Still from the video for the Mekons’ song, “Fear and Beer” (2016)
The following essay was written in late 2025 and first appeared in print in Locust Review 13 (Winter 2025/2026).
Now I’m an expert political pundit[1], two in a row means we have a trend[2]. This means summer in Britain is now Racism Season, where Yer Da paints roundabouts[3] while Yer Ma shouts at hotels[4]. As I keep saying[5], this wasn’t supposed to happen. Labour was returned to office in 2024. All our problems, our children’s problems and our children’s children’s problems were solved… for three weeks.
Grimdark summer
On the 29th of July 2024, 17-year-old[6] Axel Rudakubana attacked a Taylor Swift-themed yoga and dance workshop in Southport, Lancashire, attended by 26 children and their parents/guardians. He was wielding a knife. Two children died upon the scene, one later died from their injuries a day later.
If you want you can look into the killing, the trial, Rudakubana’s background, his motives, his quite obvious profound mental illness[7]. Because when he was arrested, Rudakubana was legally a child too, he could not initially be named in public. Rumours were spread because of this about the killing, first online, then by public figures with public platforms[8]. The killings became the occasion of a week of rioting and pogroms. The aims and demands of the rioters quickly shifted[9] from the murder itself to assailing the full variety of far-right targets.
The ghoulish peak came somewhere between a gang of white men occupying a crossroads in Middlesborough, attempting to set up an ethnic roadblock[10] and the cheer that went up as it seemed to the crowd of pogromists the hotel they were targeting (which they had blockaded the entrance to with pallets and wheelie bins) was going to go up in flames[11]. The racist fever broke in no small part because thousands of anti-racists successfully occupied and held the main street in the London Borough of Walthamstow in response to rumours/online plans to bring the riots to East London proper[12].
Until that point antifascists seemed unable to keep up with the breadth and mobility of the fascia sprouting across the corpse of British democracy. Whether the fash made a mistake in trying to take on Walthamstow or not, they exposed the limitations built into their current strengths.
How they got here
In the early 2000s, the far right travelled wholly with the British National Party, led by Nick Griffin who was, back then, a practitioner of Eurofascism. This theory boiled down to fascist parties keeping their streetfighting cadre at arms length or further, in a play for electoral respectability[13] and so fascist groups could begin the long march through institutions, a trend started by the French National Front, then led by Jean Marie Le Pen[14]. This reasoning might have been spurred by the disaster of the London Nailbombing campaign in 1999[15]. It might also be connected the moment, coyly referred to in lots of biographies of Griffage, that took up boxing after “a brawl with an antifascist party member in Lewisham, South London[16].”
All fascist movements depend on continual, unbroken momentum and morale. At the beginning of the 21st century, while the BNP picked up dozens of council seats every year, across swathes of deindustrialised England[17] for nearly a decade, Griffin was sitting pretty. Then disaster struck and Gruffo got exactly he wanted[18].
This article originally appeared in Locust Review 13 (Winter 2025/2026)
Dame Margaret Hodge, supersmart braingenius
In April 2006, Margaret Hodge, then MP for Barking and Dagenham, commented in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph that eight out of ten white working class voters[19] were tempted to vote for the BNP because “no one is listening to them[20].” A month later, the BNP had eleven councillors in the borough, where before they had none, and were the official opposition. The collective conclusion might as well have been, if we’re really that racist we may as well vote for open, unapologetic racists.
The question seemed to be, will the fascists take control of the local council and even take seats at the following general election? One was eventually called for May 2010, a combined local and general election. Nerk Grumbo put himself forward as the BNP candidate for Hodge’s seat[21] while the party attempted to take control of the local council outright. By putting himself up, Gormo had effectively broken cover, now antifascists were able to concentrate their forces into stopping him, stopping his party. They succeeded. The BNP’s decade-long momentum was finally broken.
Still, cometh the hour, cometh the tanning salon manager.
Stephen Waxy-Lemon
The English Defence League was founded in 2009. Wikipedia describes them, somewhat coyly, as a ‘far right, Islamophobic organisation active in England[22] from 2009 to the mid-2010s[23] as a social movement and pressure group that employed street demonstrations as its main tactic[24]. Its guiding light and inspiration was Stephen Yaxley-Lennon[25], known by many names, most commonly Tommy Robinson.
This was an innovation in fascism. It was a street movement completely distinct from the party. The EDL began as the BNP was peaking and starting to fizzle. It clearly was able to pick up street fighters from the traditional fascist right but it absolutely tapped into football casual culture, the firms of football fans that travelled to watch their teams[26]. It also specifically drew from the ambient Islamophobia employed by the British government during the War on Terror, sharpened after the inauguration of Armed Forces Day in 2006[27], held on the last Sunday of June every year.
Though we must hold onto what I’m about to say lightly, this is very much the MO of Operation Gladio. Gladio is a cognomen for the stay-behind networks formed by the Allies during World War Two and kept on to fight Soviet infiltration and leftist activity more broadly. In Italy, these networks were formed around drug running, mafia and masonic lodges.
Remember to hold lightly…
Some of the basic plot points of Waxy-Lemon’s life include, he was an apprentice aircraft engineer, set to work out of Luton Airport, but after a night out, he got into a fight with a man who turned out to be an off-duty police officer and received a twelve month sentence for actual bodily harm. Once free, he became a tanning salon manager. Tanning salons (along with nail bars and unbranded sweet shops) are notorious on the British high street for being laundering operations.
A little history
The EDL peaked around 2010-11. It was frequently matched by antifascist mobilisations. One I remember, happened in Bolton, Lancashire in March 2010. We came on a chartered bus from our part of London. We were lucky, in a sense, because our driver programmed Boston, Lincolnshire into his satnav. We arrived late, but in time to miss the worst of the police response to the antifascist mobilisation. The police and local council did everything to divert young Asian folk from defending their own town, including[28] bussing out classes of school and sixth-form kids on free trips to a nearby theme park. Nonetheless, the two tribes went to war and were evenly matched, even after the police had thinned out the antifascist assembly with snatch squads[29].
Less grim, September 4th 2011, the EDL announced it would assemble outside just outside the borough of Tower Hamlets to march upon the East London Mosque, one of its top targets. People from Tower Hamlets and neighbouring boroughs[30], put up very basic roadblocks, large assemblies at all points they were likely to come from. After a very boring, not to mention hot day, standing on tarmac, the EDL had the freedom of Aldgate[31] which they used to do the thing they’re best at, which is drink, fight the police, drink some more and fight each other. Satisfied, some of the antifascist crowd dispersed, some went back into the Mosque, some went to a pub directly opposite. There was a fun little surprise in store.
