This summer in the UK has been very politically charged with protests at asylum hotels across the country. Protesters have put up many national flags on bridges or hung them from lampposts. Recent polls suggest a radical shift to the right, and most recently, up to 150,000 people joined an anti-immigration march that took place in central London.
The scale of these events, especially the latest protest led by the controversial far-right activist Tommy Robinson, has started a debate about whether the far-right is gaining ground in the UK.
It has become a constant feature of the European political landscape for the last few years – as parties that fall under that label currently lead governments in Italy and Hungary, make up coalitions in Austria, Sweden, and Finland, and are increasing their popularity in the opposition in France, Germany, Portugal, and Belgium.
Do these recent events suggest that the UK could be the next Western democracy where populist right-wing politics is on the rise?
Show of Strength
The rally on September 13, tagged ‘Unite the Kingdom’, was one of the UK’s largest-ever far-right protests, according to the anti-racism charity Hope Not Hate. It was marked by chants of “send them home” and a sea of national flags. Some protesters held images of Charlie Kirk, the U.S. conservative activist who was killed earlier this month.
The protesters clashed with the police, and some controversial figures also gave speeches, including the U.S. tech billionaire Elon Musk, who said the British parliament should be dissolved and the current Labour government replaced. The Metropolitan Police said 26 officers were injured during the conflict.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the violence and rhetoric. “We will never surrender our flag to those who are using it as a symbol of division,” he said.
Julia Ebner, a radicalization expert at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and the University of Oxford in the UK, said that far-right ideas seem to have entered mainstream discourse in the UK. “Tommy Robinson was a fringe figure a decade ago,” she said. “Now he has turned into a powerful and influential figure whose audience goes well beyond the traditional far-right.” The fact that Robinson showed he is capable of mobilising up to 150,000 people and attracting influential figures like Musk turned the latest march into a show of strength for the far-right, she said.
About 180 far-right and anti-immigration rallies took place last year in the UK, according to ACLED, an independent conflict monitor that provides data and analysis about protests across the world. The anti-immigration sentiment increased, especially after the Southport riots in northwestern England last summer, when the fatal stabbings of three children in their dance class caused protests due to misinformation on social media that the suspect was an illegal migrant.
Ms. Ebner emphasized the role of social media in amplifying far-right narratives, pointing to the tendency of algorithms to promote radical content and allow misinformation and conspiracy theories to spread faster than fact-based journalism. “Social media has replaced traditional news sources for many,” Ms. Ebner said. “Algorithms are providing us with a very biased information environment, where the most radical sources of information and the most radical messages are being amplified the most.”
Experts agree that the rise of far-right sentiment is driven by a complex mix of factors, like disappointment with mainstream parties, hardening public discourse on immigration, and economic concerns. The increase in the number of small boat arrivals to the UK has also played a significant role in the debate.
“People see that inequality is rising, and in some places, public services are declining. They fear that they will be worse off in 10 years,” Stijn Van Kessel, a professor of comparative politics at Queen Mary University of London, said. “There is economic pessimism, and people often link it to the issue of immigration. The message of the far-right is that [in order] to protect jobs and the welfare state, we need to stop immigration.”
