Beyond reaction: Towards a strategic anarchist approach to fighting the far-right in Britain

The summer of 2024 saw far-right riots erupt across English towns and cities. Asylum seeker hostels were attacked, mosques besieged, and racist violence spilled onto the streets. The response from the usual suspects was predictable: Stand Up To Racism called for counter-protests, Labour politicians gave stern lectures about law and order, and the liberal commentariat wrung its hands about the resurgence of fascism. Yet here we are in 2026, and the far-right is stronger than ever. Reform UK now controls over a dozen councils, holds Westminster seats, and consistently polls above 25%. Tommy Robinson recently marshalled 150,000 people to a "free speech" rally in London, the largest far-right mobilisation in British history.

The liberal-left antifascist playbook has failed. It is time for anarchists to articulate a different strategy.

Understanding the terrain: Reform UK as a populist stepping stone

Any credible strategy must begin with a clear analysis. The anarchist communist tradition, particularly the growing global tendency of especifismo, insists on understanding the concrete conditions before proposing interventions. So what are we actually facing?

Reform UK is not the National Front of the 1970s. It is a right-wing populist formation that functions as a "stepping stone" towards more authoritarian outcomes. Its support base is heterogeneous and unstable. Reform attracts very different audiences with a variety of views who overlook policies they dislike while focusing on those that reflect their particular fears. What unites them is not primarily racism, though that is certainly present, but a justifiable loss of confidence in, and contempt for, the political establishment of capitalism.

This is crucial. Polling consistently shows that potential Reform voters are motivated less by "small boats" mythology than by genuine material grievances: stagnant wages, unaffordable housing, crumbling public services, and decades of abandonment by both Tory and Labour governments. The 2008 financial crisis, followed by a decade of austerity that gutted communities, created the conditions for the populist right to flourish. When Labour under Starmer abandons any pretence of representing working-class interests and adopts anti-immigration rhetoric itself, it merely legitimises Reform's framing.

The danger is twofold. Reform's leadership, funded by billionaires, not working people, has a clear agenda: privatise the NHS, scrap environmental protections, attack trade union rights, and impose a benefits system designed to force people into precarious labour. But equally dangerous is the role Reform plays in normalising far-right discourse and creating the political space for explicitly fascist groups to organise.

The limits of liberal antifascism

The dominant antifascist response in Britain has been organised around organisations like Stand Up To Racism and the more recent Together Alliance. This approach has several fatal flaws.

First, it is reactive. It waits for the far-right to move and then responds with counter-demonstrations, petitions, and appeals to the state to protect us. This cedes all initiative and exhausts activists in an endless game of whack-a-mole.

Second, it is politically incoherent. By uniting everyone from Labour Party members to trade union bureaucrats to liberal churchgoers under a "broad front" banner, it deliberately obscures class analysis. The message becomes: defend multicultural Britain, defend liberal democracy, defend the existing order. But the existing order, capitalism, is precisely what created the conditions for the far-right's rise. You cannot defend a system in crisis and expect to defeat those who exploit that crisis.

Third, and most damningly, this approach relies on the state. Stand Up To Racism coordinates with police, welcomes Labour politicians to its platforms, and implicitly trusts that the authorities share its goals. Yet the British state has a long history of accommodating the far-right when useful and repressing the left when necessary. The double standard is stark: Palestine Action activists who damage arms factories face proscription as terrorists, while far-right organisers enjoy relative impunity. The state that prosecutes climate protesters with terrorism legislation finds itself unable to act against violent racists. Anarchists cannot look to this state for protection.

The anarchist tradition of antifascism

Anarchists in Britain have a proud but often hidden history of physical resistance to fascism. From the Battle of Cable Street in 1936, where anarchists and marxists fought side by side against Mosley's Blackshirts, through the 43 Group's direct action against fascist meetings in the 1940s, to Anti-Fascist Action's "no platform" strategy in the 1980s and 90s, anarchists have consistently understood that fascists cannot be argued out of existence, they must be driven from the streets.