I remember seeing a coach slowing down, struggling and coming to halt just past the front window of the pub and didn’t make much of it, until people came rushing out of the mosque, agitated. An EDL bus 1) decided to take the A11 to wherever it was supposed to go and 2) somehow managed to break down right outside the East London Mosque. It seemed to be a genuine happenstance because the fascists then got chased the entire length of Whitechapel Road until they took refuge in Mile End tube station. By that point it almost was a pleasure to let them go, slinking back underground. The chant actually came true:
We had joy
We had fun
We had nazis on the run
But the joy didn’t last
‘Cause the bastards ran too fast
I’m saying all this, because…?
Partly because it's fun to remember but mostly to illustrate how fascist movements need continual upward momentum to stay coherent. EDL rallies peaked, then faltered in size as they met organised opposition. By 2011 several branches in the north of England, calling themselves ‘Infidels’, broke away after an organiser accused Winky-Lima and allies of financial impropriety. Wooty-Limbo received a suspended sentence that year for fighting at a rally with an Infidel. After being banned from entering the United States, he was caught, after returning to Britain, using a false passport. After serving his second prison sentence, it was time for Wafty-Lehman to have his reputation laundered by the Quilliam Foundation, one of the most obvious state cut-outs in the history of history[32].
The EDL has effectively dissolved and reformed several times as years have gone by. A fascist movement without an explicit political core needs something else to hold it together. Clearly this has been dark money.
An actual section on Wikipedia called ‘Financial Support’[33]
How many of us are lucky enough to have a Wikipedia page[34]? How many of us who do have a whole section dedicated to the freebies, donations, fellowships just given to us, Because Reasons? Tommy-Ten-Names does.
His patrons include Robert J Shillman[35] who, in 2017, gave Robinson a fellowship with far-right Canadian website, Rebel News[36], worth around $6,000 a month. No doubt this was for his sterling work as a journalist.
In 2018, around two million pounds was raised for Robinson, now in prison for contempt of court[37], relating to a court case almost collapsed by his, ahem, reportage[38]. Who raised that money? Who knows but after leaving custody Timmy Rahmanson landed a plum sinecure with the UK Independence Party as an advisor on grooming gangs. A group called the Middle East Forum, an American conservative think-tank run by Daniel Pipes[39], fronted the money for his defence in this case and, after conviction, a series of rallies, flying Republican congressman Paul Gosar out to speak at one them[40].
He has connections to Yellow Vests Australia, Pegida in Germany. He’s been a guest of the IDF[41], the Russian Libertarian Party[42]. Steve Bannon even seems to like him[43].
The substitute for politics
Despite frequently proclaiming their nationalism or patriotism, the right has always organised across borders. The difference today seems to be the right, in countries like Britain, forgoes cadre building. It doesn’t even try to reach popular hegemony. Hence, in many ways, its permanent anxiety about The Culture[44][45].
The actual fascia need a political core to make them truly effective, not just a menace to anyone within arms length. Going back to the Years of Lead for a moment, the Trump administration is trying to reverse engineer the fascia it needs, through expanding the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and deploying them as a nationwide snatch squad, to bludgeon all opposition. Where does this leave the more traditionally organised far-right, such as the Three-Percenters or Oathkeepers?
Hence also, possibly, the fact incidents in the American Years of Lead seem to stem from right-on-right violence. It still has to play out but, I suspect Nick Fuentes, who had been feuding with Charlie Kirk, put out a very defensive statement after Kirk’s assassination. How do committed ideological fascists respond to media-figure/dark money fascists hoovering up money, influence and followers?
Britain’s modern fascists don’t yet have a political point of organisation. Rommy Throbinson has bounced around numerous groups. He has been a member of the BNP, Pegdia, Advance UK, the British Freedom Party and even, horror of horrors, tried to join the Conservative Party. Given how this most recent summer has gone, the British state may yet reach out to the right in the same manner as the United States.
Operation Shag the Flag
Operation Raise the Colours emerged online in August 2025. It was nominally about raising the flags of the four nations[46] but it absolutely became about the St George’s Cross because, in all truth, it was a way for the far right to practice racist intimidation with plausible deniability[47]. The campaign was started by a gentleman called Andrew Currien, better known as Andy Saxon, former EDL member[48]. Not a surprise.
The plausible deniability generated meant a spectrum of right wingers, from Britain First, to Tommy Robinson, to Reform UK to even Robert Jenrick of the Conservative Party could get on board[49]. It meant the campaign could endure. There were attempts to revive protests against hotels housing asylum seekers, most notably in Epping, on the outskirts of London. There was no element of surprise this time and these mobilisations devolved into court cases[50] rather than pogroms.
Putting flags on lampposts and painting round-a-bouts may be busy-work, this is not to say it’s harmless. There was large amounts of stochastic (and not so stochastic) violence in the wake of the campaign, from a firebombed restaurant in Ilford[51], to knives being pulled on worshipers at a mosque in Portsmouth[52], to a racially motivated rape of a Sikh woman in Oldbury[53]. These are just examples that made the news.
The summer’s busy-work (and attendant culture wars) kept the far-right, for the time being on a prolonged upcurve. They kept it together long enough to hold the Unite the Kingdom rally on September the 13th[54]. Though it was a violent affair (there were 24 arrests at the time, 28 people are still being pursued by the police[55] for public order offences) it was not the same kind of coked-up, piss-streaked debacle that the far-right’s statue-defending efforts in 2020[56] and 2023[57] descended into. Over 100,000 people attended the demonstration, on a par with many of the (much more frequent) mobilisations by the Stop the War Coalition and Palestine Solidarity Coalition of the past two years against the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
OK, but they’re not actually going to take power right?
No. I mean, not in any immediately possible scenario. The streetfighters have voluntarily exiled themselves from politics. They don’t have a social base that can move truly large numbers of people. There are no genuine organic intellectuals amongst the fascists. No one who thinks of any social problem for any amount of time wonders if the local football hooligans, drug dealers or tanning salon owners have any solutions worth considering.
So antifascism is just a clean-up operation, a dirty job the revolutionary left can safely get on with. Job well done. Dusts hands comically. Wait a minute?
