McDonnell calls Reform UK “proto-fascist”, calls for “popular front” to oppose them

On Tuesday 9 September, at the annual Trades Union Congress (TUC) conference, John McDonnell called Reform UK a “proto-fascist” party. Addressing a fringe event, the former Labour shadow chancellor also drew comparisons between party leady Nigel Farage and Adolf Hitler.

McDonnell on Reform: Farage is a ‘demagogue’

McDonnell branded Farage a “demagogue”, and highlighted Reform’s contempt for asylum seekers:

Reform are a proto-fascist organisation. We’ve seen it in the ‘30s.

What they do, they have a demagogue speaking for them, they target a particular group, in the thirties in Germany it would have been the Jews, here it is asylum seekers.

We’ve seen it all before. So what do you do? Well, you have to combat it. You have to combat the arguments. You have to mobilise against them.

He also called for unity on the left to defeat this new rise of the far-right. In one clip posted to Instagram, the ex-shadow chancellor stated:

What we’ve got to do is look at a popular front. So whether you’re in Labour or the new political party or in the Greens or a campaigning organisation, let’s work together. Both intellectually and also physically, and in terms of the demonstrations and campaigns that we can wage.

The term ‘popular front’ refers to the general coalitions of communist, socialist and liberal parties across Europe that opposed fascism during the 1930s and 40s, and also to similar movements more broadly.

The interviewer replied “In that analogy, Reform are the Nazis”. McDonnell was clearly startled in his answer, stopping short of directly equating the modern far-right party with the Nazis. He said:

I think they’re proto-[na…], they’re a proto-fascist group. What does proto-fascism mean? It means all those, they have all the ingredients to develop towards fascism if we’re not careful, if we don’t defeat them early enough.

‘Dancing to Farage’s tune’

McDonnell was also highly critical of Labour’s pandering to Reform voters with anti-asylum posturing. He said:

What’s Labour doing? Labour’s dancing to Farage’s tune.

I hide under the duvet sometimes in the morning, I don’t want to turn on the news to hear another Labour announcement that we’re attacking asylum seekers in some way.

Mr. McDonnell was one of seven Labour MPs who lost the party whip back in July last year for voting to scrap the two-child benefit cap. Since then, fellow rebels Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne, Imran Hussain and Rebecca Long-Bailey have had the whip restored. Apsana Begum and Zarah Sultana were snubbed alongside McDonell.

Despite the fact that the independent MP’s social media still lists him as Labour, McDonnell’s willingness to call out Farage and his party as proto-fascists, and his condemnation of Labour’s role in this new rise of the far right mean that he is surely unlikely to be welcomed back into his old party any time soon.

Featured image via the Canary