HOPE not hate – Details, episodes & analysis

On both social and traditional media it’s easy to find commentary claiming that Nigel Farage’s extreme deportations policy and the recent series of anti-migrant protests represent the will of the British people.

The lessons of the past two decades across Europe are clear. Social democratic parties that shift rightwards to head off a threat from the radical or far right end up losing. If Labour continues to try and occupy Reform’s space with ever more right-wing rhetoric on immigration and asylum seekers, this will only serve to legitimise Reform’s politics, increase their salience and ultimately boost its electoral success.

 None of this is to downplay the very real danger currently posed by the far right. It is growing in both number and strength. We saw the horrifying power of the politics of hatred last year when Britain erupted in the most widespread period of far-right violence of the whole postwar period. Street protests are growing in number and Reform, a populist radical right party, is topping the latest polls.

 However, it is possible to sound the alarm about its threat without simultaneously framing the far right as the voice of a “silent majority”. They are not, and doing so will only accelerate its rise.

As sure as the rising sun, bitter public recriminations have once again broken out among the UK’s fascist fringe. A rebel faction in the Homeland Party, Britain’s largest fascist political party, has demanded the ejection of its fractious chairman Kenny Smith and led an exodus of the party membership.

HOPE not hate has today released its annual State of Hate report, titled ‘Pessimism, Decline and a Rising Radical Right’.

It is *the* go-to place for analysis of the far right, growing trends, fresh investigations and up-to-date profiles of all the key figures and groups. There’s nothing else out there like it.

On this episode of the podcast, Nick and Joe go over the broad takeaways from the report before having an in depth discussion on the topic of the growing Radical Right influence in the Conservative Party. This is an important story which reflects the growing toxicity in mainstream politics. The pair talk about where this group has come from, what it exists to achieve and how big an influence it, and its associated media environment, has on our politics.

To close, they touch on two other stories, the first is a new investigation into a member of the Patriotic Alternative splinter group, The Homeland Party, who is Chair of a Community Council near Dundee. The other is a disturbing article into the extremism of a far-right commentator named Steve Laws. 

Both blogs are linked in the comments, and should be approached with caution.

Cheers,
X

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LINKS:

• State of Hate 2024
• Jamie Brown from Homeland
• The Extremism of Steve Laws

Promoted by Nick Lowles on behalf of HOPE not hate at 167-169 Great Portland St, 5th Floor, W1W 5PF

Juliana Rordorf details the many ways that free speech is unevenly distributed, and outlines a liberal approach for its protection that accounts for how the far right violates the speech of others. Central to this is the work of deplatforming hate.

Researcher Juliana Rordorf reads her first in a series of articles on the varying ways that the far right co-opts and abuses arguments around free speech.

In this first episode of a new series where we look at objects in the HOPE not hate archive, Joe Mulhall discusses one of the oldest publications we keep. The Hidden Hand was the newspaper of The Britons, a small, antisemitic group, that flogged it's shabby wares in the violently tumultuous interwar period.

Although marginal, with a small print run, the personalities around The Britons became some of the most influential propagators of antisemitic conspiracy theory in the UK, throughout the 20th century. They were one of the only British nationalist groups to ally with a tiny German party - the German National Socialists, long before the latter had risen to power.

This is the story of how even the most fringe ideas must not be ignored, else their poison spread. 

Eric K. Ward grew up in Los Angeles. Coming up in a punk scene that was volatile and tribal. In the context of rising hatred Eric and his friends learnt that they had to fight hard for their values. This was the start of a journey that would bring Eric to his work today as an anti-racist and antifascist, in a world on the brink.

This interview was recorded before the situation in Portland reached the dangerous levels of conflict today.

Eric K. Ward is Executive Director of Western States Center and a Senior Fellow with the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Read Eric's recent article from the HOPE not hate magazine https://www.hopenothate.org.uk/2020/07/01/america-unite/

Joe Mulhall discusses the new report from Gregory Davis on the many failings of Bitchute. Bitchute is a video content platform that has hosted to terror videos from groups such as ISIS and National Action, as well as gaining huge numbers on conspiracy theory videos during the recent crisis.

The Uyghur crisis in western China has led to over 1 million – some upwards of 2 million – Muslim Uyghur people being interned in what the Chinese government calls "re-education" centres. They've steadily faced an erosion of their cultural and religious rights, forcible birth control and increasingly oppressive surveillance. Now a shrinking minority within their own lands, Sophie Richardson, China director of Human Rights Watch, speaks to HOPE not hate's Nick Ryan about what's really happening in Xinjiang Province