Protest in a post-truth world
Joyous choral music provides the background as the video begins with a burst of sunlight. Enter UKIP leader Nick Tenconi, a stocky, bald, bearded man in funeral attire. He carries a long black umbrella despite the overwhelming sunshine, as does what appears to be his security man walking close behind. While Tenconi is flanked by two of them carrying wooden crosses, an oddball assortment of middle-aged white men wave the flags of St George, the Union Jack and even the Knights Templar behind.
They cast long shadows across the road as they march triumphantly, Tenconi waving and acknowledging areas of the pavement on either side where confused onlookers stare blankly in return. At one point, the camera reveals he has just waved presidentially at the large closed doors of a Chinese restaurant. No matter, the show goes on, and they continue their pedestrian procession as the music flips to German metal, as a man screams texts from Runic inscriptions from the Viking Age.
If all this sounds like the script of a Monty Python sketch, the reality is far more worrying. Another video is similarly choreographed to give the impression that the group, no more than 15 or 20 of them, resemble a far larger crowd as they march through Southampton city centre. For the viewer, you’d be effectively convinced that this far right group have successfully conquered the terrain before them, driven by the zealous force of their moral puritanism.
If you weren’t there, as I and many of us were, and rely on social media for news (as 35% of the UK population do), you’d share the distorted view of a notable far right success. Welcome to the post-truth world of protest.
For committed anti-racists, for anyone opposed to the dangerous spread of fascist rhetoric, it’s an intensely frustrating experience to watch content like this. The democratisation of the media brings as many problems as it does benefits, where reality can be manipulated easily by camera angles and the editing features of an app. Our struggle exists as much in cyberspace as it does in the real world.
Despite being outnumbered and outsung by hundreds of the Southampton community, a tiny group of extremists peddling a toxic brand of scapegoating immigrants and Muslims are able to present a wildly alternative truth, one that emboldens them to attract like-minded bigots from a platform where they can also disseminate disinformation to further convince followers. While the increasingly popular Reform party represent the respectable face of the extreme right wing, anarchic far right groups protesting on the streets are the other heads of the many-headed Hydra. The lack of cohesion makes them unpredictable and dangerous, difficult to identify and oppose.
I write this in the concerning context of another protest planned in Southampton on the 2nd March, organised by an unnamed group to “please save our kids’, no doubt fuelled by the recent apparent success here. Let’s be clear about the naked agenda here: the direct targeting of immigrant communities under the thin veil of a patriotic call to protect our children from sexual abuse.
Again the reality is very different — a higher proportion of child sexual offences are committed by White British people (83%) than any other ethnic group, according to the most recent report by the Hydrant Programme in November 2024. A report by the government-commissioned Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse in 2023 found that among offenders five-sixths were White British (4,943) — a higher proportion than in the general population of England and Wales. We should also be asking why there has been no outcry from the far right about the recent case of the Glasgow paedophile ring or the historic cases of widespread child sexual abuse involving the church and children’s homes.
As a community, we have a duty to protect members of our society who are the targets of the far right, and this means winning the struggle in every arena where we can report the truth and project unity rather than division. In practice that involves producing good quality social media content, particularly video content to amplify our message far and wide. As a group of anti-racist campaigners, we recognise this is a failure we must address urgently if we are to remove the threat of fascism from our streets.
There should be no distinction between the wider Southampton community and those of us who organise against racism of course, and for too long there has been. There is no prescription to follow any particular political affiliation to join us in the struggle — the only requirement is a conviction for compassion and peace. We can win this fight as we have in the past, but combating a rising far right movement today requires a diverse range of skills. The truth does matter. If you can volunteer your video production skills to this vital cause you would be providing such an incredibly important public service. We’d love to hear from you.
You can message us on via our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/SouthamptonSUTR?locale=en_GB or send us an email at sotonsutr@gmail.com.
Thank you.
