The far right is organising—we have to resist

Fascists in Australia are trying to build a movement. We have to stop them. On 19 October, we will be counter-protesting the next round of “march for Australia” demonstrations—protests that are trying to capitalise on fascism’s international success.

The far right is no longer just small bands of drunken neo-Nazis praising Hitler and organising small marches and pub gigs. Across the globe, fascists have entered the political mainstream, and far-right groups have become ruling parties. They are in government in the United States, India, Italy, Argentina and across Europe. If elections were held in the United Kingdom, Germany or France today, fascists would likely take key ministerial posts in far-right governments.

In Australia, the far right has organised some of the largest street demonstrations in decades, and One Nation has gained in the polls. Inside the Liberal Party, there is a battle between the right and the hard right—Andrew Hastie quitting the shadow ministry to further campaign against migrants and climate targets and for increased militarism, and to build the far-right brand as the future of Australian conservatism.

The growth of the far right is, in many ways, inevitable under capitalism. The ideas of the far right are the ideas of capitalism taken to their logical extreme. And the program of the far right can suit the needs of the ruling class. That’s why, in the United States, the Trump regime is not meeting much opposition from the capitalists.

What isn’t inevitable is the nature of the response to this growth of the far right. The Labour Party in the UK and the Democrats in the US offer one path: acquiesce, do nothing, and repeat the core messages of the right and by doing so legitimate them. Trump, in a speech to the army top brass, as good as called out the Democrats for their lack of political response to his agenda: “I thought it would be met with fury on the left, but they’re sort of giving up, I must be honest with you. They’ve had it. They’ve had it with Trump”.

Where the centre parties do nothing, we have to stand against the growth of the far right. We need to build mass movements on the streets and take them on in other areas of our society.

We need to make use of all political arenas that we can. That means organising forums and town hall meetings. It means postering campaigns, painting the town “anti-fascist”. We need left-wing political parties, like the Socialists, to grow everywhere and provide an anti-capitalist alternative to both the status quo and the far right. In 2023, we were able to deny Melbourne neo-Nazis their organising space, a gym in Sunshine, using protests and community pressure. Campaigns like that should be repeated when the far right attempt to set up spaces to build their movements.

In Australia, we have the chance to push back against the far-right street movement because it still lacks coherent political leadership.

We have to grow a confident and militant working-class movement. This is central because we cannot defeat the far right without taking on the capitalists. Only by getting rid of the system that breeds fascism can we ensure that this kind of politics cannot rear its head again. We may not be able to defeat the politics of the far right within the framework of capitalism, but we can challenge their current political organisations and build a left-wing alternative.

In Italy, a far-right government is currently in power. Despite this, a mass strike wave has developed against the genocide in Gaza, and crucially against the government’s support for it and its opposition to working-class action. As workers continue to develop their struggles, they can start to create a crisis for the far-right government and hopefully remove it from power.

This shows us a pathway for defeating the far right. We have a responsibility to build these kinds of movements everywhere. The fight against the far right has to be a fight against this brutal system.

In Australia, 19 October will be a crucial opportunity to build an anti-fascist movement and build the confidence of our side to take on the whole racist, rotten system.