Remember we said, the British state may yet reach out to civil society to form the fascia they need to break through the logjam. If it does, it is likely to do it through what’s now known as Reform UK but (even though it still exists in revenant form) used to be known as the United Kingdom Independence Party.
Amazing, but true
The UK Independence Party was founded in 1991 by a former Liberal Democrat called Alan Sked. It had the snazzy name of the Anti-Federalist League[58] and was intended to be a single-issue party, opposing the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty, an agreement made between the governments of the then twelve member states of the European Economic Community to start integrating social, economic and customs rules and norms across borders, the process that led to the EEC becoming the European Union in 1993 and most members adopting a single currency and reserve bank in 1999.
The United Kingdom government at the time secured an opt out from both the treaty’s social chapter, which, formally at least, promised legal and social protections for EU citizens. It also opted out from monetary union. This was critical later on.
The Anti-Federalist League made absolutely no electoral breakthroughs. When it reformed as UKIP, results were similarly not stunning[59]. Despite European integration never being fantastically popular, UKIP had to compete with the Referendum Party for, what was then, a very niche political demographic. It was a small electoral base but one that understood itself very well.
Cometh the hour, cometh the commodities trader
Sked was ousted by a faction that included Nigel Farage (real name, Nigel Falange[60]) in 1997. Falange became its preeminent figure (notoriously appearing on the BBC’s flagship discussion programme Question Time[61] 38 times in just over two decades, more than any governing party representative in that period) taking over formally as party leader in 2006.
With Falange as leader, UKIP expanded its concerns. He took it from being a single issue party, to adopting British nationalism in opposition to Scottish and Welsh independence and Irish reunification. It has naturally ridden several waves of racism and nativism, from opposition to EU enlargement to Eastern Europe, to spikes in ambient Islamophobia.
It became consistently socially conservative. It became climate denialist. Above all, Farage’s party became explicitly economically Thatcherite. Falange specifically cut against the mainstream right in this period. His pungent description of David Cameron was as a “socialist…” whose priorities were “gay marriage, foreign aid and wind farms[62].”
Though Falange stepped down as leader in 2009, in this period UKIP built a consistent base of several million voters by syncretising Thatcherite and Fascist politics. Its support was usually found in deindustrialised England[63], not so much in the working class, especially the organised working class, but the petty bourgeoisie and retired homeowners. This has always been exactly the base of fascism, people poised above economic hardship[64] without any collective identity or means of self-defence.
After being replaced (briefly) by Malcom Pearson, after the 2010 general election,[65] Falange was reelected as leader in time for UKIP’s finest hour.
Ugh, not this bit…
There have been worse times to be a socialist in Britain. Few have been as dismal though as the run up to the 2016 referendum on EU membership. It was an interminable argument between Britain’s two uncles, one faintly cringly, liberal FE lecturer and the other a repellent golf club bore… the two wings of the middle class.
The Leave campaign’s triumph was the beginning of the end of the actual UK Independence Party, which has become an out and out fascist sect in subsequent years, but a triumph for its politics.
By late 2025, the Conservative Party has been almost completely eclipsed. Once a thriving hub for the Greater Bourgeoisie, the Conservative Party has barely been a functioning membership organisation for years. Its current leader recently had to deny there were empty seats at its October party conference[66].
The Labour Party, having got exactly what it wanted in 2024, can do nothing in office except smooth the path for Reform. There are so many examples I could list, the Online Safety Act[67]. The retention of the two-child benefit cap[68]. The proscription of the direct action group, Palestine Action[69] and proposed further restrictions of the right to free assembly[70] basically making even A to B marches subject to a police officer’s whims. My favourite at the moment is the proposal for a compulsory Digital ID card that apparently will make it easier to work in the UK[71]. The scheme will cost an estimated 1.2 to 2 billion pounds though, if the scheme goes ahead, no doubt these costs will bloom. I say ‘if’ because, even Louis Mosley, the boss of UK Palantir[72] is wary of the scheme[73].
This wave of ruling class disarray was set in motion in the 2010s. With its right flank no longer exposed to the BNP and EDL, the votes UKIP picked up in this period translated into a critical mass of local council seats. Council seats are usually a clear harbinger of general election constituency results, not to mention opportunities and sinecures for ambitious party cadres.
Conservative Party populists (calling themselves ‘Eurosceptics’) were organised in parliament through the European Research Group[74]. They were always a small minority. In 1995 their forerunners mounted a direct leadership challenge against then Prime Minister, John Major, who, despite being deep into his agonisingly long Lame Duck ministry, easily saw the challenge off[75].
Twenty years later, with a general election due, David Cameron, the gay, socialist, wind farmer[76] tried to placate the ERG as well as deflect some of UKIP’s challenge by including a promise to hold a referendum on EU membership if the Tories won an outright majority in the 2015 general election. They did but, not to worry. Cameron was sure to land on his feet, like he did in 2014 with the Scottish independence referendum.
We know what actually happened. This just opens up the question, what is right-wing populism? For one thing…
It’s not bourgeois…
Brexit was never a priority of the Big Bourgeoisie. British capitalism was reorganised in the 70s and 80s to become a financial hub of the American Empire. This had immediate advantages in that finance was largely deregulated. The London Stock Exchange was apparently nicknamed ‘Financial Guantanamo’ by American stockbrokers[77]. Another key advantage[78] was proximity and access through London to the European Economic Community, later the European Union[79]. Aside from this, EU expansion between 2004-7 led to an influx of cheap but skilled labour from the European Union. As for seasonal labour, even prior to 2004, Britain relied heavily on East European and Central Asian labour to collect the annual harvest[80].
All of this is to say, by the 21st century, British capital was very heavily tied up in European markets. Since leaving the EU, Britain has not adapted to the significant new autarky[81][82]. The mainstream of the Conservative Party in Westminster campaigned to remain in 2016. What the Conservative Party did not have in 2016 was a mass popular base.
I’ve mentioned in previous stories[83], the Conservative Party is lucky if it has over 100,000 members. Of the members it does have, their average age lies somewhere between 57 and 72[84]. Shortly after World War Two, the Tory party had millions of members. It was a genuine social hub in boroughs and towns across the United Kingdom, where the petty and greater bourgeoisie could meet and do business. It maintained a link to an even wider strata of the population by largely honouring the post-war social democratic settlement. The lack of substantial difference between the two leading parties back then in the state was satirised, somewhat as ‘Butskellism’.[85]
This consensus was junked around the turn of the 1980s, not without considerable class struggle. But, having largely prevailed, the Thatcher government was able to dish out some of the spoils. Turning public property into private dividend created a new basis for popular capitalism… for the time being[86].
