The far right can’t seem to keep themselves out of trouble. For the past several years in countries around the world, far-right political leaders have found themselves in the dock for all kinds of fraud, corruption and violence. But can this do anything to stop, or even slow down their growth and their attacks on the most oppressed sections of the working class?
Recently Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s National Rally, was found guilty of embezzling €2.9m (£2.5m) of EU funding. In addition to a suspended prison sentence and a fine, Le Pen has also been barred from running for office for another five years, meaning that if the judgement is upheld after her planned appeal, she would be ineligible to run for president in 2027.
Le Pen’s conviction will be welcomed by many who will see it as a decisive blow to the far right’s prospects of coming to power in France. Sadly such hopes may well be misplaced.
Far-Right Politicians Are Unaffected by Prosecution
If we make a sober assessment of the events surrounding criminal charges and convictions of Marine Le Pen’s counterparts in other countries, we can see just how little effect criminal prosecution has had on their success.
Donald Trump was convicted of 34 counts of fraud in May 2024, becoming the first ever former US President to be convinced of a felony. He went on to be re-elected in November. On 10 January, he received an unconditional discharge, meaning he was released with no punishment before being inaugurated ten days later.
The Democrats and the liberal press placed their hopes, and those of millions of others, of stopping Trump in the legal system. Years of legal efforts amounted to nothing. Trump is now in his second term of office and is more dangerous than ever, and in his actions is trampling all over legal judgements and rulings.
Trump’s Brazilian counterpart, Jair Bolsonaro, is facing charges over an attempted coup, which included the storming of the National Congress in Brasília by his supporters in January 2023 following his defeat in the 2022 elections. He could potentially face decades in prison. In addition, he was also banned from running for office for eight years after spreading misinformation about electoral fraud.
This has not deterred Bolsonaro or the movement he leads in the slightest. He retains a mass following and, according to recent polls, only trails the current president Lula Da Silva by a narrow margin. Addressing his supporters last month at a rally demanding amnesty for those involved in the Brasília attacks, he declared his intention to simply try to run anyway.
The Far Right in Britain
In Britain, far-right leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (also known as ‘ Tommy Robinson’) is currently serving his latest stint in prison, having recently lost an appeal against his conviction for contempt of court, after repeating his false claims about a Syrian boy who was filmed being beaten in a racist attack. Robinson’s conviction has become something of a cause celebre on the far right, who portray him as having been jailed for his ‘journalism’ about grooming gangs. Elon Musk has boosted his profile by expressing his support and calling for his release.
Tommy Robinson is due to be released in July. He is likely to receive a hero’s welcome from his followers, and much like Trump he will use the ineffective punishments for his actions to his advantage, to stir up his supporters and promote himself by claiming he is being victimised by the hated establishment.
Hundreds of participants in last summer’s racist riots have been jailed, including those who have been convicted for encouraging violence on social media. But these riots did not occur spontaneously. They occurred as a result of racist propaganda directed against Muslims and asylum seekers produced by the mainstream press and politicians. None of these real architects of the violence, and the misinformation that stoked it, will face any consequences for their actions.
We Cannot Rely on the Criminal Justice System to Protect Us
We cannot expect the capitalist authorities to protect us from the far right. Instruments of state power, like the police, the courts and prisons, exist to protect the interests of the capitalist class.
Far-right movements that espouse racism, misogyny, LGBTQ+phobia, and nationalism are an outgrowth of capitalism — their ideas serve to protect the system rather than to threaten it. For this reason, the state will never crack down on the far — right as hard as they do on movements of workers and the oppressed, no matter how much more violent the far right is compared to the left.
Anti-protest legislation, which grants the police the effective power to arrest protestors they claim could cause ‘disruption,’ was introduced explicitly in response to the Black Lives Matter movement and the actions of groups like Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion. No mention was made by advocates of these new laws of the need to restrict right-wing protests, despite the fact that protests organised by Tommy Robinson almost always turn violent.
How Do We Fight Back?
The only things that have ever proven effective at pushing back the far right are mass movements of the working class. Last summer’s riots were stopped by mass counter-protests held in towns and cities and outside asylum support centres, mosques, and hotels to protect them from racist mobs. These demonstrated that the working class can block and decisively outnumber the far-right when we mobilise.
The key to building bigger, and more effective demonstrations to defend our communities from attacks like these in the future is for the trade union movement to take a lead in organising and building them, around slogans connecting the fight against racism to demands for affordable housing, wage increases, opposition to war and re-funding the NHS.
A serious blow to the rise of groups like Reform UK could be delivered by the formation of a new left-wing party of working-class struggle. Reform and their counterparts in other countries have taken advantage of mass discontent with capitalist parties like Labour and the Tories to present themselves as the ‘anti-establishment’ opposition.
A left party that ties socialist demands on housing, healthcare and nationalisation with an unapologetic opposition to all forms of oppression and bigotry could undermine Reform’s support in working — class areas and expose them for the stooges of the super-rich that they are.
Some of this has already had the potential to play out in other countries. In Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany was challenged by a bold campaign by the resurgent Die Linke (The Left) party. In Finland the racist Finns Party who had gone into a coalition government and helped to carry out austerity measures saw its vote halved and was overtaken by the Left Alliance.
Resisting the far-right is the same struggle as the one against the decaying, oppressive capitalist system that breeds and spreads it.
