23 December 2025 – 6 January 2026 The continuing political and media feeding frenzy over the citizenship of Alaa Abd el-Fattah and Shamima Begum reveals the colonial roots and racist undertones of debates on Britishness and belonging, never far from the surface. The historic tweets of British-Egyptian rights campaigner el-Fattah calling for the killing of
ELECTORAL POLITICS| GOVERNMENT POLICY 22 December: Belfast City Council passes a motion supporting the Palestine Action prison hunger strike in England, demanding that the hunger strikers be granted bail and calling for the organisation’s de-proscription. (Irish News, 22 December 2025) 29 December: Days after Keir Starmer welcomes British-Egyptian citizen Alaa Abd el-Fattah back to Britain
ELECTORAL POLITICS | GOVERNMENT POLICY 10 December: The Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner, Michael O’Flaherty, says Keir Starmer and ‘middle-of-the-road’ politicians are playing into the hands of the Right and risk creating a hierarchy of people by curbing fundamental rights in the name of immigration control. (Guardian, 10 December 2025) 11 December: Kevin McKenna,
ELECTORAL POLITICS| GOVERNMENT POLICY 25 November: A Dutch MP announces that the European Parliament’s controversial security working group probe into EU funding of climate advocacy groups will be expanded to think-tanks, constituencies and others dealing with migration. (EU Observer, 25 November 2025) 26 November: A TNI report accuses the German state of providing ‘a laboratory
11 – 25 November 2025 Collective shock has greeted the ‘toughest’immigration controls in Europe, drawn up by home secretary Shabana Mahmood, which further hardwire hostility towards asylum seekers and (low-paid) migrant workers into state policy. Mahmood’s justification of this horrendous development ignores the lessons of over fifty years’ campaigning around race and immigration issues. Her
ELECTORAL POLITICS| GOVERNMENT POLICY 11 November: In a TV interview, prime minister Keir Starmer says that decades-old racism is returning to politics and divisive, hard-right policies are ‘tearing our country apart’. (Guardian, 11 November 2025) 13 November: Reform UK appoints Matthew Goodwin, who says being born and brought up in the UK does not
28 October – 11 November 2025 We publish today a new IRR briefing paper aimed at providing community sector voices, concerned politicians and policy makers with an overview of trends on the far Right, also examining developments in electoral politics, and international hard Right movements, that serve to amplify far-right themes. The last six months
ELECTORAL POLITICS | GOVERNMENT POLICY 29 October: The prime minister says Vietnamese nationals arriving irregularly will be fast-tracked for deportation, under an agreement with the Vietnamese government. (Guardian, 29 October 2025) 30 October: Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says her party has no plans to deport legally settled families and that there were no plans to
This briefing paper is aimed at providing community sector voices, concerned politicians and policy makers with an overview of trends on the far Right, also examining developments in electoral politics, and international hard Right movements, that serve to amplify far-right themes. The last six months have seen far-right manipulation of protests outside asylum accommodation,
14 – 28 October 2025 As predicted, the toxic atmosphere unleashed by far-right mischief makers on social media, extremists on the streets and their appeasement via a Dutch auction between Labour and Tories as to which can ‘reduce numbers’ the fastest and the most, has led to unprecedented levels of racial harassment and attack. In
