THE far-right menace to democracy in Britain comes in a variety of forms. One was on display with the lynch mob on the streets of Southampton on Tuesday aiming to attack the home of the family of convicted murderer Vickrum Digwa.

Leaders of many of the fragments of British fascism travelled to the south coast for the occasion, uniting their forces to spread terror.

Another is the new prominence being given to Restore Britain, the party launched by Rupert Lowe MP after a falling out with Reform boss Nigel Farage over who should be in charge, a familiar row in parties run by self-entitled business owners used to getting their own way.

Ben Habib, another puffed-up businessman who split from Farage, announced this week that he was winding up his own Advance UK party in support of Lowe and Restore, a consolidation on the far right.

Restore regards Reform as too moderate and, indeed, as co-opted by the Establishment. That is clearly a fanciful argument — witness Farage’s calculated pouring of fuel on the fire by urging “pure cold rage” on the day of the Southampton riot.

Nevertheless, Lowe and his acolytes are ever eager to go one step further, announcing that under their regime Digwa would be “put to death” alongside, doubtless, many others.

Lowe has already committed to deporting “millions” of legally resident ethnic minorities from Britain, banning “non-British” religious practices, destroying the BBC on “day one” and a broad range of other authoritarian measures.

It is a programme that would push the country towards civil war and dictatorship. Lowe is being underwritten in his nefarious enterprise by Elon Musk, who is using his X platform and his billions in wealth to try and reshape British politics in a fascist direction.

Today Keir Starmer at last began to push back against Musk’s influence. Had he done so two years ago, he might have found an audience. However, the Prime Minister is now so discredited that his intervention will likely make little difference.

Restore Britain may, however, make a difference of its own by splitting the hard-right vote in the Makerfield by-election. Latest polling suggests that its candidate may draw enough votes to allow Labour’s Andy Burnham to prevail and advance along his road from Manchester mayor to No 10 Downing Street.

It would be a mutilated mandate if Reform and Restore between them poll more than Labour. It would also be a measure of the dangerous shift in politics to the right. The left would have little to cheer in such an outcome.

It is clear from Farage’s provocative remarks after the revelations concerning Henry Nowak’s murder that Restore’s advance is already dragging his party further to the right. The ever-cynical ex-Tory Robert Jenrick has jumped on the bandwagon too, defending Reform’s scandalous response to the Nowak tragedy, including smearing his former leader Kemi Badenoch.

It would be short-sighted for the left and democrats to simply cheer the continuing divisions on the right. 

The political ground is moving rightwards with the boundaries of acceptable discourse being pushed to the right on an almost weekly basis.

Also it would only be sensible to assume that the far right will unite sufficient to impose their common agenda of racism and reaction, given a whiff of power.

There is no solution to this crisis without forcing a change in the Labour government’s course. Moralising alone will not cut it. Lowe, Farage and the rest are expressions of the putrid decay of neoliberal monopoly capital’s rule in Britain, which they will only seek to extend.

An empowered working class can offer an alternative. Soon, it must.