This tradition emphasises militant confrontation where necessary, but it has always been more than mere street fighting. The anarchists of the 43 Group combined physical defence with deep involvement in working-class communities. Anti-Fascist Action's strategy was explicitly about "building a mass movement capable of challenging the fascists politically and physically, while simultaneously arguing for revolutionary politics within the working class".

This is the tradition we need to recover and develop.

Towards an especifista anarchist antifascism

The especifismo, potentially articulated by groups like the Anarchist Communist Group, offers a framework for moving beyond both liberal-reformist antifascism and purely militant reaction. Its core insight is the need for a "dual militancy": active involvement in mass movements while maintaining a specifically anarchist organisation capable of strategic analysis and political intervention.

Applied to fighting the far right, this means several things.

First, insertion in our working-class communities and workplaces. The far-right gains ground where people feel abandoned and hopeless. The answer is not to shout "racist" at everyone considering a Reform vote, but to build organisations that actually address material needs. This means tenant unions fighting ruthless landlords. This means union branches that don't just process grievances but become centres of community resistance. This means mutual aid networks that demonstrate solidarity in practice, not just in theory.

Second, taking the ideological fight seriously. The far-right offers scapegoats (immigrants, muslims, trans people) for problems caused by capitalism. We must offer class analysis. This is not about winning arguments on social media, but about patient, face-to-face organising. It means being present in pubs, on neighbours, at school gates, and in workplace canteens. It means listening to grievances and redirecting anger towards the actual enemy: the billionaire class, the landlords, the bosses, the politicians who serve them. Reform UK is funded by billionaires like Nick Candy, who openly boasts of wealthy backers. Every Reform voter should be forced to confront this contradiction.

Third, building organised capacity for self-defence. When fascists take to the streets, communities must be able to defend themselves. But this cannot be left to ad hoc affinity groups alone, nor can it be outsourced to the police. It requires embedded organisation: knowing your neighbours, having communication networks, and being prepared. The model is not the "rent-a-mob" antifa of media caricature, but communities organised for mutual protection. This is what the anarchists of the 1930s understood: working-class self-defence is not terrorism; it is the logical response to a state that will not protect us and a ruling class that actively encourages division.

Fourth, linking all struggles. The especifista approach insists on connecting workplace, community, housing, environmental, and anti-oppression struggles because capitalism integrates them all. Fighting Reform cannot be separated from fighting the housing crisis, because Reform exploits housing insecurity. It cannot be separated from fighting cuts to public services, because Reform blames migrants for NHS failures. It cannot be separated from fighting climate inaction, because Reform denies the crisis entirely. A fragmented movement cannot defeat a system.

Conclusion: Beyond reaction

The liberal-left antifascism of petitions and counter-protests, of relying on Labour politicians and the police, has reached its limits. Reform UK is in government in multiple councils. Tommy Robinson mobilises 150,000. The Overton window has shifted so far that Labour competes with the Tories to sound toughest on immigration.

Anarchists must offer something different: not the defence of a capitalism that has failed, but the vision of a society beyond capitalism. Not reactive antifascism, but proactive class struggle. Not reliance on the state, but construction of autonomous working-class power.

This is harder than signing a petition or attending a march. It requires patient, unglamorous organising. It means being present in communities year after year, not just when the far-right marches. It means building the kind of organisations that can both defend us today and prefigure the liberated society we fight for.

The fascist danger is real and growing. But so is the potential for resistance, if we abandon failed strategies and embrace the hard work of building a revolutionary working-class organisations. Unlike Reform UK, we offer no seductive shortcuts, no comforting lies that someone else will fix your problems while you sit back and watch. The truth we carry is heavier and demands more: real change only comes when ordinary people organise, when we build collective power in our workplaces and communities, when we stop waiting for saviours and start trusting ourselves. It is harder, slower, and infinitely more honest than the false promises of populist millionaires. But it is the only path that leads anywhere worth going.

There is no shortcut. There is only organising.