The action of time and capital accumulation has turned this popular basis inside out. A typical example quoted is the 41% of former council homes, sold under the Right to Buy scheme, now being in the hands of private landlords[87]. What did the Conservative Party have to offer the wider population in the 2010s? The answer was Brexit.
The Reactionary Mind…
By Corey Robin, 2016, available in all good bookshops (and probably bad ones) is a riveting read and a compelling argument[88]. Its central thrust is undeniable, I think. There really is no such thing as a conservative political movement, certainly not anymore. People calling themselves conservative aren’t conserving anything. A short political journey illustrating this is the Life and Work of Peter Oborne.
He was the Chief Political Commentator for the Daily Telegraph until 2015, having been a journalist before that, working for the Evening Standard, Daily Mail and Express. If he had worked for the Times he would have had a full house of rightwing national newspapers.
He was a loose cannon for the longest time. He very publicly opposed the 2003 Iraq War, describing it as the “greatest foreign policy disaster since Munich[89].” He was particularly strident in opposing the Islamophobic fallout radiating from the war.
In 2007, I remember specifically meeting my Wife at a conference of Unite Against Fascism, hovering at the back while it was underway. I was just in time to catch Oborne defending the honour of Enoch Powell against a previous speaker. It didn’t go down well but he kept at it nonetheless. The controversy that might have ensued was forgotten when, shortly after that, a lecturer in Terrorism Studies from the University of Sheffield, Bob Lambert, was outed as Bob Robinson, an undercover police officer who had infiltrated London Greenpeace in the 1980s[90].
Nonetheless, campaigning journalism about Iraq, the War on Terror, Islamophobia, led him to question more and more the fundamentals of the British state and public life, such as the morass of UK-Saudi Arabia diplomatic relations and trade. In February 2015, he resigned from the Telegraph, specifically talking about the clash of commercial interests with news reportage and commentary. The Telegraph specifically dropped investigations into the activity of HSBC bank[91], which advertised with the Telegraph. He said this form of influence was a “form of fraud upon [Telegraph] readers[92].” Soon enough, Oborne could be read or watched through outlets like Open Democracy, Middle East Eye[93] or Double Down News[94].
By 2019, Oborne’s central argument was, in order to uphold the true value of conservatism, he would happily and proudly vote for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party[95].
Reactionaries aren’t conservatives. They are not fighting for the status quo but to restore something. In particular they want to restore hierarchy. It is important that no element of hierarchy, at least their imagined ideal hierarchy, can ever be disturbed. That’s why, often, you can see reactionaries as vehemently opposed to Palestinian solidarity (an attack on their undeclared empire) as they are to the ethnic make up of families in prime-time TV adverts (an attack on their self-image, which has to be continually validated and reflected back to them).
The theme of Summer Racism, the theme of Statue Protection, Flagshagging and even the campaign to leave the European Union is restorationism. Britain joined the EEC in 1975. That period is linked in the Reactionary Mind with industrial decline, radical trade unionism, women’s rights, gay liberation, suburban white flight as BAME families continued to make homes and lives in Britain's cities.
The key fact about restorationism and hierarchy is it can never be challenged at any point. A social democratic party winning 40% electoral support is as existential a challenge as a trade union negotiating a pay rise for members, as a transgender patient receiving gender-affirming healthcare or a pupil with ADHD getting 1:1 tuition to pass exams or asylum seeker being granted due process in their case. It’s even as simple as the notion of free speech, which for the restorationist means they speak and you shut up. Restorationists are forever being silenced, on TV, radio, online, in newspapers up and down the land, at the top of their voices.
Chasing the perpetual motion machine
Leave won the EU membership referendum. The UK was independent. Everyone (or at least everyone who mattered) had what they wanted, finally. But they didn’t have it. The gang was brought back together in January 2019 because, oh shit, the referendum wasn’t legally binding, it couldn’t have been an the UK government had to formally negotiate with the European Union to leave[96]. Someone needed to hold the government to account, to get Real Brexit.
The conservative minority government needed to be disciplined, and it was. Boris Johnson suspended 21 MPs[97] and then parliament itself later that year[98] to keep up with the far-right perpetual motion machine.
Conservative politics was under the thumb. Britain’s liberals were lost in fantasies of a second referendum. After Johnson’s parliamentary hokey cokey was done, Britain’s socialists and social democrats were next in the firing line[99].
You had the ongoing destruction of commonly accepted democratic norms. Parliamentary democracy turned out to be just that, a set of norms, habits. The statutory constitution, whether it went back to 1970, 1945, 1918, 1832, 1707 or even 1689, could be ignored if Broadband Communism was deemed a big enough threat. You also had the exclusion of every social basis for participatory politics. The conservative bourgeoisie, the liberal salariat, social democratic and organised labour, urban ethnic minorities, the young, all swept off the board. The only thing that’s missing is the lumpen fascia, stupidly holding the broom.
Approaching the immovable object
What would a Reform government do in office? You’ve met Donald Trump. You’ve met Javier Miliei. You’ve met Viktor Orban. You know the playbook by now. The headline on Reform’s web page about government spending says:
“SLASH GOVERNMENT WASTE[100].”
The first two examples given are government spending increasing by 200 billion pounds since 2019[101] and the government overall employing 600,000 people[102]. It’s clear who’s in their sights, public service users and public service providers. The Reform wants every government to save an eyewatering 5% of expenditure, after what (by 2029 will be) almost two decades of government austerity. This is going to happen while this notional government also aims for around 88 billion pounds of tax cuts[103] and to raise military spending to 3% of GDP within six years.
Reform may find allies within the civil service[104] and even with City of London bankers[105], though he may hit a brick wall in Threadneedle Street[106] by removing Bank of England autonomy. If government departments are defunded and if 600,000 people are too many to employ in the service of government… at some point there’s going to be an awful collision.
O shit waddup, here come those nazis
Nigel Falange has experience with the far-right. He was talking to them in 1997, in the very salad days on Blairism and New Labour[107]. He’s also not a stupid ideologue. He has said he is personally opposed to gay marriage, he still reckons heterosexual relationships last longest[108], which is nice because he is divorced from the mother of his children[109] but, whatever. He also considers gay marriage a “settled issue[110].” Presumably it’s not something worth fighting over when there’s fun things, like abolishing Indefinite Leave to Remain for immigrants and their children, to be getting on with[111].
