We must collectively resist the far-right’s rise – Nadia Whittome MP

“We must choose humanity over hate, freedom over fear”

By Nadia Whittome MP

The far-right are here. They’re on the streets, they’re in local government, they’re represented in Parliament, their ideas are being mainstreamed on the news, they’re building international alliances, and they’re very well funded. We are standing on the precipice of something terrifying here in the UK, and unless we collectively resist the far-right’s rise to power, we will see a protofascist government in 2029.

I had expected our Labour government to offer a hopeful and inclusive alternative to the far right’s cruel agenda and tackle the very real problems in people’s lives. Instead, in the face of escalating violence towards minorities – be it trans people, refugees or disabled people – our leadership has been shrinking away from responsibility, and even aiding the far-right in its mission to blame marginalised groups for the problems in our country. 

Whether it’s the new Home Secretary’s comments about “fighting” human trafficking claims that stop deportations, or a Home Office minister saying that the government will go “harder and faster” to “fix the problem” of immigration, the current strategy is a race-to-the-bottom in rhetoric and policy, which only normalises Reform’s racist fantasies of mass-deportations, “legal” or not. All of us will lose from this approach.

It’s clear that our government, after over a year in power, needs to U-turn on its immigration strategy; not just to win another term, but because it’s the right thing to do. 

We must choose humanity over hate, freedom over fear. When it comes to protecting migrants’ rights, our only line of defence can’t be that they are good for the economy – an argument that reduces the value of people to their economic output, which we also heard in the lead up to the disability benefit cuts. Instead we should make clear that migration is natural, that humans have moved for as long as we have existed, and that every person – regardless of where they come from – has a right to safety, dignity and the freedom to build a life. 

Immigration policy should guarantee safe movement and secure rights, protecting migrants from precarious and low-paid work that drags down conditions for all workers. While the likes of Farage push a false zero-sum narrative of competition for resources, pitting migrants against those born here, the real issue is chronic underinvestment. Labour must make the class-based argument that improving housing, jobs and human rights will lift us all.

People are rightly angry at the decline in their living standards over the past 14 years. They are living through a never-ending cost-of-living crisis, worried every time a supermarket puts up their prices, their bills get more expensive, or their landlord hikes their rent. Social housing waiting lists are reaching record levels. Job vacancies are growing scarcer. Inflation is high. But we know that migrants are not responsible for any of this, no matter what Tommy Robinson or his like want people to believe. We need to make it clear that even if migration was “reduced to zero”, as Nigel Farage would like, none of the above problems would be solved. In fact, they would likely get worse because we rely on migration to keep vital public services and our economy running.

We’ve seen this playbook before. During Brexit, Farage promised we’d be “taking back control” by stopping free movement with Europe and that we’d get £350 million a week to fund the NHS if we left the EU. Five years on, the reality is painfully clear: things have got worse, not better, and the majority of people think Brexit was a failure. Yet those who sold us those lies have now found a new scapegoat – shifting blame onto people seeking asylum, while the real issues of housing, wages, and public services remain unsolved.

We need to save the Labour Party from those intent on hollowing out its values and turning it into something unrecognisable. Our party was founded to stand up for the working class, against the interests of capitalist bosses. Our core values are fairness and equality. It’s at this juncture that we choose our legacy.

People voted for us because they wanted a clean break from Conservative governments, defined by cuts, corruption, scandal and the scapegoating of minorities. The country is crying out for a government to restore public services, tackle the cost-of-living crisis, set an ambitious green agenda, and champion the richness of our country’s diversity. Instead, our leadership seems too busy chasing headlines by engaging with deeply unserious and dangerous culture wars. 

It’s time to start acting like the party in power. We need to show that Labour can deliver on its promises, improve people’s lives, and rebuild trust in politics. Otherwise, we will continue haemorrhaging votes to the left, losing us seats to the right. We can’t squander this opportunity. We may only have one chance to get it right.

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• Nadia Whittome is the MP for Nottingham East and a regular contributor for Labour Outlook. You can follow her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Bluesky.
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