Progressives are in power now. Let's use this.

The line coming across from the semi-respectable British right – Suella Braverman, Katherine Birbalsingh, and the GB News crows – is that the riots that have been repeating across England since the murder of three Southport girls by a teenager from Cardiff are spontaneous expressions of legitimate grievances by local people, abandoned by elites and fearful for their country. 

As per usual with this crowd, they are blending half-truths and outright bullshit.

It is patently obvious that neither the riots nor their apologists' messaging are spontaneous. The former is a clearly coordinated effort and about as local as Trumpism (or, indeed, as the fake accounts from overseas spreading some of the key disinformation about the murders.) The apologists’ wording is so similar – above all, in getting “failed multiculturalism” out of the mothballs and onto Elon Musk’s Twitterverse – that it’s hard not to suspect a shared messaging sheet or talking points being passed around on a Telegram group.

The people in the communities targeted by the far-right do have legitimate grievances – many of them the handiwork of the same politicians now coddling the street goons. And much the same goes for the third part of that narrative. Inasmuch as people in the majority white-British community do fear for their country, these fears, too, can be placed at the door of the far-right agitators pretending to defend it.

As author Sasha Polakow-Suransky once put it, the European far-right is correct when they say increased immigration has created a problem. What they won’t admit is that they, themselves, are that problem.

So, what to do? Starmer’s response, so far, has been true to form – creating a new policing unit. Given their proven potential for lethal violence, it is only right that these agitators attract as much attention from law enforcement as Islamist radicals; this is certainly a far better use of the power of the state than coming down hard on non-violent eco-protesters. He was also right to directly address the Muslim communities being targeted, although, after years of outright hostility from the state and much of the media, it’ll take more than a single press statement to make them feel secure.

And this is not a problem that any government can simply police its way out of. The conditions in which the far-right is festering are very real: communities have been abandoned, voters are disillusioned and disempowered, and their fears are real, even if misplaced. This is another reason why, contrary to fiscal conservatives, what the country literally can’t afford is another round of austerity; the poverty, the disconnect, and the frayed support network all need urgent fixing in their own right, but also to remove the most basic conditions where fascism to thrive.

As importantly, it is vital we don’t give an inch to xenophobia - that we don’t let these riots, based entirely on disinformation and lies about immigration, push Labour’s already lamentably trepidatious approach to this issue even further rightward. The cultural norms on migration shifted visibly within living memory – not only because migration itself has been increasing, but because messaging, zeitgeist and hegemonic parties all changed. Now that we - progressives in the widest sense of the word -  are in power, it’s time to push that pendulum back.

Above all, we need to make democracy work again for voters - nimbly and visibly - to counter the feeling that other than voting once every few years, voters have no recourse, and will never be listened to by “the elites”. This alienation has already brought us Brexit; it is now brewing something worse.

The use of the first person plural here is no coincidence. We - again, progressives in the widest sense - are in power; the progressive bloc of Labour, Lib Dems, SNP, the Greens, the independents, and Plaid Cymru forms 80% of parliament. Both the MPs and us, their voters, need to act like it – whether by lobbying our government to be bolder and more progressive, or in the media, or the streets, in counter-protests – and, unlike the brick-tosser brigade, actually showing up for our communities.