You do realise that fascism is an authoritarian form of government. It doesn’t matter if it’s left or right, it’s the authoritarianism that is most important. The state is the most important entity – “everything in the state, nothing against the State, nothing outside the state”. Remind you of other similar forms of government? Such as socialism where the state controls everything from where you live to where you work and how much you produce when you work. The conservatives are authoritarian, not as much, but they do want control everything to do with the family. So for example marriage is very important to them. Labour are authoritarian, not as much, but they do want to control everything to do with monetary value. So for example collecting taxes from the rich to give to the poor is very important to them.

Both Labour and the Tories do not believe that the plebs are able to think for themselves. They think that politicians and civil servants are the best people to do that on our behalf.

It is an important theme. Developments in Greece and Hungary are troubling.

But is there “a rise of neo-fascists across Europe” or, rather, a varied picture of advances, retreats and collapses?

It is good to have warnings about dangers and against complacency. It would be good to have anti-fascism mark and celebrate successes too.

There appears to be little or no evidence of a general post-2008 rise of extremism after the economic crisis. On the whole, beyond Greece, these movements advanced during the long boom, and the salience and public reach has diminished somewhat since. Areas of strength (Austria) and weakness (Spain) don’t have much to do with the economic crisis. There has been a retreat in the Netherlands, where the most significant west European breakthrough wad made, but more success further east, This is obscured by the popularity of the Weimar Republic narrative, and stunts like Newsnight interviewing a Spanish neofascist with a lower vote share than the Cornish independence party.

The UK position is of the far right in its electorally weakest position since the mid-1990s, and perhaps since 1976, with the opportunity to make every level of elected office in the UK a fascist-free zone by the time of the 2014 European elections, returning to the position twenty years ago of fringe parties standing but never electing anyone. Meanwhile the EDL, having peaked with a demo of 3000 people, is holding rallies of 50 and less people, with just the media attention and the counter-rallies of 10 times the size keeping its profile up.

Interesting point of view from someone who only managed to, along with Mary Honeyball, amass 7.08% of the available London electorate’s votes in the EU elections.

I am surprised that you think Sweden has rejected the far-right. The Sweden Democrats entered the Riksdag for the first time in 2010, passing the 4% threshold, and since then, opinion polls have shown them increasing their support to around 9 or 10%!

I think Sunder Katwala is probably right.

In any case, the level of fascist activity in Italy is far from unprecedented (even if one restricts oneself to post-1945). Berlusconi’s comments weren’t unprecedented either: I think he’s said the same thing previously.

Why is a Labour MEP an officer of an SWP front organisation?

Why is convicted criminal and alleged rapist Martin Smith still an officer of the UAF?

Why is Azad Ali of the far-right Islamic Forum Europe vice-president of the UAF?

Why is a democratic socialist in league with totalitarians of the far left and theocrats of the Islamist Far right?

Sad, Mad Lad @1:

Oh dear.

You do realise that fascism is an authoritarian form of government. It doesn’t matter if it’s left or right, it’s the authoritarianism that is most important.

Actually, it makes a considerable difference whether it’s left- or right-driven authoritarianism. There was a perceptible difference between how, and why, Labour did it than how, and why, the Tories are doing it. It makes a difference to who controls power, how they deliver it (institutions), and the control mechanisms they use. It makes a difference to who they target, and how they exert, that authority. Still sucks to live there, mind.

However, and this is also important, you make a serious error in referring to New Labour as leftist authoritarians. They’re at least as authoritarian as Real Labour were, but they certainly aren’t (in any meaningful sense) left-wing in how they do it.

Such as socialism where the state controls everything from where you live to where you work and how much you produce when you work.

Um, no; that might, with a favourable reading for hyperbole, be a description of Soviet Communism, but it certainly doesn’t describe, say, Barack Obama (who, as we all know, is clearly a ‘socialist’). Socialism didn’t even equate to Communism for Marx or Lenin, and it certainly doesn’t equate to that in current public discourse. Typically it refers to progressive taxation and social safety net systems, or national education programs, or sensible health care laws, and so on.

Bizarrely, I’m going to express qualified and modified agreement with your penultimate point:

The conservatives are authoritarian… Labour are authoritarian… Both Labour and the Tories do not believe that the plebs are able to think for themselves.

