How far to the right do you need to go, before you are far right?
Also, how dare the far right co-opt Atreyu, the boy warrior of the Neverending Story, my favourite childhood movie? If anything they are Gmork!
“Pretty much the only centre right leaders in the G7,” is how Rishi Sunak describes himself and…. go on, who do you think he means? Macron? Biden? Scholz? Guess again… that’s right, it’s only Giorgia Meloni!
Seriously, I think her voters would be offended by the characterisation.
Yes, this weekend our PM has attended the Atreju summit in Italy, alongside its organiser and Italy’s far-right leader Giorgia Meloni, who became involved in politics via neo-fascist movements and who began her career as a fan of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini – although she has since distanced herself from fascism. Since coming into power last autumn, Meloni has launched an assault on LGBTIQ+ families and kept up strong anti-migrant positions, although on the latter, actual successful policy has perhaps not kept up with rhetoric (something she and Sunak can bond over, I guess).
Still, what does it take to be called far right these days? You can get into politics via neo-fascist movements, organise a festival that welcomes far-right politicians and public figures such as Steve Bannon, Viktor Orban and Elon Musk, form alliances with far-right fellow leaders, wage war on lesbian mothers, and still some dude from the UK comes over and gives you a hug and calls you a centrist.
At Atreju, Sunak spoke alongside Musk, who warned against the “woke mind virus”. Musk, who was recently interviewed on stage by Sunak at the AI summit, has been accused of pushing Russian disinformation on X/Twitter and agreeing with antisemitic content. Another guest was the leader of Spain’s far-right Vox Party Santiago Abascal, sometimes known as “Franco’s ghost”, who has warned of a “Muslim invasion”; dismissed “climate fanaticism”, is openly anti-LGBTIQ, and wants to ban abortion. And of course Meloni, who famously said in June 2022:
"Yes to the natural family, no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology... no to Islamist violence, yes to secure borders, no to mass migration... no to big international finance... no to the bureaucrats of Brussels!"
(spot the dogwhistle?)
The UK Prime Minister appearing alongside far-right leaders and claiming them as allies would once have seemed inappropriate. It’s not so long ago that an MP was reprimanded for speaking at the National Conservatism Conference in 2019 – yet in 2023, the Home Secretary and other cabinet and former cabinet members lined up to join the far-right crowd, with one Conservative MP blithely using the phrase “cultural Marxism” despite it being a known antisemitic term. Other Conservative MPs spoke at the European Congress of Families in September, alongside more far-right politicians and influencers.
It’s not just the alliances.
During his speech at Atreju, Sunak used far-right dog-whistle phrases to discuss immigration, saying it “will overwhelm our countries”. The use of the word ‘overwhelm’ is one that is popularly used in far-right circles when discussing migration, and is clearly close to ‘replacement’. When we look at the definition of overwhelm, it says “bury or drown beneath a huge mass of something”. It’s the idea that Britain is being crushed, drowned, taken over by an overwhelming, hostile force - in this case, migrant people. That’s a LOUD dogwhistle.
These are far-right tropes, being shared by the UK Prime Minister, who boasts of how he and Meloni have “shared values” – as if sharing values with a woman who pushes nationalist, natalist, and homophobic policies is something to be proud of. Further, when talking about how both Italy and the UK support Ukraine, Sunak quotes Winston Churchill, which feels a bit rich considering Churchill won a war against the Italian fascists which Meloni once praised.
As Sunak hobnobbed with far-right politicians and disinformation merchants, at a festival that had previously welcomed a man who said people should wear their racism with pride, and one who warned about ‘replacement’ in Europe, his people were briefing the Sunday Times with how they plan to attack Starmer at the next election.
And here we have far-right dogwhistles, tactics and rhetoric all over again, with plans to weaponise the refusing-to-die-lie that Starmer did not prosecute Jimmy Savile for child sex abuse, even though he was not involved in the case at the time. Tim Shipman’s and Caroline Wheeler’s report reads:
“Both Labour and the Tories will also either sanction, or turn a blind eye, to third-party campaigns. Tory donors are expected to back a campaign aimed at Leave voters pointing out where Starmer is expected to go soft on Brexit. Both parties have collected audio of frontbenchers going off-message at their respective party conferences and both are sending undercover operatives to events and locations in Westminster.
While platforms like Facebook are now more tightly regulated, there are other outlets — WhatsApp, Reddit and Substack, for instance. One attack the Tories are likely to leave to “dark groups” is the claim that Starmer did not prosecute Jimmy Savile for paedophilia. He was not involved in the decision, though he was DPP at the time.”