In 2024 though, Falange started talking to the fascist right again. In 2024 he specifically (but with plausible deniability) stoked the febrile situation immediately after the Stockport Murders by questioning whether it wasn’t a terrorist incident after all and alluding to suspects identity being withheld for political reasons[112].
Mainstream right wing politicians have been experimenting with summoning their fascist golems. Suella Braverman who, in November 2023, was Home Secretary, after being frustrated at being unable to prohibit a peace march in London on the same weekend as Armistice Day, suggested that ceremonies[113] at the Cenotaph on Whitehall were under threat from “hate marchers” displaying “thuggish intimidation and extremism”[114]. The far right took this, fairly obvious, cue and descended on Whitehall, drunk and high. With no one to fight, they first fought the cops, then each other. Plus la change. Braverman largely blamed the police for this debacle. By December 2023, she was a back bench MP[115].
She was maybe 5% too stupid to grasp what Falange seems to understand, fascist street fighters can deliver largely stochastic, not concentrated violence. Twenty twenty-five, Falange has largely let the flagshagging and roundabout painting take care of itself. The fascia can deploy themselves. They are there, however, ready and waiting.
Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think
Not too late to take action though, we are the revolutionary left after all. Some of this may be familiar to you[116] but, let’s kick it, base and superstructure-style.
Start with the political struggle. Here’s another illustration of the universal failure of mainstream politics. As of September 2025, there is no leading politician with a positive personal rating[117]. The closest any party leader gets to a positive appraisal is Ed Davey at -6%, which is due to his basically hiding and saying nothing[118].
There is no likelihood any major membership party could find a representative who alchemises popular support. The system is broken. Nothing works. Everything is expensive. Nobody knows how to fix it… except they do.
Part one of The Plan is that ordinary people will take up the challenge. It’s up to any revolutionary left worthy of the name to help them do it. We must strengthen and extend their unity in action until it can actually measure up to the task and keep coming up with and circulating ideas of what to do.
I am a member of a network within the National Health Service of what’s calling itself Green Working Groups. Our aim is to fully decarbonise the NHS. Of course we can’t do that right now. We don’t have a budget of any kind at the moment. The NHS, however, has simultaneous obligations to both patient-care and decarbonisation[119]. As healthcare providers, are essential to both these goals.
We meet and share strategies for the easiest gets, picking the lowest hanging fruit such as switching idle computers off, cutting back on single-use implements where possible, focussing on occasions of overprescription of medication where also possible.[120] The last two points are crucial, somewhere between two-thirds and ninety percent of the NHS’s CO2 emissions occur within its supply chain[121]. There are also plans afoot for low-cost measures that would need some approval from a budget-holder, such as converting shredded paper[122] and food waste, through on-site composting, into fresh soil[123]. The ultimate step will be, in good time, to move onto making much larger proposals, such as converting the many thousands of metres of roofspace in every large hospital[124] into solar generation, which can pay off any borrowing costs within 5-7 years and be exporting energy after that.
The idea took off after a doctor working in an emergency unit persuaded his management, given the legal obligation to decarbonise, to allow him to use part of his working time to research measures. He applied the Green Physician Toolkit[125], produced by the Royal College of Physicians. By following the Bronze Standard of measures (the simplest, cheapest set) he saved his department (in monetary terms) around 44 thousand pounds and 18 thousand kilos of emitted CO2 in the first year.
This struggle is valuable in itself. If carried out in full it would also be a huge counterfire in the fight against Reform UK, which reckons its can ‘save’ 30 billion pounds a year by betting it all on ecological suicide[126]. Even if they made it into government, think of hundreds of thousands of solar panels blocking their way. They would not pass.
The last benefit would be a network like this over time becoming something like a new ruling class in waiting, people who know what to do and don’t waste time in doing it. Part of the appeal of someone like Falange, to some people, is he would at least be something different… but, of course, as hopefully we can tell by now, he is exactly nothing but the summation of reactionary politics, restorationist politics which have, in many ways, been battling since 1979, certainly since 2010, to abolish social democracy and restore the empire. Speaking of which.
Bonus track[127]
On the 23rd of October 2025, there was a by-election to the Senedd[128] in Caerphilly. The seat had been continually occupied (both in Westminster and Cardiff) by a Labour representative for over 100 years. The member for the Senedd, Hefyn David, was found dead in his home on August the 12th[129], hence the by-election.
Approaching from Cardiff, Caerphilly is set in the foothills of the Welsh Valleys, really where Cymru Proper starts. Since this summer, Reform and Plaid Cymru[130] have been polling neck and neck for the 2026 Senedd elections. Both parties wanted to take the seat as proof-of-concept for next year’s election campaign.
Reform was confident of victory. The few polls conducted in the run up to the election suggested they had a small but comfortable lead over Plaid. The Party of Wales put up a decent fight. The party has adopted many of the ideas, particularly economic ideas, of the Welsh Independence movement[131], working them into a developmentalist programme[132], not Bolshevism but not bad. Critically, Plaid campaigns to make Wales officially a nation of sanctuary[133], and proudly countered Reform’s anti-immigrant rhetoric in the by-election with that. Plaid also specifically asked for tactical support from other party voters to keep Reform out.
Having got used to the remorseless triumph of evil, like a lot of people, the morning after the election I was overjoyed to wake and find that Plaid had prevailed. Not only that, they won comfortably, by nearly four thousand votes, 11% clear of Reform[134].
It was anecdotal but I remember a vox pop being put online[135] where a Caerphilly resident put Plaid’s success down to Reform being mostly ‘English millionaires who have no idea about our lives’. This suggests a line of approach, fighting the far right, which may feel novel but we still must take up.
No one is immune to fascism but celtic nations have so far been largely resistant to fascism in Britain. UKIP and Reform both have track records of opposing celtic nationalism. The EDL forgot it was the English Defence League when it turned up in Swansea. The British National Party and before it the National Front always covered itself with Union Jacks.
If the far-right is now sustained by an international network of dark money the choice is clear, we must protect our democracy from their dark money. Every consensually assembled collectivity must roused, and if necessary that identity be reinforced, to struggle against fascism, celtic nations, majority minority cities[136], LGBT communities[137], disabled groups[138], last but not least, the 6.4 million trade unionists in Britain[139].