Yes, both UK major parties (and, indeed, at least two of the minor ones) are technocratic in outlook. Of course they bloody are, both parties are composed largely of elitist, over-educated ‘technocrats’, who believe very strongly in the innate superiority of anyone rich or clever, and who are confident that being a member of Parliament makes you both. It’s also nothing new; examine the origin of ‘plebeian’ some time.

They got that way because we’ve been operating a more-or-less representative polity for really quite a long time, and it becomes apparent very quickly that ‘the public’ frequently can’t find their arse with both hands and an atlas. Even when they are well-informed and well-educated; which, since the death of free University education and the advent of Rupert Murdoch (and the Dirty Digger, and their ilk) the UK electorate most certainly are not.

This isn’t a comment on representative democracy, which we only have to a limited extent, it’s a comment about ‘the public interest.’ The most significant change in our media establishment since (say) the Profumo affair is that before it, there was a consensus in both journalism and politics that there is a clear difference between things that are in the public interest, and things that the public is interested in.

Murdoch’s empire and Simon Cowell are what they are today because some time around the 80s, both politicians and press began to act as though the second was more important than the first.

Sadly I’m not really surprised as left-wing parties throughout much of Europe seem to have lost interest in helping the working classes and have instead become middle-class guardianista type parties.

I couple of weeks ago I got asked to do a survey on the Guardian site. In their “how much do you earn” question, the lowest bracket is “under £25,000″. I have to live on less than half that, and I don’t know anyone who earns over £20,000. I’m one of those people who got a £1.50 ph increase when they brought in the minimum wage, and had my first ever paid holiday in the same year – and I left school in 1981.

Don’t get me wrong, I support gay marriage, I’m socially VERY liberal, couldn’t care less what god people worship, or how they do so (as long as it doesn’t involve trying to sacrifice their next door neighbours) and so on. But, just look at the way the Guardian wankers have been writing shit about how food needs to be lots more expensive and we should all be paying £24 a lb for organic beef to avoid eating horses – not that I’m really bothered about eating horse either mind you, as long as it tastes ok it’s alright by me. But I get narked that I’m supposed to pay the same as my current weekly food budget for a single item in the minds of these fuck-pigs.

Then there’s energy costs. The twats want me to pay more to help the planet. Well I can’t spend more. I don’t have it! My fuel bills are already about a quarter of the average, but then it doesn’t matter to them as they’ve got a fucking great salary with a final salary pension scheme. Well bully for them. They should come and live on the wages that people in my neck of the woods live on for a week – preferably this last week. When it’s been fucking freezing. And yet there they sit with their smug, punchable middle-class expressions and their middle class wages – don’t get me started on that!

I don’t like it that the fash are doing well – I’d rather that the current crop of parties actually did something that would appeal to the working class. And I don’t mean any weird catholic distributist shit that David Lindsey comes out with either. My experience of living on council estates is that nobody wants to go to mass, they’re much happier with fucking each other. And why not I say? It’s a evenings good, cheap entertainment.

But the guardianistas will prattle on about liberal values while selling the working classes down the river. Not surprising really, after all it was a paper founded by mill owners for mill owners. Fuckem.

I mean, the pressures on ordinary people that mass immigration has caused just seems to get ignored. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got no probelm with immigrants – I just wish we could deport a few fucking Guardian readers to balance the books. And Bullingdon boys too. I’d deport them – arseholes the lot of ‘em.

Oh well, that’s my rant done, and if the fash are on the rise then that’s me fucked too!

As for the photo at the top, the gezer in the middle looks like Alan Partridge (aha) and the bloke to his right looks a bit like Gordon Brown.

They’re nasty and scary, true, but they’re not the threat they were. I think Sunder has it. This is a bit like fighting yesterday’s battles when the new enemy is in plain sight.

I’m concerned about the corporate hijacking of government and the corruption at the heart of western politics. The real threat to our freedom lies there.

I have seen how the far-right have influenced mainstream political debate and the direction of national government thinking and policy. A good example is Hungary, a centre right government heavily influenced by far right thinking in its anti-democratic policy on a day to day level in relation to minorities, the Roma and its anti-democratic activity in the judiciary, as well as activities against journalists and the media.

Are they really anti-democratic?

