The Other as a Home-grown Foreigner: British Anti-fascists and the Extreme Right

Although the extreme right in Britain has never been a major political force, anti-fascist organisations had over 40,000 members in the late 1970s and again in the early 1990s. Given that anti-fascists define themselves solely in relation to the extreme right, the manner in which they construct it is intrinsically linked to their own identity. Not only do British activists see the extreme right as ‘fascist’, but they also view it as ‘Nazi’. The term ‘Nazi’ has thus been used systemically, leading to the main anti-fascists organisation being called the Anti-Nazi League, for example. This article aims to look in detail at how and why the extreme right has been constructed in this way. Going beyond debates about the precise nature of the far right, it will suggest that the reference to Nazism reactivates popular memories of the Second World War and appeals to patriotic instincts. In an interesting reversal, the extreme right, whose propaganda aims to whip up hatred against foreigners, is itself presented as being foreign to British politics