I feel like I let everyone down the other weekend. At the anti-racism event, I let frustration at sharing a platform with a Labour MP overshad1ow the bigger picture. Instead of focusing on how to build an anti-fascist movement, I dwelled on Labour’s specific individual failings in isolation. This alone isn’t helpful, people like me with some degree of power and privilege are obligated to not just to talk about problems, but to identify root causes and actually help implement solutions.
Discussions at the event made it clear: racism and fascism stem from political choices—choices generations of politicians in this country still continue to make now despite the change in government.
Yet the session never got round to how we implement structural solutions like a wealth tax, clearing the asylum backlog, or funding ESOL programs. Instead the session ended with a call for volunteers to help with English Lessons, but without exploring why we’re still in this position despite Labour having a super majority and apparently being committed to fighting inequality, racism etc etc.
Many still believe Labour can be “pushed left,” despite its record. The truth of the matter is clearly different. A Muslim speaker put it bluntly when they said It’s hard to tell the difference between Labour and the others. When I was told my speech embarrassed Labour members, I had to wonder—if Reform members had been present, would criticism have stopped to avoid offending them?
The fact remains: Labour enables the far right, prioritising electoral gains over justice while refusing to challenge the systems that fuel racism. Fascism thrives when tolerated, but also when so-called opposition parties excuse, ignore, or even endorse its core ideas under a more palatable guise. Throughout history, liberal and centre-left parties have repeatedly failed to stop the rise of fascist movements—not because they lack power, but because they adopt similar policies in a more socially acceptable form.
Labour, like the Democrats in the U.S., positions itself as an opponent to the far right while ultimately reinforcing the same structures that fuel its rise. Instead of rejecting xenophobia outright, these parties demonise migrants in softer tones, package deportations as necessary for “security” rather than nationalistic spectacle, and ensure that a highly exploitable, precarious workforce remains at the mercy of global capital.
The key difference between Labour and its right-wing counterparts is not in policy substance, but in presentation—Labour may move more slowly, with more carefully chosen language, but it still enables the same injustices.This performative opposition creates cycles of disillusionment. When far-right threats become overt, people desperate to stop them will throw their support behind centre-left parties, seeing them as the lesser evil. Activists pour energy into these organisations, only to watch as nothing fundamentally changes. Injustices continue. Austerity deepens. Billionaires are protected while workers are pitted against each other.
Each time Labour fails to deliver when it finally has the chance, its support erodes, those activists become cynical and disengaged and the way is paved for the next surge of far-right momentum.In this way, Labour’s role is not to defeat fascism, but to neutralise meaningful resistance to it. Rather than moments like these sparking radical political movements, the anger and fear caused by rising fascism is funneled into supporting a party that stifles any real challenge to the system.
Labour does not act as a barrier to fascism; it acts as a pressure valve, releasing just enough outrage to keep the system stable while ensuring real change never materialises.Many will argue that Labour MPs like Neil Duncan Jordan are “good people” simply constrained by their party leadership. Even those MPs likely see themselves this way—struggling within an imperfect system, doing what they can.
Clearly the most effective and dangerous liars in politics are those who have convinced themselves first.If someone believes they are fighting for justice while consistently voting for policies and parties that deepen injustice, their self-perception does not excuse their complicity. The idea that Labour can be reformed from within is part of the collection of lies that keep us all shackled to a system designed to divide and exploit us.Ultimately I let people down by not stating the core truth clearly enough: real anti-fascism isn’t about making Labour supporters comfortable. It’s about dismantling the structures that enable fascism. And Labour cannot be part of that fight.
