We attended a challenging but on trend panel debate about the rise of the far right and fascism within our politics in Keynsham last night. What struck members of BAR was the lack of urgency to address this long planned take over of our “democratic” system using the plight of those who are most disadvantaged and turning their dissatisfaction into a huge blame game, the benefit scrounger next door, the immigrant who got housed, the religion that doesn’t fit into their perception of what our “society” should stand for.
There was a lot of talk about what democracy means but not enough addressing the massive problem of rising fascism at hand. This raised more questions than there was even time to ask, sadly. We spoke to Molly Scott Cato and we will now be organising a meeting/debate where discussions about how to tackle racism and how to halt the far right’s advances will be the key issues. It was good to connect with one of our most active South West’s MEPs who wants to work with us to help us develop ways to defend our communities against fascism.