As the scenes of horror as neo-Nazis and white supremacists marched through the streets of Charlottesville, U.S., unfolded last week, Brexit campaigner and former head of the U.K. Independence Party, Nigel Farage, took to Twitter to express his supposed disbelief. “Cannot believe we’re seeing Nazi salutes in 21st century America,” he wrote. His remarks backfired badly. “Really Nigel? This is what happens when you stir up nationalism and blame everything on immigrants,” was one of the angry responses he received. Someone reminded him of a poster he unveiled during the Brexit campaign last year that depicted a large line of migrants and refugees with the title “Breaking point”.
With the link drawn by U.S. President Donald Trump and others between his electoral campaign and that for Brexit — Mr. Trump once described himself as “Mr. Brexit” — the events in Charlottesville have triggered some uncomfortable discussions in Britain. “Think Charlottesville couldn’t happen in the U.K.?” ran the headline in the prominent liberal magazine, The New Statesman, on Monday. It pointed, in particular, to a piece published in the right wing Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid The Sun , by Trevor Kavanagh, the paper’s former political editor, who launched a stinging attack on Muslims, concluding with the question, “What will we do about The Muslim Problem then?”
Many pointed to the fact that the language bore a close resemblance to the references made by the Nazis to the “Jewish problem”. “It is shocking that in the 21st century, a columnist is using such Nazi-like terminology about a minority community,” said a letter signed by over 100 British MPs, which accused the paper of carrying a number of “misleading, inaccurate and hugely prejudicial articles about minority communities”.
In 2015, a former columnist of the paper, Katie Hopkins (a face of the Alt-Right in Britain), drew public anger after referring to migrants as cockroaches. Earlier this year, she referred on Twitter to a “final solution”, after the attack on the Manchester arena, seen by many as another reference to Nazi terminology. The Sun is far from the only Murdoch-owned publication to have faced such a controversy. At the end of July, TheSunday Times Ireland, was forced to apologise to Jewish BBC presenters after one of its columnists made anti-Semitic comments in a piece about women and pay.
Symbol of resistance
“U.K. media condemns the Nazis in Charlottesville but we still happily give people like Nigel Farage, Katie Hopkins and Tommy Robinson a platform,” tweeted one user, referring to Mr. Robinson, the founder of the far-Right English Defence League (EDL). The group infamously had held a rally in Birmingham, following the attack on Westminster in April. During a counter-rally, a young Muslim woman, Saffiyah Khan, stared down Ian Crosland (the EDL’s current leader), in an image (above) that went viral and came to symbolise resistance in Britain to far-Right forces.
Still, many believe the Right in Britain hasn’t had the organisation and coordination that it has in the U.S. It has largely manifested itself in occasional, individual acts of hate and terror — from the murder of the Labour MP Jo Cox last year to the attack outside a mosque in north London in June.
However, there are signs that things may be moving in a dangerous direction. Earlier this month, The Times reported that around 40 neo-Nazis were being investigated by police over plans to launch terror attacks on Muslim communities across the country. “The danger far-Right extremists pose to national security is no different from Islamist terrorists,” an intelligence source told the paper.
Vidya Ram works for The Hindu and is based in London
