It has Come to This: The Prime Minister Currently Serves as Just the Opening Act for Reform UK's Leader

Over the time following the biggest far-right demonstration in UK history, one phrase keeps echoing. Acquaintances talk about those scenes, the way London was packed with more than 100,000 day-trippers shouting “send them back”. Then they’ll say: “It’s the 1970s once more.”

As someone with comparable age, I also remember abuse in playgrounds, getting chased by skinheads, and house-warming gifts like a brick shattering the window. Thankfully, things are some way from that era, but a key difference is more alarming. In the past, bigotry was furtive, a guilty pleasure: internally, even bigots recognized their views were ugly. Not anymore.

Absence of Remorse and Acceptance of Extremism

What was notable about the recent protest wasn’t the crowd size, which was matched by various protests over Gaza. It’s the lack of shame, the brazen assertion on an Englishman’s right to make others feel small. It’s the normalisation of something once considered harmful radicalism. And a big driver isn’t the masses in the street, but the officials in our supposedly progressive administration.

Starmer’s Reaction to Racist Aggression

Each time faced with racist violence, the PM coughs, splutters, and takes the coward’s way out. He often pretends not see bigotry or panders to it.

Just over a couple of months ago, in small towns across the UK region, migrants were forced out of their homes and a place of worship was attacked. The prime minister’s response? First and foremost, he condemned violence on the authorities. The targeted community deluged with hate and fearing for their lives received only a promise of “every step possible” to keep you safe. Stripped of rhetorical flourish, this is the bare minimum anyone might expect from the government.

Pandering to Bias for Popularity

Even more troubling is when the leader smirks in the face of intolerance, something he engages in increasingly as his popularity slide downward. Recently, the Reform chief vowed large-scale removals of practically all those requesting refuge, even if it entailed returning Afghan women to the Taliban or sending activists to their demise. Publicly, the government did not so much as show concern over Farage referring to other humans as a “plague” or an “invasion”.

To the general public, it posted an extraordinary message: “While he moans from the sidelines, the government is getting on with the job,” it read, showing an photo of Starmer stamped with “removed over 35,000 people”. Why vote for the extreme agitators when diet bigots will suffice just fine?

Impact Over Motivation

Plenty of government people will claim they are not racist at all, and I don’t wish to argue. But one lesson about prejudice I understood fast growing up was to focus on consequence rather than quibble about purpose. An object, simply put, is invariably a weapon, whatever the excuses of the clown throwing it.

However impeccably progressive Labour ministers might think themselves, they are in effect engaging in the politics of division to secure a small advantage in opinion polls. Losing badly by Reform? Then we’ll get the prime minister to call immigration a “shameful period” causing “immense” damage. The public rejects that? Then we’ll say the address was a big mistake caused by, um, the PM dealing with too much in his workload.

Shifting Overton Window and Consequences

To preserve of a few undistinguished careers, no strategy is beneath them and every single principle can be discarded. Following a bit of throat-clearing, No 10 informs certain media how concerned it is about the march of extremists, while dispatching a official on TV to declare the broader public that the event shows free speech is “thriving”.

“Citizens have a much more complex view of immigration than the media and political narrative would suggest,” notes Nick Lowles of anti-fascist organisation Hope Not Hate in his recent publication. Just one out of 10 Britons is outright opposed to immigration, while a significant number who identify asylum seekers as a major issue have no direct experience with one.

Missed Opportunities and Coming Dangers

Armed with such findings and a historic majority, the government could easily counter some of the extreme radicalism. Ministers might point out that Tommy Robinson is an non-UK citizen who resides in Spain and has a extensive record of criminal convictions. Starmer might note how much of the UK would simply fall apart without migrants—from healthcare to schools to care homes. How universities face ruin without foreign students and their tuition revenue. He might even mention that migrants are people too, with lives and dreams. We could get on to the legacy of empire, or how environmental issues and need force communities to move.

This is unrealistic? The administration would rather welcome a planeload of wealthy foreigners taking property for datacentres, subsidies for their businesses, and insist we alter our laws for their investors. As for the rest of us, any hope of material improvement is blocked by “the markets”, “budget restrictions” and “asylum seekers”.

Significant Role and Failure

History has a tendency of giving ordinary figures major responsibilities. The Prime Minister’s primary critical role is to stave off the hard right. He is not only failing, he is paving the way for Farage and his crew. The supposed “centrists” are bringing extremism into the center and accepting the unacceptable.

But just pay attention to the speeches and chants of the extremists. The ultimate price for that will not be borne by a politician, but by people far from power: a vulnerable child, maybe, with no family, or an Asian kid looking out the window one evening.