If the ‘nationalists’ go international we can and should go local.
Let’s [redact] and [redact] Nigel [redacted]
More anedata but… I remember a news feature on BBC TV. A reporter assembled a (no doubt carefully chosen) focus group of Average People(™) in what had suddenly been discovered to be the Red Wall[140]. Journalists love to bring the Working Class, a loose collection of cultural signifiers rather than a set economic or historiographic facts, onto the stage so they can ventriloquise reactionary ideas… so the focus group was set in a pub.
The journalist asked the group what they thought could and should happen to Britain after it left the European Union. One particularly rolly-polly caricature, Cleggy McWhippet, opined:
“We used to be an empire. Why can’t we go back to doing that?”
I laughed, a little bitterly perhaps, at the thought of this bozo leaping off a pontoon, wading through the surf, up to the beach, carrying a rifle as he and his comrades in the 1st Fatso Regiment of the Refounded British East India Company re-establish the British Raj. But this is the simultaneous strength and weakness of restorationism. They simply cannot have the things they want.
So paint roundabouts, shout at hotels. In terms of culture and/or ideology this is all these people can produce. We will point this out in every piece of commentary. We will outflank them with every piece of artwork we make, we are simply better, and we will support each other as we do so[141]. If you fascists come out in earnest, if you come for any of our comrades, brothers, sisters or siblings, we will defend them and we will [redact] you all the way back to the petrol station.
Endnotes
[1] https://www.locustreview.com/locust-radio/locust-radio-ep-23-escape-from-normal-island
[2] And I am a bottomless barrel of exposition.
[3] https://metro.co.uk/2025/08/26/patriots-mistakenly-paint-danish-flag-english-roundabout-24004892/
[4] https://www.eppingforestdc.gov.uk/open-joint-letter-to-the-home-secretary/
[5] I am an esteemed political pundit after all.
[6] His age will prove critical.
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Southport_stabbings
[8] Including the chief protagonist of this story, though he’ll remain off-stage just for this moment: https://news.sky.com/story/nigel-farage-accused-of-being-tommy-robinson-in-a-suit-over-southport-stabbings-comments-13188129
[9] After all, what was to be done about a murder?
[10] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgeyrvw3wn4o
[11] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz6g1gv8n5vo
[12] https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/walthamstow-protest-anti-racism-video-b2592899.html
[13] However respectable he may have seemed to the low-information news consumer, Nick Griffin has never been anything other than a nazi. The crowning evidence (ironic, perhaps, as the Crown Prosecution Service refused to publish the files it held on his 1998 conviction for “publishing or distributing racially inflammatory written material” i.e. holocaust denial, which he wrote in an editorial for a magazine called The Rune. Despite the trial being in open court, the files have been withheld due to them containing “sensitive personal data.” More things that make you go, hmm: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/jan/22/nick-griffin-race-trial-details
[14] If you want to know true horror, look up what Le Pen did in Algeria: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2025/01/11/jean-marie-le-pen-s-confession-on-torture-during-the-algerian-war-i-do-it-under-the-orders-of-my-captain_6736937_7.html
[15] A two-week campaign carried out by David Copeland, an apparently rogue member of Combat 18, a group acting as the de facto security wing of the BNP. Three people were killed. Dozens were injured.
[16] Griffin was a fascist as a student at Cambridge University in the late 1970s. This encounter almost certainly happened on the 13th of August 1977, when the Anti Nazi League decisively turned the tide against the National Front, physically breaking up both the NF’s march and its police protection. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/nov/19/bnp-leader-nick-griffin
[17] Specifically England as well. There is a subculture, connected to Ulster Unionism in Scotland and a fascism that taps into Anglo resentment of the Welsh language in Cymru. Neither of these are remotely majority pursuits in these places though, as such, the BNP never made a breakthrough in the Celtic nations.
[18] The truly astonishing thing about the far-right is they are driven most insane by getting exactly what they want.
[19] The white working class(™) are only ever summoned in mainstream political rhetoric to smuggle reactionary ideas past slightly-smart interlocutors, such as Westminster lobby journalists.
[20] Note, in this piece I will link to, because the BBC covered Hodge’s stupid comments like they weren’t cretinous nonsense, they apparently had to let the fascists respond, unexpurgated, in the last third of the article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4913164.stm
[21] No point letting someone else become the first BNP MP and have them become a rival to party control.
[22] Not quite true, they did pitch up several times in Swansea (a city in Wales), on one occasion they chanted “You’re not English anymore…” After that they eventually rebranded to the ‘Welsh Defence League…’ Better, but it still doesn’t scream falch o fod yn Gymro.
[23] Note the vague cut off date. A key feature of fascist organisations to come are fluidity.
[24] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Defence_League
[25] An English fascist with the surname ‘Lennon’. Oh, the irony.
[26] And, to a lesser extent, drug dealing networks.
[27] Two Thousand and Six was also roughly the time when Remembrance Sunday started becoming known as ‘War Christmas’. The propaganda, the degree to which the government was hiding behind soldiers, idealised and sacralised, while the propaganda itself became more and more crass and inescapable. The phenomenon, now in decline, was brilliantly captured by Poppy Watch: https://x.com/giantpoppywatch?lang=en
[28] I later heard.
[29] The police attempted to justify this with a number of half-hearted prosecutions, which were successfully defended: https://www.counterfire.org/article/defend-anti-fascist-activists-in-bolton/
[30] Many thousands: https://www.eastlondonmosque.org.uk/news/345
[31] In the nearby City of London, maybe one day I will explain the difference between London and the City of London, if you can bear to be interested.
[32] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quilliam_(think_tank)
[33] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Robinson#Financial_support
[34] A mixed blessing, maybe? Side note to a side note, a Great-great-great Grandmother of mine does: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Ellicott_Tyson
[35] Businessman and electrical engineer, Shillman sits on various boards, including The Friends of the IDF, the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous and the David Horowitz Freedom Centre.
[36] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebel_News
[37] https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/tommy-robinson-far-right-funding-yellow-vests-protests-youtube-prevent-radicalisation-a8763776.html
[38] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/tommy-robinson-prison-jail-grooming-gangs-huddersfield-leeds-contempt-court-facebook-video-a8592871.html
[39] A former academic who left the life because he has the “simple politics of a truck driver, not the complex ones of an academic. My viewpoint is not congenial with institutions of higher learning.” He is now an anti-radical islamic commentator, which mostly seems to involve peddling legends about urban “no-go zones.”
