To at least 90% of the public, protests are somewhere between oddity and annoyance.
One billing itself as “the Great British National Protest” came to Dover on Saturday – and while I wasn’t convinced by their marketing, I cancelled on my reading group to attend, in the vain hope I might see a major development in British street politics.
It was one of many such demos organised over the past few months by ex-British Army soldier Richard Donaldson, who has shrunk from any precise political label and disavowed the term far-right, clearly astute to the connotations it carries.
In Dover on Saturday, he was joined by a bodyguard wearing a thick tactical vest adorned with pockets and Union Jacks, which I overheard him describe as ‘stab and slash proof’.
Less militaristic in fashion sense were the two Reform Kent county councillors for Dover whom I ran into: Paul King and Albert Thorpe, positioned on the outer edge of the crowd, half-listening to feverish speeches.
They both stressed their attendance was to “show solidarity” with the public who are vexed by illegal immigration, and that there were many members of their local Reform branch present.
Cllr King reiterated to me that the gathering overall was not far-right. It was at this point our conversation was interrupted by an elderly couple from Leeds, who wanted to share Cllr King’s sentiment and disavow the term.
But the husband then proceeded to complain about being surrounded by ‘p***s’ in his hometown. His wife then detailed her belief in the Agenda 2030 conspiracy theory and that the government is trying to start a civil war.
The paralysing awkwardness of this situation was not lost on the Reform councillors, who tried to steer the conversation back towards more mainstream concerns.
Half an hour earlier, I had interviewed Jason Withey, flying the flag of Patriotic Alternative. He said he was there because “this is a far-right protest and I’m far-right”. His party is avowedly white-supremacist, and led by the former leader of the Youth BNP.
His hat bore the slogan “remigration” – a newish buzzword on the extreme right referring to mass deportations of not only immigrants, but anyone who is not ethnically British.
He has also been identified by Hope Not Hate as a regular attendee of events of this sort, and once posted on Facebook a picture of a swastika birthday cake he had made himself.
This is not to say that the Reform councillors there are themselves extremists. Nor is it far-right to be concerned about immigration, legal or illegal.
Indeed, Steve Dand, organiser of the Unite the Right march, held to support Mr Donaldson’s protest on the seafront, said: “We are right-wing, not far-right. Unfortunately, we can’t stop one person with a flag.”
Many of those taking part in the march chanted “stop the boats – send them home”, alongside another shout of “Keir Starmer is a w****r”.
Asked if he supported Reform, Mr Dand, from Lincolnshire, said: “I’m not political. I don’t vote. At the moment, I don’t know who to trust.
“A lot of people in my groups are Reform. I don’t agree with Labour.”
The radical and extreme ends of politics have always existed in a tension with the relative mainstream.
There was no counter-protest organised on Saturday – likely because many who would attend were instead at a Palestine demonstration in London. But at counter-protests of the Left, the same tension between fringe and mainstream leaps out at you.
Run-of-the-mill centre-left Labour members end up marching in the same columns as black-hooded self-described ‘anarcho-communists’ and people who think it is racist for nation states to have and enforce borders.
One local Reform member I know even told me beforehand of her hope that one attendee at previous protests wouldn’t be present. Face tattooed, voice hoarse and wearing a St George’s flag as a cape, at a demo in Dover some months ago, he became rather aggressive with police while confronting counter-protesters.
Many Reform members and politicians explicitly disavow the thuggish and violent trappings of the street protest scene, and are clearly aware of just how much the public abhors such things.
Many on that fringe – especially the likes of Patriotic Alternative and the Homeland Party – disavow Reform right back, viewing Farage and his ilk as shilly-shallying compromisers uninterested in the explicitly ethno-nationalist politics they promote.
To make out like Reform is a party of fascists is alarmist and hysterical, and carries little weight coming from a Left which has abused that term to the point of meaninglessness.
But just as Labour and the Greens find themselves in a permanent, low-level war of position against more radical currents to their Left, Reform already find themselves dancing the same tango with extreme-Right protest movements.
Lying with dogs doesn’t always mean you’ll end up with fleas living in your hair, but they will do their best to bite you while they can.