One of the things that marks the New Right (in which I’d include New Labour) is authoritarian populism: they are an expression of the fear or hatred of the many against the few – which is democracy unchecked by liberalism.

Authoritarian populism can be nationalist (New Labour, the Tories, the EDL) or communalist (Respect) but it’s all based on inclusion (the ‘British’, ‘hard working families’, the ‘community’) etc) by exclusion (immigrants, benefit claimants, Jews, homosexuals).

This isn’t a comment on representative democracy, which we only have to a limited extent, it’s a comment about ‘the public interest.’ The most significant change in our media establishment since (say) the Profumo affair is that before it, there was a consensus in both journalism and politics that there is a clear difference between things that are in the public interest, and things that the public is interested in.

Pretty much this. The media are largely obssessed with who’s shagging who and whether they’ve lost weight or gained weight but that’s reflected in a political class who think they have a right to read your emails and video you on every street corner and tell you what to eat or drink.

The private is public because hey, the personal is political.

Why is every political movement with whom modern Liberal/Leftists disagree given the prefix “Neo”. Neo-Fascist, Neo-Liberal etc etc. The Neo-Liberal one particularly makes me chuckle as real Liberals had their name hijacked by people who believe the complete opposite, and these people then proceed to brand the original Liberals “Neo-Liberals”. Might as well go for NeoLib. Or NuLib.

@8 Ranter

That sums it up perfectly for most working class people. Your answer lies with the 1980s and the white working class electing Thatcher and rejecting socialism. the mass immigration and condescending snobbery of the new left is revenge, because they lost your support, and aren’t very interested in you anymore – they have new people to defend – Homosexuals, Immigrants, the disabled etc. they are fed up with the working class – Boooring#.

I fully support ending discrimination, but the problem is, it’s very rare I see any these days. These people still think the world is like Life on Mars. Remember that those in power today are not the establishment of yesteryear – they think they are progressive and revolutionary, but actually they are neither, they are exactly the same as the establishment they fought in the 1960s, and so bound by their ideology and rhetoric they will keep fighting the same battles against an enemy that no longer exists. the world is no longer gangs of skinheads chasing lone brown families around en masse, nor is it macho men slapping the secretaries arse in the office…..the victories of the civil rights movement have all been near enough won, but now they have the jackboot on their own foot for a change, they are quite enjoying kicking it actually, and are now use it in exactly the same way as the people they fought 30 years ago, except this time it’s white working class males predominantly on the receiving end.

@Chris,

“Socialism … Typically … refers to progressive taxation and social safety net systems, or national education programs, or sensible health care laws, and so on.”

So socialism is state taxation (to enforce forced redistribution), a national education system (which teaches state mandated thought processes), a national health care (which requires you to live a certain life style such as no smoking or drinking) then? All sounds very progressive and fair until you realise that it requires the forced imposition with no choice allowed. I wouldn’t call that fair or equitable.

@ 14 SadButMadLad

“So socialism is state taxation (to enforce forced redistribution),”

Yes.

“a national education system (which teaches state mandated thought processes)”

Sort of, but it’s more “2+2=4″ than “We love Big Brother”.

“a national health care (which requires you to live a certain life style such as no smoking or drinking)”

You made that up. I know you did because there are fags in my pocket and beers in my fridge.

“All sounds very progressive and fair until you realise that it requires the forced imposition with no choice allowed. I wouldn’t call that fair or equitable.”

It is progressive, to the extent that the word has meaning. And more equitable than whatever alternative you’d propose. Whether it’s fair depends on your priorities. If you believe people should be allowed to keep whatever they can grab, it’s unfair. If you believe people shouldn’t live in destitution as punishment for being born to a poor family, it’s fair.

Of course, in reality it’s a sliding scale rather than an either/or, which is why you don’t see political parties calling for 100% or 0% taxation.

This comes from that Hegelian genre of ‘we must change the world’ which frankly is as attractive as it is neive.
Maybe the author should address some simple questions; did anyone vote for the euro? did anyone vote for the increasing centralisation and concentration of capital? Yet there is a tacit belief that the subordinated should operate politically in tune with the wishes of their capitalists masters.
I can see as an MEP sitting in a lauded position there is a comfotable attractiveness of wishing the prols to continue to behave whilst the fat cats get richer .Sadly this article is yet another deluded missive in the long history of those that deny the fundamental relationship between politics and economics.
Put simply fascism is just another expression of capitalism under strain.