This is dark stuff suggesting a willingness to let far-right conspiracy off the leash, weaponising the suffering of child sex abuse victims, in order to attack Starmer for something he was not involved in. I have written before about how disturbing it is that the Conservatives have become willing to jump on this particular bandwagon, knowingly spreading what they know is a lie, when less than two years ago it was so politically toxic, that Johnson’s closest ally resigned over his decision to repeat it.
But it gets worse. Because in the same article, the Sunday Times writes how the Tories plan to go after Starmer’s record when he was a human rights lawyer and defended people accused of terrorism offences and opposed the deportation of criminals.
The reason I say this is worse, and where it really starts to ring ever-louder alarm bells about the rising far-right mood in the Conservative Party, is that to attack Starmer for defending criminals is to attack the basis of justice in this country – the way that our justice system works.
It is the case that anyone hauled up in front of the courts is entitled to a defence and to legal representation – and in court proceedings, they are innocent until proven guilty. It doesn’t matter how appalling a person they are and how appalling their crimes. Even Wayne Couzens was allowed a defence lawyer whose job was to put his case forward. To attack a lawyer for doing the job that lawyers have to do in order to ensure we live in a fair and democratic society that abides by the rule of law is to attack the foundations of a fair and democratic society.
The Conservatives once boasted of being the party of law and order. Aside from the fact that, under their watch, the criminal justice system has collapsed, its full-frontal attack on the courts and international law, along with its outriders in the press calling judges the “enemies of the people” and its endless carping on about “human rights lawyers” as somehow getting in the way of the will of the people… this is a slide into the far-right. It’s the far-right that doesn’t like democracy, and justice, and the rule of law. It’s the far-right that attacks the courts and wants to see an end to the universal principle of human rights.
I am always wary of calling the government “far-right” because first, there are a lot of decent Conservative MPs who want to see progress on some human rights issues, such as abortion and LGBTIQ+ rights, and who are openly critical of this sort of politicking. And secondly, because these labels get thrown around in fairly meaningless ways (see the What I Watched section).
But I am not wary of saying that the Conservative Party is flirting with the far-right, both in its tactics, its attacks, and its alliances.
And that is something that should concern us all.
Bonus Neverending Story content
Honestly, how DARE they take Atreju’s name in vain.
I once read an article that said the reason geriatric millennials are so anxious is because we grew up watching a film where the horse dies because HE IS TOO SAD TO CARRY ON!! And where the Rockbiter looks at his hands and says “they look like big, strong hands, don’t they?” but which were not strong enough to SAVE HIS FRIENDS FROM THE NOTHING!!! And that the enemy in the movie is THE NOTHING! You see, Gmork is the far-right, the Nothing is so nihilist.
What I loved
Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak’s long-form investigation into how Roe was overruled is really important read, for the New York Times.
What I wrote
Two for you this week, one for the Lead UK on how the government will cut the weekly allowance for asylum seeking people living in hotels.
ASYLUM SEEKERS' ALLOWANCE CUT TO £1.25 A DAY
And with Manasa Narayanan in the Observer, about anti-abortion campaigns on Facebook.
UK anti-abortion charity with links to MPs ran misleading Facebook ads
What I read
I really enjoyed The Scarlet Papers by Matthew Richardson, which I followed with Slough House by Mick Herron, then yesterday I devoured Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang which is such a smart and compulsive look at publishing, racism, white supremacy, cultural appropriation, online cancel culture… and it’s funny.
What I watched
You know, I forgot to mention two films last week - Fire Over England which is an early vehicle for Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leight, and I finally watched the Katharine Hepburn Little Women.
Last weekend I watched The Godfather for the first time and it is obviously great but also quite hard to watch because you see all the parodies! Did you know Brando was 48 when he made that film? 48!?!?!!?
I also found the Berlin 1933 series on iPlayer really fascinating. And it’s an important watch for those people (naming no names!) on Twitter who have a really ahistorical understanding of how fascism and Nazism came to power, and how violence was fundamental to its rise. These people tend to want to conflate UK politics today with the rise of Nazism, by focusing on the post-1933 attacks on the courts etc. But to get to power, it started with uniformed thugs beating the shit out of the opposition.
That’s it for this week! Maybe I’ll write a missive from my Xmas break, depends on what Saturday brings…
P.S. I achieved my final new years resolution last weekend and got my ears pierced.
I am pleased with my decision.
Thanks for gifting the long-form.
You have nice-enough ears to accessorize, dear. Just the two? Apologies, "The Addams Family" (1991, Julia & Huston) was on tv this weekend, so my mind is still *slightly* distracted with odd humor. I should have dropped Romulus & Remus off the cliff when I had the chance :(