One of the symptoms of a decaying capitalism is the rise of far-Right and fascist forces. Capitalists are never willing to redirect their wealth towards solving the immense social problems they create. Instead, their alternative is always to find vulnerable groups to scapegoat. The tools they use for this task are far Right and fascist political parties and leaders. These political forces have risen to power across the world over the past ten years. Donal Trump in the US; Bolsonaro in Brazil; Modi in India; Meloni in Italy. None of these governments made even the slightest improvement in living standards for the mass of working people. All of them have instead focused on increasing hatred and division within their societies through attacking migrants, refugees, religious minorities, women, LGBTQ and transgender people.
Whipping up hatred and division is the only political objective of far Right and fascist organisations. Despite their grand claims they have never had, and never will have, any positive political programme to address the deep social, economic and environmental problems we face. They serve only to protect capitalism by redirecting mass anger away from the capitalist class, whose actions and policies are the source of all our problems.
The wave of protests that have erupted in recent weeks in the South of Ireland have given the far Right and fascists an opportunity to spread their lies. These protests have targeted refugee accommodation. The war in Ukraine has unleashed the biggest refugee crisis in Europe since 1945. This comes on top of the ongoing crisis of those seeking asylum from places like Syria, Afghanistan and other troubled parts of the world. Militant Left’s position is that we have a duty of solidarity to help those who are fleeing war and oppression.
The deep social problems that are fundamental parts of the capitalist system – housing crisis, low wages, cost of living crisis, rampant inequality, climate breakdown – are no fault of refugees and asylum seekers. The far Right and fascists have nothing to say about how we deal with these problems. They always take the cowardly option of attacking the weakest in our societies. In this devious way, they do the dirty work of the capitalist system. The supposed mainstream right wing parties in the Dáil, Stormont and Westminster benefit from the far Right making refugees scapegoats for their own political failure.
These supposedly ‘respectable’ parties have no hesitation in using the far Right as cover to clamp down on the rights and entitlements of refugees. Indeed recent Tory home secretaries have pursued a vendetta against asylum seekers that would not be out of place from the fascist British National Party. While the coalition government in the South have responded to the upsurge in far Right protests with plans to attack refugees’ rights. This includes a blatantly racist policy of discriminating against non-European refugees.
Militant Left stands for a socialist programme to address the present crisis. We call for homes for all; jobs for all; healthcare for all. The resources are always there to meet the needs of people, including the needs of refugees and asylum seekers. No one should be homeless. No one should be forced to hand over half their wages to a landlord or be evicted by the same landlord. No one should have to wait weeks to see a GP. And no one should be forced to live in a crowded hotel or direct provision centre for months or years.
Fascist and far Right politics are a political dead-end for the working class. History has proven that time and again. We need to build workers’ unity around a socialist programme. Build a mass party of the working class to end capitalism. We call on all workers to reject the far Right, and to join Militant Left in the fight for socialism.