'Don't mourn - organise!' says Hope not Hate's Nick Lowles
I switched off yesterday. I had had no sleep the night before and I was tired, but really I just couldn’t bear to watch or read about Trump’s victory in the United States.
I just shut it out of my mind, hoping it was just a bad nightmare from which I would wake. Sadly – and frighteningly – it is reality.
Today I have set off to work with a spring in my step, determined to do what I can to fight back.
We are living in deeply worrying times. Trump’s victory, following so soon after our own Brexit vote which unleashed a wave of racism and intolerance, is encouraging the far right to be bolder and more aggressive.
We are likely to see a further increase in racist violence and bullying as the haters feel more confident and legitimised.
We are also likely to see growing support for far-right parties across Europe and with forthcoming elections in Austria, France, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands – to list just a few – we could also see far-right parties/politicians increase their representation and even enter government.
More worryingly, has been the adoption of far-right ideas into the political mainstream, so that even if the parties fail to win power their ideas will.
We can shut ourselves away and get depressed. We can huddle together in our little progressive circles and social media echo chambers and moan about why people can’t see the truth – or we can get organised and do something about it. And that is what I intend to do.
But the very fact that far-right ideas are appealing and gaining traction should make us rethink our own approach. The fact that they are winning and we are not should make us accept that we are doing something wrong. Our ideas and tactics are clearly not resonating.
We must reassess how we do politics. We need to figure out how we can have a modern economic system that doesn’t throw whole communities on the scrap heap.
But the Left also needs to rethink how it engages with white working class communities so as to express genuine empathy and understanding. We need to understand the need of communities to their tradition and culture, and not appear to be meddling outsiders sneering and insulting their way of life.
Opposition to immigration and multiculturalism might be the prism through which people are increasingly expressing their discontent, but accepting that should not get us to ignore genuine grievances and anxieties.
We cannot condemn everyone who raises concerns about immigration as a racist. Some clearly are, but others have genuine concerns.
Our Fear and Hope report shows that the numbers of people with strident anti-immigrant views are declining. Many more though have concerns about the pace of change and the pressures on public services and society’s infrastructure.
Whether we agree with these concerns or not, it is vital we don’t dismiss them without a second thought and write off these people as racists.
I – like most other people – celebrate Britain’s multicultural society. But let us not kid ourselves that everything is perfect, because it is clearly not.
Our cities might not have the planned segregation of the US and racism might not be as open and acceptable as in some European countries, but too many communities live parallel lives.
There is too little interaction, understanding and empathy between communities. Rather, there is suspicion, fear and distrust. And this is not just the fault of government, public policy or racists, but accepted and encouraged by communities themselves.
I say all this because if we are to really defeat the forces of hate we have to address real problems and concerns. We need to engage with people where they are and not where we would like them to be and we have to do more to bring people of different cultures and views together to discuss and resolve the difficult issues.
And yes, that means involving people who have sharply different views to our own and finding common ground where everyone has to give a bit.
Hope not Hate will start this process by calling a weekend of action on 3 and 4 December. We will go into communities across the UK to begin a process of engagement. And we will keep going back into these communities, building links and establish trust.
Over time we will seek to address local issues and bring divided communities together. It might not provide the instant self-gratification of going on a demo or or denouncing the right on our social media echo chambers but it is far more important work.
In fact, it is the only work that is going to make any real difference in the long run.
We face a really difficult and painful few years but if we get organised, develop better policies and engage people in a more mature and non-lecturing way then we ensure that hope wins out over hate.
If we fail to do this then we have only ourselves to blame.
The far right are on the ascendency but they do not own the future.
Nick Lowles is chief executive of Hope not Hate. He Tweets @lowles_nick
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14 Responses to “Trump shows the far-right is on the rise – but they don’t own the future”
GodfreyR
The metropolitan establishment simply don’t like democracy.
Cole
Metropolitan establishment? Do you mean Boris Johnson, Liam Fox, Michael Gove et al. They’re the establishment, along with the likes of Dacre and Murdoch.
It’s worth reminding ourselves that Hillary Clinton actually won more votes than Trump and that the Brexit vote was incredibly close. Progressives are hardly down and out.
Chester Draws
Trump isn’t remotely far right. He’s actually been Democrat most his life.
He’s radical. He’s populist. I would even say he’s an egotistical buffoon. But that’s not the same thing as being far right.
The person he is most similar to is Silvio Berlusconi. Hardly the epitome of fascism. Like Le Pen (fille), he mixes economic policies that the left have often supported (protection of local industry) with isolationism (rather than straight up right wing nationalism) and anti-immigration.
Much of the Left has decided that anyone who is strongly anti-immigration is by definition right wing, but that’s not how the world actually works. Trying to fight Trumpkins on the basis that he is far right is therefore wasting time and energy — his voters don’t perceive themselves as far right at all, so arguments directed against the far right are going to be ignored by them.
Mick
“Progressives are hardly down and out.”
They’ve certainly lost ground and becoming ever more hysterical and prejudiced as they do.
New Labour came to power with a LANDSLIDE majority and maintained TWO more. But then they crashed and burned. It wasn’t ‘corporate fascism’ which did for them but sheer incompetence, EU lunacy and surrender, haywire PC mania and a total disregard for the public who put faith in them.
Make no mistake, people know that Labour and PC go together. But, among the other things, when we realised that PC was no mere well-meaning and lovable eccentricity, tomorrow’s fresh dream went sour.
Mick
” Do you mean Boris Johnson, Liam Fox, Michael Gove et al. They’re the establishment, along with the likes of Dacre and Murdoch.”
They didn’t fall into line and say ‘Yes, master.’ Nor did Trump. We mere ‘bigoted women’, as Labour and lefties say, are too small to do that. We’re laughed at, scoffed at, ignored and even risk jail. (That guy on Twitter was put in the cells for a while and had a breakdown, just because he said he was sceptical of a Muslim woman. That enraged the Left.)
See what I’m saying? Someone maybe to big to fall – at least for a while – gets our support.