Far right violence: politicians are scared to do what would work

There is substantial risk in over-reading the arguments on violence on the streets of Glasgow resulting from a stabbing in Belfast, but equally, there is a risk in not responding at all. At the moment, there is little evidence that more than a tiny handful of people are seeking violence, and realistically, many of them will probably already have been involved in violence.

We do not need to change society or politics to accommodate the interests of a violent minority. That, after all, is precisely what they're seeking to do, to drag the political debate towards the far right. There are plenty of occasions in which one can summon 'sympathy' for the drivers of people's bad behaviour without celebrating or excusing bad behaviour. This is not one of those occasions.

But while only a small minority want violence, and while a large majority will shun any politics that is pursued through violence, Britain and by extension Scotland has gone past the point where we can ignore the social unrest being fomented by the far right. It is reaching far too far, and casual racism is becoming far too routine to be ignored.

There is nothing to pander to here – as the Starmer administration has shown, there is no degree of capitulation to the far-right agenda which is enough to stop the far right agitating for more. This is shown consistently – across Europe, the pattern is the same, centrist governments tack towards the hard right on immigration, and the only outcome is to reinforce the anti-immigrant narrative and sentiment.

So what are the alternatives? There is now an extensive literature in Europe on 'how to tackle the far right', and none of it suggests tackling in that policy direction as a solution. The closest is a process known as 'solution-oriented messaging' – don't just say 'the far right is bad' but take the arguments they use and propose alternative solutions. (These Daily Briefings are an example of solution-oriented messaging.)

Others are long-standing and are now failing, like the 'cordon sanitaire' approach (isolate far right parties) or the 'march against violence by civil society'. The problem is, these are not working. Both have been used extensively, but the far right is not mainly being radicalised in parliaments or in social spaces, but online.

There are measures that can be taken, though. There is a great hesitance to use incitement to violence laws in social unrest, but that generally stems from leaderless riots, where it is hard to be confident about the instigators. Figures calling for violence explicitly or clearly in coded language should be targeted - up to and including Elon Musk. Free speech does not stretch to threats.

And that is really the major problem, one that the politicians are afraid to address. The real problem is the information ecosystem, and on that front, the politicians are all libertarians now. Long gone are the days of campaigns on 'public decency', now politicians fall over themselves to promise big technology corporations that they are committed to the Silicon Valley version of 'free speech'.

This is cowardice in the face of political lobbying, a cowardice that sustains the rise in violence by tacitly supporting the systems that generate it. For goodness knows how many reasons, Common Weal has come to believe that the Big Tech Algorithm is now one of the most virulent threats to our society. It is the algorithm which prioritises far-right content because it is attention-grabbing.

Without this supportive information ecosystem, the far right could not grow as it has. And that ecosystem is very, very far from being a persuasive model of what most people mean by 'free speech'. There is an assumption that 'freedom not to hear' is included too, a freedom which is negated when Big Tech decides what information you will see but cannot be regulated for it.

Banning algorithms for social media content now would remove the fuel that feeds the flames of violence. But in the end, it isn't just the far right who are angry. There is now widespread disillusionment with our political and economic model. People are no longer getting the lives they were promised based on the deal they were offered – work hard, be a good citizen, and you'll live a good life.

There is not a single political party in Scotland which shows the slightest interest in working-class lives. To write off such a large proportion of society is a choice politics made, which was never sustainable. Unless politics and social class make acquaintance with each other again, we can only reasonably expect more violence.

That is where we are. None of the pleasant, no-effort liberal steps, like marching or refusing to talk to far-right politicians, is working. All the actions one might reasonably expect to work challenge the interests of powerful financial lobbyists. Politicians can govern for bankers and Big Tech or citizens, not both. Until it accepts that and makes a different choice, speeches and summits will achieve nothing, and violence will persist.