@ Chris, 7:

“Typically it refers to progressive taxation and social safety net systems, or national education programs, or sensible health care laws, and so on.”

What you’ve done is redefine Socialism using some very broad concepts approved of by the great mass of the population. It thus becomes meaningless.

I’m sure it would be possible to do the same with Fascism; it was, after all, an electorally successful movement.

@ 17 Jack C

His definition seems reasonable to me, except the obviously biased use of “sensible”.

Which of those things doesn’t sound like socialism? Or which important factors did he miss? Tax is in there, and that’s generally the main downside in the eyes of critics.

18 – it’s a bit motherhood and apple pie isn’t it? What British party isn’t in favour of progressive taxation, a social safety net, national education and sensible health care policies?

@ 19 Tim J

No big ones, but note we’re discussing the nature of socialism, and all major UK parties are to some degree socialist.

The US Republicans are against national health* and certainly want to pull back on progressive tax and social safety nets. National education seems to be more sacred, though.

*Which is what “sensible” appears to mean above.

20 – it strikes me that if the British Conservative Party counts as socialist, the definition is a touch too broad.

Although that was the subject of a classic Flanders & Swann gag many years ago. Michael Flanders (father of Stephanie…) introducing ‘Misalliance’ explained:

“now, you must realise about British politics that, like you, we have two parties. We have the Labour Party or, as you would say, Socialist; and we have the Conservative Party or, as you would say, Socialist.”

On a more ideological note, 20 years ago it would have been more or less impossible to read a definition of socialism that didn’t refer to the ownership/control of the means of production by the people. The end of that as a concept/aspiration is fascinating.

And the prize goes to TimJ. My comment was deliberately structured to refer to things that right-wingers have attempted to tag as ‘socialist’ in their efforts to make people think, for example, that Barack Obama is a Kenyan communist Muslim.

My point to the Sad Lad was that ‘socialism’, as it is currently used in media and political discourse, covers a wide range of fairly mild policies, including more or less anything which involves helping poor people. The frame of that debate has been dragged so very far to the right that ‘socialism’ now refers to more or less any liberal, progressive or helpful government program that isn’t for helping the 1%.

Also; the Conservatives are not in favour of progressive taxation. To name but one example, if they were in favour of progressive taxation they would have lowered, not raised, VAT (a massively regressive tax scheme).

And to Chaise; yes, I think that does indicate a bias on my part, but I’ll admit when I think of ‘socialist’ ‘healthcare’, my mind goes to US politics rather than UK. In the context of the 112th Congress and the current TEA-party dominated Republican caucuses, I think describing ‘socialist’ health care (the ACA) as ‘sensible’ is not too much of a stretch. Even if it is less sensible than it would be if it were considerably more ‘socialist’, like for example ours is.

There’s a wider point, here. In the US, the remarkable progressive achievements of the New Deal and the thirty years thereafter tell us a lot about embedded assumptions. Even Eisenhower and Nixon, who were by no means liberals (let alone ‘socialists’) governed well to the left of Barack Obama, because the New Deal frame that education was good, civil rights were good, clean air and water were good, highways were good, unemployment was bad and so on were pretty universally accepted on both sides, at least in professional politics. Once the whole Strom Thurmond / Barry Goldwater thing had been trodden on, they were mostly arguing over details. That fundamental consensus was then eroded under and after Reagan.

Equally, the Tories may have supported the NHS then; may have supported progressive taxation then, and regulation to deal with the smog and the rivers (oh god, the rivers) then. That wasn’t because they were socialist, but because the frame, or Overton window if you like, of British politics after the war was overwhelmingly dominated by ‘pull together, and rebuild’. And we did. Also, strong unions on both sides of the Atlantic, but let’s leave that aside for the moment.

Again, that consensus got eroded during the late 70s and much more quickly during the late 80s and the 90s. I think it is a serious stretch to consider the Tory party of today to be actually ‘in favour’ of virtually any of the national policies they helped create, unless they are forced to it.