[40] A little thrill for the good folk of the Democratic Football Lads Alliance and Generation Identity no doubt.
[41]https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/former-edl-leader-tommy-robinson-pictured-holding-gun-on-israeli-tank-near-syrian-border-a3393256.html
[42] https://bylinetimes.com/2020/02/23/rape-of-britain-russia-rolls-out-red-carpet-for-tommy-robinson/
[43] https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/us-cash-turned-tommy-robinson-into-the-poster-boy-of-uk-far-right
[44] File under, Funny if it Wasn’t Also True, Donald Trump, Fancy Lad, has spent much time and effort trying to get the Kennedy Centre to put on the kind of shows he likes in a Mum-Says-You-Have-to-Play-With-Me kind of way: https://www.kennedy-center.org/news-room/press-release-landing-page/kennedy-center-board-elects--president-donald-j.-trump-as-board-chair/
[45] If you’ll forgive me going out of My Lane for a brief paragraph.
[46] Pretending that Northern Ireland is a nation for the time being. Actually, mostly seriously, the Wikipedia page for Northern Ireland hedges its bets, saying NI variously called ‘a country, province or region’. Neither of the last two definitions have any place in the UK constitution. Its jurisdiction is ‘Northern Ireland’, but that’s a tautology. The Northern Ireland assembly has no listed sovereign, neither monarch nor president. Wales has ended up in a similar limbo after being redefined as a ‘nation’ in 2011, as opposed to a principality. The Senedd also has no listed sovereign.
[47] I took my Daughter to visit a fairground and amusement park in Barry Island, south Wales. The ride attendants and barkers had put up numerous Ddraig Goch. If it was intended as a symbol of intimidation it failed. The Red Dragon has never been associated with the fascist right (who, apart from anything else, despise Cymreig, either written or spoken). Also going by the sheer number of Asian families, most of whom probably came from the West Midlands on day outs and having a good time (and a break, perhaps, from the flag wars raging there).
[48] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx271162ee3o
[49] Jenrick, current Shadow Secretary of State for Justice is a truly Funny Fish. He is rapidly self-radicalising, keen to show up at a tasteful distance from all sorts of far-right mobilisations. He is still a Conservative MP, a critically endangered species. It’s not clear why he remains. https://leftfootforward.org/2025/08/robert-jenrick-endorses-flag-campaign-organised-by-tommy-robinson-allies-hope-not-hate-reveals/
[50] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1ej52299lqt
[51] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj6ypd547j8o
[52] https://novaramedia.com/2025/09/01/knife-pulled-in-racist-attack-on-families-outside-portsmouth-mosque/
[53] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/sep/14/man-arrested-over-racially-motivated-of-woman-in-west-midlands
[54] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_British_anti-immigration_protests#Unite_the_Kingdom_rally_(13_September)
[55] However actively or, possibly, not…
[56] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/13/man-urinates-next-to-pc-keith-palmer-memorial-during-far-right-protest
[57] https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/11/world/far-right-protestors-disrupt-armistice-day-london
[58] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Federalist_League
[59] Nigel Farage was well-known for failing to win a seat in Westminster after more than half-a-dozen attempts. In the mid-90s he was one of the few UKIP candidates who could poll above 5% and keep his deposit.
[60] Go with it.
[61] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Question_Time_episodes
[62] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Independence_Party#Growing_visibility:_2004%E2%80%932014
[63] Already struggling, it was an area about to be hit hard by government austerity.
[64] With either fixed or inconsistent incomes, underwritten by very small amounts of property.
[65] UKIP gained a little over 3% of the vote nationally but no seats.
[66] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/cly6kk17v72o
[67] Which increases state surveillance and data scraping while having a multitude of side effects, some intended, like the chilling of free discussion of LGBT issues online, others perhaps unforeseen, like Wikipedia being censored for its ‘adult’ content: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjr11qqvvwlo
[68] Basically state mandated poverty for thousands of families, though, it looks like the government maybe about to boldly challenge the idiots who kept the cap in the first place; who do us guys think we are? https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/sep/30/rachel-reeves-lift-two-child-benefit-cap-november-budget
[69] At this same time as Maniacs Murder Cult and the Russian Imperial Movement, on a par with ISIS, Hezbollah and, of course, Hamas: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/three-groups-to-be-proscribed
[70] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c24rmdngrrjo
[71] I’m already at work! I have a National Insurance card for crying out loud!
[72] And eldest grandson of Oswold Mosley, Britain’s urfascist pioneer.
[73] https://www.thenational.scot/news/25515531.palantir-uk-boss-rules-contract-bids-digital-id/
[74] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Research_Group
[75] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Conservative_Party_leadership_election
[76] Notably the first Tory Prime Minister with no experience of class struggle politics.
[77] Though, oddly, I can find very few mentions of this existing today. Please make do with this fairly decent economics blog: https://www.ianfraser.org/lehman-brothers-what-next/
[78] Not including the excellent opportunities for laundering in the London property market, or the common language.
[79] Which improved even further when the rail link to Paris was opened in 1994: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Tunnel
[80] This still happens, but has become a lot more expensive. Conditions now (if they weren’t before) are much closer to slavery than free labour: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/feb/22/exploited-migrant-farm-workers-in-uk-paid-for-picks-not-hours:
[81] Foreign Direct Investment flows until 2023 were in decline: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/balanceofpayments/bulletins/foreigndirectinvestmentinvolvingukcompanies/2023
[82] An equivalent of -1.44% of GDP simply flowed out of Britain in 2023. This is the most recent figure.
[83] https://www.locustreview.com/locust-radio/locust-radio-ep-23-escape-from-normal-island
[84] Tomorrow does not belong to them.
[85] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-war_consensus#:~:text=%22Butskellism%22%20was%20a%20somewhat%20satirical,and%20Hugh%20Gaitskell%20of%20Labour.
[86] The comparison between British and Norwegian oil and gas revenue is utterly instructive. The UK sold off oil and gas concessions in the North Sea, using the proceeds to fund tax cuts. The UK reserves have been entirely privately owned since 1986. The only income to the treasury comes from taxation and fees, this has been shrinking since 1999 largely as the accessible resources have been tapped out. Today the Norwegian capital wealth fund is the largest of its kind on Earth: https://resourcegovernance.org/articles/did-uk-miss-out-ps400-billion-worth-oil-revenue
[87] https://neweconomics.org/2024/05/more-than-4-in-10-council-homes-sold-under-right-to-buy-now-owned-by-private-landlords
[88] Even if it’s not also clear that conservative political theory has really degraded across time, from Edmund Burke, through Karl Popper all the way down to Donald Trump and Charlie Kirk.
