Britain is Showing the World How Nationalism Implodes Into Fascism

Last week, a woman was walking home, in Clapham. It’s a leafy not-quite suburb of London, with an old park in the middle, surrounded by little homes full of young families and young people just beginning their careers. Think of it as reminiscent of a Park Slope, in Brooklyn. As she walked home, through this gentle and usually quite neighbourhood, she was brutally assaulted and killed.
Her remains were found a week later. And the suspected killer, it turned out, was allegedly a serving police officer.
Women in London have long had a radical feminist streak. They were appalled — and they were not about to take this particularly brutal incident of male violence quietly. They organized a vigil for the woman.
Do you know what happened next? The picture above did. They were beaten and intimidated. By the police. Think about it for a second. Women peacefully not-even-protesting-but-mourning a woman allegedly killed by a male cop after dark were beaten and abused by male cops, after dark. For the terrible crime of…holding a vigil.
Wait, what? How much perverse, stupid, terrible, grotesque irony is that?
In Britain, something terrible and ugly is happening. Brexit nationalism is becoming open fascism.
Adding even more irony to the already unbelievable picture above, all this comes on the eve of a new crime bill. Let me tell you a few of the things it criminalizes. “Serious annoyance.” “Economic harm.” “Activism.” In other words, boycotts. Peaceful protests — like vigils. Simply advocating something. All this is now going to be a criminal offence — punishable by up to ten years in prison.
Britain is now a country criminalising the most basic forms of dissent. Boycotts cause “economic damage” — start one, and you might find yourself in prison. Say something that someone in power doesn’t like, that’s “seriously annoying” — and you might find yourself on trial for your future. Be an “activist” — and you’re now a criminal. What on earth?
All this is happening because the British government wants to essentially get rid of groups like Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion. They are painted as terrorists and extremists. Of course, they are no such thing. They aren’t killing or beating or intimidating anyone. The most they’re guilty of is annoying stunts — oh wait, that brings us right back to the criminalisation of “serious annoyance.”
It’s just as damning what’s not on the radar. Genuine harassment, intimidation, brutality, violence. These aren’t included in the new crime bill. Nobody much cares about the very real harm being done to women online, who are sent rape and death threats as a matter of daily life. The British government is choosing instead to focus on an imaginary, illusory threat. Dissent.
These are effectively fascist powers. In most societies where institutions have such powers, they belong to “secret polices.” The power to monitor people for the thought crimes of being “annoying,” or worse, “activists.” The power to not just curtail basic freedoms like privacy and association — but to abrogate them, to make them not exist in the first place. These outsized powers are not remotely normal in a liberal democracy. The powers to basically intimidate anyone the government doesn’t like, and string them up as a “criminal” — they are what secret polices in authoritarian states have, and use, to keep dissent crushed, stifled, and suffocated.
Dissent from what, though? Well, largely dissent from the idea of a nationalist, supremacist society. The government routinely scapegoats activists of all kinds, from Black Lives Matter, to Extinction Rebellion, because of course their entire purpose is to create a more free and equal society. What is being cracked down on here is any deviation from the vision of Britain that Brexit created — or resurrected: a land of the pure, ascendant, triumphant over the world, the Nietzschean ubermen of empire. In Britain, any kind of cultural change — for more equality for Black people and other minorities to environmental progress — is seen as such a threat, it’s being made a crime.
What do you call a society like that — where even being on the side of progress, equality, justice is now a crime?
Britain is hitting the turning point from Brexit’s rabid nationalism to open fascism. Open is a key word, too. None of this is even being bothered to be hidden. The police aren’t “secret.” The powers the government wants aren’t hidden. The police didn’t crack down in the vigil quietly. It’s out there for all to see.
Why is that? That brings me to the “society” part. This is what a vast, vast majority of Brits want. The government enjoys double digit leads — after the debacle of Brexit, after having the world’s highest Covid death rate. Nothing, and I mean nothing, seems to be able to tear Brits away from their love affair with extreme nationalism. It seems to be so central to their identities that without it, there’s nothing left. Brits seem to need to think they’re better than everyone else, and deserve to rule them, and they should still be an empire, so any kind of progress should be a crime.
But Britain isn’t an empire anymore. It’s just a tiny island nobody much cares about, in a modern world fast moving beyond it.
This shape of decline — from nationalism to fascism — is a pattern. It was eminently predictable a few years ago when Brits voted for Brexit and shocked the world that fascism was just around the corner. Why? Nationalism scapegoats enemies without for a nation’s woes, for the struggles and travails of the “real” people, the true-blooded.
Brexit happened because Brits were foolish enough to be led to scapegoat, of all, people, Europeans, for their own sudden, rapid plunge into poverty. But of course that was not Europeans fault — they had always been good and reliable friends. It was Brits’ own fault, their stupidity and avarice leading them to vote for a conservative government who imposed austerity after a great financial crisis — and never stopped. Of course a nation was going to grow poorer — austerity is the wrong policy in a time of crisis. Investment is the right one. Never mind: Brits, in their arrogance, hubris, selfishness, and malice chose to scapegoat gentle and friendly Europeans as the enemy without instead.
The problem with nationalism is that it doesn’t fix anything. It erupts because countries grow poorer — but it doesn’t solve the vicious cycle of poverty. And so the search for enemies to scapegoat just goes on and on. And that way, nationalism becomes fascism: the enemy without becomes the enemy within.
That is exactly, precisely, totally what is happening in Britain. Scapegoating Europe for the woes of the “real” Brit didn’t solve a speck of a thing. Instead, as we now know, trade plunged to half of what it used to be — overnight. Poverty and unemployment — and the despair, anxiety, rage, and hate they cause — are only growing.
And so the search for a scapegoat must go on. Who’s the new scapegoat? Women. Minorities. Activists. People who dare to be “annoying,” which is to say, who question the project of nationalism. Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion, women’s groups, charities, “socialists.” The new scapegoat in Britain is the enemy within.
Who is that, though? It’s basically anyone daring to be on the side of justice, progress, freedom, and equality. Right down to women who hold vigils for a woman murdered brutally by a cop. They, too, are the enemy within in the New Britain. As are teenagers who go to Black Lives Matter protests. As are “activists” working for the cause of eliminating carbon emissions. As, it seems, is anyone at all expressing the opinion that being a society clinging to the old, battered, hateful notions of supremacy, empire, violence, and greed is wrong, foolish, idiotic, stupid, and self-destructive.
This is a pivotal moment in British history. Do you know what’s happened so far after cops beat women in Clapham? Nothing. Nobody’s resigned. Senior government figures haven’t even bothered to give an explanation. They don’t care. They are on a crusade to reshape society morally and socially and culturally. Nobody must be allowed to question the purpose of Britain anymore. Britain First! Britain for the British! The old ideas of supremacy — which can always be broken down into patriarchy, capital, and race — are to be the fundamental pillars of society. And no dissent is to be brooked. Those who dare to criticise such ideas are criminals.
Britain has found the enemy within. The new scapegoat. Now that hating and violently rejecting the last one — Europeans — didn’t fix a thing. Who is the enemy within? The better question is, when its women, minorities, activists, students, everyday people: who isn’t?
This is how a modern society dies. Through the death spiral of nationalism becoming fascism. The world watches, aghast, amused, baffled. What happened to Britain? How did it become the world’s dumbest country? A place so dumb that open fascism is now happening, women beaten on the streets, everyday democratic freedoms like dissent criminalised — while a nation cheers and applauds like rabid fools, for the Big Lie of Brittannia Uber Alles.