guise of controlling migration and restoring our sovereignty, enough people were persuaded to cut us adrift, to weaken Europe, to the delight of fascist dictator Vladimir Putin and the new right that was symbolised as the rise to power of an actual mobster, Donald Trump. We even had our own preening narcissist as prime minister, the chaotic Boris Johnson, renamed Britain Trump by the man himself. By ousting the discredited Tories in 2024, we stepped back from the abyss. If it happens again, who knows where that will leave us.
We have our own sub-Trumpian world here in the UK already. On the far right, we have Nigel Farage and his Reform UK Ltd company, which masquerades as a political party, a Trump worshipper who would dearly love to import the MAGA carnage into Britain. Farage believes passionately in the small state (no NHS or other public services, that kind of thing, just like America) low tax (for billionaires) economy, yet his populist brilliance drives voters towards him, as the great disruptor, the man who “says it like it is”, except of course he never does. Then, on the even further right, we have Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, currently serving time at his majesty’s pleasure, was feted by the likes of fascist saluting billionaire and Trump confidente Elon Musk. While we will not be having a general election again until 2029, there is much that can happen in the meantime.
In a matter of weeks, we have council and mayoral elections. And in the west of England, the Reform UK Ltd candidate is Brexit’s biggest donor Arron Banks. Banks is, for a so-called free speech obsessive, extremely litigious so it is important that I say at this point that he is in no way a Russian asset. Those boozy lunches with the Russian ambassador’s gaff were just that; just an opportunity to have something to eat and a few drinks with old – or is it new? – friends, right? And anyway, who hasn’t had a boozy lunch with a member of Vladimir Putin’s team? If Banks, also a Trump supporter, wins and Reform UK Ltd score big wins in the elections, can we see ourselves as being immune from the invasion of Trumpism? Would we be next in line for Make Britain Great Again? MBGA doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it? Maybe they will call it Make England Great Again (MEGA)?
The working and middle classes of America bought into far right politics, so who says we won’t? We’ve imported Trick or treat, MacDonalds, Black Friday, the Apprentice and Christ knows what else, so why not Britain First? Oh, wait. We’ve already got a fascist party called Britain First. Maybe they can merge and campaign together under one common title? I do not jest. Many people in our country believe that British politics doesn’t work for them, that everything is broken and nothing works, that prices and taxes keep going up and their lives are becoming ever more shit. How big a step would it be to say, “Let’s give fascism a chance”? It happened in Nazi Germany, the American people handed Donald Trump a huge mandate in last year’s US presidential election and it would be extremely patronising to suggest that the people didn’t know what they were voting for.
By framing the Democrats as the establishment, Trump succeeded in making it appear he was standing up against it. A total nonsense of course, but that is precisely the strategy adopted by Nigel Farage in Britain. Filthy rich, privately educated, former commodities trader Farage as man of the people seems incredible really, but to his fan base that is exactly the Farage they see. The same enemies, the same friends. To all intents, self-confessed Putin admirer Farage is a thoroughly modern Oswald Mosley. If people are seeing traits of the Third Reich in America, then our version of Mosley is a far more successful politician than the real thing.
We are currently in the unpopular stage of the Labour government. Picking fights with pensioners, farmers (rich landowners really, but that’s the way the argument has been framed) and now apparently the sick and disabled is part of the do-the-unpopular-stuff-first plan of any new government, before the fruits are harvested in terms of higher living standards, a properly functioning NHS and far less pot holes and Labour lives happily ever after. That’s the theory, at least. But what if none of these things, and more, happen and,in the absence of a functioning Conservative party, Reform UK Ltd somehow comes into power?
Would the British people vote to scrap the NHS, which Farage would surely do, in favour of a private insurance-based service which he is on record of supporting, with only the very poorest being eligible to state provided healthcare? Americans didn’t vote to get rid of their own NHS because they don’t have one, but Trump has already embarked on scrapping the existing schemes which already have 100 million Americans with medical bill debts and around 500,000 people being declared bankrupt every year because of medical debts. The need to Make America Great Again meant far more to them than fretting about affordable health care. Trump, after all, says it like it is.
So, yes, it could happen here. Current levels of disillusionment are serious enough but if by 2029 things are still perceived to be as bad, or even worse, as they are now, the word change may have more meaning than it does today.
The far right of Trump and of Farage are the elite, the political financial and political establishment they pretend to despise. The trick is persuading people to believe the opposite. Say what you like about Nigel Farage – and I think he’s an absolute cunt – but he is arguably the greatest and most successful politician of his generation. Unless mainstream politicians in and around the centre ground recognise this and compete with him not on his own fertile ground of migration and the mythical ‘wokeism’ but on ideas to make people’s lives better, then the rabbit hole awaits.
This is not America. Not yet anyway. But if enough people vote for the likes of Farage, it might well become it’s little brother. Britain Trump? You bet.
