Farrukh Dhondy | Far Right Across Globe Faces Post-midterm Reality Check

“He sleeps enchanted by classical tunes

Dreaming of pyramids and huge sand dunes

He wakes to the sound of sirens and horns

And pain from the gout and his toes with their corns…”

— From An Hour with the Bawa by Bachchoo

The USA comes to its senses. The MAGA saga is sad history as the Democrats sweep into the Congress and the Senate. Trump, with all his presidential powers and even the constitutional power of veto, is on the skids. It is perfectly possible for him to be impeached and then tried for fraud.

The world is also, predictably, awaiting the results of the indeterminate Israeli election. Will either side manage to patch up a coalition? Netanyahu may not be on the skids, but he’s certainly on unstable roller skates and vulnerable to being pushed.

Both elections stimulate universal curiosity because the immediate future, though not the fate, of the world’s dispositions depend on them. The deranged policies of US tariffs, the Iran war, sucking up to Putin, threats to Canada and Greenland, etc., may be history. America’s sensible population has triumphed and you and I, gentle reader and trillions over the world, were merely anxious spectators.

There are those whose conceit and money conspire to make them believe they can exert influence on the politics, and even elections, of countries in which they have no stake or business.

There are the two British tax-exile crypto-currency billionaires, Chris Harborne who lives in Thailand and Ben Delo who lives in Hong Kong. They each donated £36 million to Nigel Farage and his far-right Reform Party. As crypto-currency dealers, they both got rich, not through toil and trouble, but through cunningly gambling with gullible people’s deposits — perfectly legal — and that’s our world!

Even so, the present Labour government is contemplating putting a celling on the donations that foreign residents can contribute to British political parties. The possibility has caused Ben Delo to indicate that he might move back to Britain and his Oxfordshire country estate. Both donors say they want nothing in exchange for their extravagant donations, except backing the fascistic programmes of Reform. Hail-El-Luiya?

And then, of course, the other interferer, who has Fuckleberry-Hinn-all to do with Britain, voices his support for a far-right thug who has adopted the name of Tommy Robinson and pays him donations. Musk also supports, and possibly finances, the ultra-right political faction which calls itself the Restore Party — a breakaway from Nigel Farage’s Reform.

Musk’s past support of Trump and MAGA may be considered legitimate as he lives in the US, but his vociferous and social-media support for British right-wingers is aimed at his universal battle against Muslim immigration to the Europe and the West.

As with Delo and Harborne, Musk’s billions don’t originate in anything but very sharp cunning, which has, through the years, employed the brilliant, inventive scientists and engineers to build his car manufacturing, his space programme and of course his bank balance. Does he know the first thing about the quantum physics and statistical maths that make ‘his’ exploration of space travel possible?

Has the Pope converted to Islam?

Putin is another mother-lover who conceitedly interferes with foreign elections, though perhaps he only does so with cash inputs into the elections of the ex-Soviet Russian neighbours such as Georgia and Belarus.

Despite conspiracy-wallahs saying that Putin has cyber methods of interfering with British elections, I remain sceptical. Of course, Putin’s putative chamcha, Orangeboob Duck, thinks nothing of making statements about uniting Ireland and supporting this or that British Party. I don’t think anyone takes the least notice of Duck’s quacking.

Enriched by £72 million, Nigel Farage has started a newspaper in his Party’s name — yes, it’s called Reform. He spends vast amounts on propaganda against the wearing of hijabs and niqabs in public. Despite all that, his party’s standing in the polls, relative to that of Labour, is steadily on the decline.

Even so, the anti-immigrant, anti-asylum-seeker, anti-welfare policies of Reform may revive support for the Party.

I have always maintained that the British population is not going to vote overwhelmingly for fascistic Parties. My contention is based on the fate of Oswald Mosely in the 1940s whose British Union of Fascists was decisively seen off. And then there was, in 1968, Enoch Powell’s bid for the leadership of the Tory Party using violent racist predictions. His bid failed miserably.

Have things changed substantially since then with the refugee population growing — negligibly in numbers relative to the entire population of the sceptred isle, but still enough to give the far-right its only discernible policy?

I hope my now-contentious assessment still holds; and that Farage and Restore will fail with the electorate even though today Reform has eight MPs in Parliament — most of them defectors from the Tory Party when their ambitious bids for prime positions within that Party failed.

Now ITV has boldly transmitted a year’s worth of undercover, secret reporting from within Reform, airing the racist, misogynist and deranged rants of its local and parliamentary reps and candidates. One of their councillors, Dean Miller was recorded claiming that King Charles was secretly a Muslim and calling for him to be beheaded.

I think that qualifies as treason under British law but that’s no longer a capital offence so neither Charles nor Miller will be beheaded.