[89] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement
[90] Lambert committed a number of crimes, including arson and perjury, while undercover. He also fathered a child. If you want to know the true price of life, in this case it was ruled to be four-hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29743857
[91] When I was young, I knew it as the Midland. Years later, high street outlets reverted to the original name, Hong Kong Shanghai Bank of China. HSBC was one of the original financiers of the opium trade in the far-east.
[92] https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/why-i-have-resigned-from-telegraph/
[93] https://www.middleeasteye.net/users/peter-oborne
[94] https://www.doubledown.news/watch/tag/Peter+Oborne
[95] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/11/boris-johnson-destroy-britain-conservative-revolutionary-sect?
[96] The EU was founded by a treaty, remember? A binding document of international law.
[97] MPs who, like Peter Oborne in some ways, were clearly taking the assignment of Being Actually Conservative far too seriously.
[98] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_suspension_of_rebel_Conservative_MPs
[99] See the misery of general election 2019.
[100] https://www.reformparty.uk/slash-government-waste
[101] Did something important happen in 2020? This increased ‘spending’ is, of course, just debt-servicing.
[102] Do these people do anything useful? I don’t know. Maybe their spending power represents a significant aggregate demand, like say, 10% of GDP. Who knows? https://ifs.org.uk/articles/economics-public-sector-pay
[103] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyx4v44438o
[104] https://www.civilserviceworld.com/professions/article/simon-case-reform-uk-change-whitehall-civil-service-farage
[105] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/05/reform-uk-could-strip-city-watchdog-of-power-to-regulate-banking-if-elected
[106] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/sep/25/nigel-farage-bank-of-england-halt-bond-sales-reform-uk
[107] https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/oct/13/race.world
[108] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/farage-homophobia-reform-conservative-b2826737.html
[109] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Farage#Personal_life
[110] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Nigel_Farage#LGBT_issues
[111] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/farage-reform-migrants-indefinite-leave-remain-b2831196.html
[112] https://www.politico.eu/article/nigel-farage-keir-starmer-uk-riots-far-right-killing-southport-police-socials/
[113] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Service_of_Remembrance
[114] Despite a lot of things, not least of which the march wasn’t going anyway near the Cenotaph or any when. Remembrance services happen on a Sunday. The march was set for a Saturday.
[115] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67401753
[116] I hope so, anyway: https://www.locustreview.com/locust-radio/locust-radio-ep-23-escape-from-normal-island
[117] https://x.com/LeftieStats/status/1968625835729940508
[118] Zack Polanski, Green Party leader is a somewhat different case. Since assuming leadership (also in September 2025) he has become an outstanding spokesperson for what he calls ‘eco-populism’. Not to get too off topic (because he could be the occasion for Normal Island 4: Green versus Grey Britain) his personal rating (-10%) comes from his aggressive, polemical front, taking up causes that even some socialist speakers shy away from. Green Party membership has topped 115,000, nearly doubling in less than two months. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_party_affiliation_in_the_United_Kingdom
[119] Not my section of the service but by law NHS England must be carbon neutral at source by 2040, and overall carbon neutral by 2045. https://www.england.nhs.uk/greenernhs/a-net-zero-nhs/
[120] Again, this is for NHS England but, in primary care overprescribes an estimated 10% of items. Fifteen percent of patients are consuming five or more drugs a day. This not only has an impact on carbon emissions, one in five of hospital admissions for the over 65s are for the adverse effects of drugs. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-pledges-to-reduce-overprescribing-of-medicines
[121] https://www.lpp.nhs.uk/categories/sustainability-social-value/sustainability/supply-chain/
[122] Which should only be from recycled sources by this point.
[123] Soil across the UK is some of the worst, most deg raded in the world. Nonetheless, what there is of it holds an estimated 9.8 billion tonnes of carbon. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmenvaud/180/18006.htm
[124] The total NHS (England) estate spans 25 million square kilometres. Over 10,000 buildings stand on it. https://www.england.nhs.uk/blog/a-changing-landscape/
[125] https://www.rcp.ac.uk/policy-and-campaigns/policy-documents/green-physician-toolkit/
[126] Even in pure monetary terms, inaction is calamity. Unchecked climate change will shave 3.3% off current UK GDP by 2050 and 7.4% by 2100. Both figures are annual and would represent civilisational collapse. https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Climate-costs-UK-policy-brief.pdf
[127] This section has been added since I finished the first draft of this piece.
[128] The devolved Welsh Parliament.
[129] As if writing, the exact cause of death has not been ascertained. Sadly, it seems to have been a suicide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hefin_David#Personal_life_and_death
[130] A Welsh nationalist party, always somewhat left-leaning, its openness to social democracy (basically the way to get a hearing in most Welsh constituencies for the last century) has become a lot more formal since Alex Salmond took the SNP to the left in the 2000s, paving the way for that party to dominate the Scottish Parliament for the last two decades.
[131] Welsh independence has been on a long upswing since around 2020, campaigning groups, such as https://www.auob.cymru/, have thousands of members and when polled support for the cause is somewhere between 30-40%, with a majority among young Welsh people. Welsh indy has led with the idea of economic renaissance and funding fairness, the headline being control over the Crown Estate, (which has an asset value of 603 million pounds, annual revenue is somewhere around 9 million) been rejected by Westminster yet again: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy4v7kwernmo
[132] https://www.partyof.wales/economy
[133] https://www.partyof.wales/cenedl_noddfa_nation_of_sanctuary
[134] Even then, the British press corps managed to make the story about both Labour and Reform’s disappointment with the Welsh: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd9klevy28qo
[135] I have searched and searched but to no avail. Please take my word for it.
[136] There are four in Britain, Leicester, Slough, Luton and Greater London.
[137] There are multiple LGBT strongholds across Britain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_villages_in_the_United_Kingdom
[138] https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/disabled-peoples-organisations?srsltid=AfmBOorC2FuyGkk3GtJ4dNeqCQwPfGAWAQ1W-M3pV4y85AKUkP5Gvy7B
[139] https://www.tuc.org.uk/antifarright
[140] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_wall_(British_politics)
[141] Support https://www.locustreview.com/