Oh, yeah, Chaise @20:

No, the GOP has been savagely attacking public education in the US for a very long time now. The two main avenues of attack are on the ‘public’ bit (primarily through de-funding, school voucher programs and attacking teachers unions) and on the ‘education’ bit (via introducing Christian dogma to science classes, radical revisionism in the teaching of the Civil War, and so on).

@ 21 Tim

Not saying they’re socialist, saying that socialism/libertarianism is a sliding scale and no British parties are 100% one or the other to my knowledge. So treating them as two distinct options, never the twain shall meet, is a category error.

Applying numbers is silly, but to illustrate: maybe Labour are 65% socialist, whereas the Tories are 25%. I’m sure you see what I mean.

[9] ‘I’m concerned about the corporate hijacking of government and the corruption at the heart of western politics. The real threat to our freedom lies there’ – well said, but I’ll go one further – since party politics nowadays has no influence on this central dynamic fluffy liberals instead fret about their ‘fascists’ – fascists are a kind of liberal comfort blanket as far as I can see.

If countries like Greece tank you can bet certain nasty elements will emerge, and don’t forget it wasn’t that long ago that Greece was run by a military junta – a rotten regime supported by uncle sam – now there is a surprise, not?

I’m alarmed at the way people I associate with, all of them decent people are getting more and more extreme in their views…I can only blame the media (especially the right wing tory rags) and inaction of the main stream political parties for the rise in extremism.

Craig: and the economy. This is not an unexpected phenomenon in the deepest, broadest economic calamity since the Great Depression.

“In the Nordic countries only Sweden so far has rejected the extreme right, while Norway’s Progress Party, the True Finns and the Danish People’s Party have all registered a marked advance.”

You have a rather broad definition for “extreme right”. Most readers probably are not acquainted with Nordic politics and therefore have no idea what the mentioned parties are like, but labeling all them as far-right or neo-fascist is quite an exaggeration.

And why are the Sweden Democrats doing well? I think it is precisely because other parties have “rejected” them, meaning that they refuse a political debate. On a political left-right map, Sweden Democrats are surely left of the average British Tory.

Same with “True Finns” which btw is a rather bad translation of the party’s name in Finnish (it’s more like “Ordinary Citizens”). It is difficult to see it as a “far-right” organisation, because the policies are so leftist, socialist. And they have also benefited in elections from totally unrealistic and hysteric campaigns by the local far-left (which needs a conflict to stay afloat).

Chaise: “saying that socialism/libertarianism is a sliding scale”

Puzzled by this (to me) novel political spectrum, Chaise. It doesn’t seem very helpful. I mean, where would you put Rosa Luxembourg on that scale, or Kropotkin? How about Ann Widecombe on that scale? Jerry Falwell? Or members of Combat 18?

It seems relevant to only a very limited part of the human political space.

6 Suburban Tory. Good questions. And I’d add “Why also is David Cameron one of the founding signatories?” Strange bed-fellows altogether.

Dislecksick “real Liberals had their name hijacked by people who believe the complete opposite” Er, yes, but aren’t you also curious as to how ‘real Conservatives’ had their party hijacked by those same ‘real liberals’ to the extent that Thatcher the “Tory” prime minister held up as her bible a book that somehow everybody failed to notice had an appendix called “Why I am Not a Conservative”!? There’s so much fakery in Euro-American politics. The overwhelming majority of politicos are no more than frauds out to serve their own interests and those of their cronies, nothing better than selfishness elevated to a principle and masquerading under the labels of long since dead ideals.

Cherub “I’m concerned about the corporate hijacking of government and the corruption at the heart of western politics. The real threat to our freedom lies there.”

I agree. The really dangerous fascists are those in the top school, university, government and corporate networks who are working to constantly shift that overton window towards the New Feudalist set-up they are building now as we sit here.

The knuckleheads are just useful idiots handy for their ‘betters’ to wheel out and use as a bogeyman to distract from what’s really going on.

Chris Naden “They got that way because we’ve been operating a more-or-less representative polity for really quite a long time, and it becomes apparent very quickly that ‘the public’ frequently can’t find their arse with both hands and an atlas.”

Agree with a lot of what you say, Chris. The public may be varying parts naive, misled, stupid, wilfully ignorant, lazy, but that still doesn’t excuse how we’re being shafted now, let alone how badly shafted we’re going to be in coming decades.

@ 29 white trash

“Puzzled by this (to me) novel political spectrum, Chaise. It doesn’t seem very helpful. I mean, where would you put Rosa Luxembourg on that scale, or Kropotkin? How about Ann Widecombe on that scale? Jerry Falwell? Or members of Combat 18?

It seems relevant to only a very limited part of the human political space.”

It’s relevant only to a limited part of politics, basically the economic side of things. People often use an economic axis and a social axis (liberal/conservative). I’m just saying that people and parties are rarely at one end or the other of each axis.

Basically my version’s *more* inclusive, because I’m arguing with a mindset that divides everyone into communists or libertarians. And it’s not intended to cover the social side.

Movements generally labelled as ‘fascist’ – such as Golden Dawn or the BNP – tend to have many economic policies of the socialism-in-one-country kind (protectionism, subsidised industries, seige economy and vast programmes of public works to mop up the resulting unemployment etc) coupled with extreme nationalism (anti-immigration policies, “BritishGreek jobs for British/Greek workers”, violent racism, weird fears of racial contamination, etc).

Very crudely, you could say fascism = communism (ie authoritarian socialism) + nationalism.

Tone

Absolutely spot on. Why do you think what is termed the far right and the far left hate each other so much? They are competing in the same space, and both were borne from the same progressive roots in the beginnings of the last century.

They compete for the support of the ignorant, and ill informed and offer quick solutions with a bogeyman – whether that be the rich, the jews, whoever. Much like football teams from the same city hate each other – the same people, with a different badge.

The unfortunate thing is the modern left’s attempts to destroy the far right (such as criminalising racism or discrimination, planned, forced immigration to “breed out” any notion of nationhood from white people) is the greatest firelighter every made for ensuring the far right have a platform. People do not like being socially engineered.

Before anyone jumps down my throat, I believe in immigration. laissez faire immigration for me. I do not believe in full membership of the state of the United Kingdom (except in very limited circumstances) on arrival. If immigration was a free market, a huge number of the recent immigrants would not have been able to come here, would not have had the skills or language to succeed, much like I cannot begin to contemplate moving to China or Russia for lack of understanding and marketable skills or talents. Labour ensured perks were on offer on arrival, over and above those on offer for the people which created and paid for them, purely to defeat their political opponents…people are waking up to why this was done, and it wont be long before the far right sweeps them up in the eneviatable backlash, and for all of you who supported this, all of you who cried “racist” when a family complained because they couldn’t get a council house because Somalians jumped the que, all those who protected the Rochdale gangs and their counterparts to stop another Bradford style riot, you only have yourselves to blame.

Hope we get a Golden Dawn in the UK!

I’d be more concerned about nice middle class people who read nice morally upstanding papers such as the Daily Mail and happen to have such pleasant views of anyone deem beneath them, than some odd little chavs. (EDL)

But then what do I know…?

(Only 5 years being stuck in Little Englander village where the Daily Mail might as well be the Holy Gospel – I’ve been surrounded by murderers less terrifying than a 50 something old woman, with a terrible haircut plus making the transition to Marks and Spencers OAP fashion, that has that mad look in her eyes, as she spots you and readies the trolley to ram into you, because your scent naturally secrets odour de benefit scrounger somehow.)

More seriously, groups like the EDL are only the violent manifestation of mainstream thought brought to existence by media outlets(all kinds in different ways). These groups wouldn’t be in existence if newspapers did not screech loudly for example, that all Muslims are terrorists who have somehow banned Christmas, pigs and other things sacred to suspiciously very unchristian “indigenous” British Christians.

EDL are too thuggish to appeal to the masses, they need to come back, learn how to talk proper and wear nice suits before they get anywhere…

As for Greece, unless Germany/US/powerful economic institutions cut the austerity crap on them, they will fall to some extremism and/or full scale uprising against the EU, eventually.(Note I don’t mean invasion just “reclaiming” their country) Then well done Europe you have nutters on your front door, might as well make up with them like nothing ever happened, let them in, have one big party and live happily ever after… aside from people who have offended the state in some way by the sin of existence. (Violence can spread to other states like a nasty flu bug and suddenly everyone is an even nuttier nutter of fruitcake.)