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In my latest Substack Live, I sat down with James Matthewson for another incredible conversation that began with the British far-right backing ICE and ended up with a much deeper conversation about the collaborative global far-right.
James is a Contributor to the BBC and Sky News and spent years working in the UK parliament as a Labour adviser, so his insights were excellent.
James and I dug into the reality that the far-right is a transnational movement. The far-right is sharing tactics, language, scapegoats, and policy blueprints across borders, then laundering them through local parties and media ecosystems until they feel “normal.”
The throughline is ethnonationalism powered by scapegoating, billionaire amplification, and state-sponsored cruelty. It is presented as “security,” “sovereignty,” or “common sense.” But it functions as a coordinated propaganda and power project designed to redirect economic anger away from oligarchs and toward migrants, Muslims, and other out-groups.
You can watch our full conversation above and read key takeaways below.
“British ICE” Is Not A Meme, It’s A Warning
James brought a chilling example from the UK: politicians and Reform Party figures praising ICE and openly calling for a British version of it.
Key takeaways:
Reform is pulling the political center of gravity rightward. As Tory politicians defect to Reform, they become “freer” to say the quiet part out loud, and the mainstream Conservative Party refuses to aggressively condemn it because they want to ride the same wave. A familiar phenomenon happened when the GOP appeased MAGA in 2016.
A major accelerant is Trump’s normalization of cruelty. The more ICE brutality is broadcast, defended, and rewarded in American politics, the more it becomes a “model” for copycat movements abroad.
The scariest part is the age of some of the advocates. James described young elected officials, 18 and 19 years old, praising ICE. That tells you this is not just an old-guard backlash. It is being re-seeded into a new generation through social media and grievance culture.
Core point: If people say “that can’t happen here,” they are usually describing their comfort, not reality. The last decade proved how fast norms can collapse.
The Far-Right Is A Transnational Network, Not A Local Problem
We kept coming back to one line that captures the entire conversation: the far-right is a globally collaborative enterprise.
Key takeaways:
Shared villains, shared scripts. Whether it is “migrant invasion,” “replacement,” “crime,” “wokeness,” or “the enemy within,” the same slogans get recycled across countries with minor edits.
Cross-border influence is not subtle anymore. We talked about Steve Bannon’s work in Europe, and the way figures like Elon Musk amplify extremist parties (including in Germany).
The international dimension matters because it boosts legitimacy. A movement that looks fringe domestically can feel “inevitable” if it is portrayed as a global trend. That is part of the psychological warfare.
Core point: If the far-right is building international alignment, pro-democracy voices cannot keep operating as isolated national silos.
The Scapegoat Machine Works Because It Exploits Real Economic Pain
We did not treat public anxiety as imaginary. The point is that the far-right weaponizes it.
Key takeaways:
A simple lie crowds out complex truth. “Migrants are why you’re struggling” is easier to sell than “the economy was structured over decades to funnel wealth upward.”
The cruelty is the feature, not a bug. Once a population is trained to withdraw empathy from “illegals,” the state can do almost anything in the name of enforcement.
Billionaires benefit from the misdirection. James said it bluntly: if resources are limited, look at the people hoarding them. Why are the richest people on Earth trying to convince working people that the threat is those with nothing?
Core point: The ethnonationalist project depends on turning economic stress into racialized fear.
“Muslim” As A Racial Category: How Othering Adapts To The Moment
One of the sharpest sections of the conversation was James explaining how the UK’s scapegoat target shifted over time, and how “Muslim” is being used as a proxy for brownness and foreignness.
Key takeaways:
It is not about religious practice. The people pushing the panic do not care how often anyone prays. “Muslim” becomes an identity stamp that means “outsider.”
Post-9/11 framing is still doing work. The far-right plugs immigration into “security” and smuggles in the insinuation that “Muslim equals terrorism.”
It creates permission to dehumanize. We connected this to how propaganda collapses distinct people into one undifferentiated “undesirable group,” making moral disengagement easier.
Conspiracy logic keeps the hatred “respectable.” As James put it, it echoes old McCarthy-style suspicion: the idea that minorities are tied to some foreign entity, even when they are fully of the nation.
Core point: Modern bigotry has learned to wear new costumes while utilizing the exact same tactics.
Why Calling Out Bigotry In Everyday Life Actually Matters
A powerful part of the conversation was James describing confronting racism in taxis and everyday settings.
Key takeaways:
Bigotry relies on assumed permission. As James said, people say these things because they think they are in a “safe” space with someone who will nod along.
Refusal breaks the social reward loop. When you challenge it, you disrupt the sense that “everyone agrees,” which is how prejudice becomes normalized.
This is how bottom-up resistance works. Leadership matters, but culture is enforced in ordinary interactions. The movement spreads at the ground level, so the pushback must too.
Core point: If you let it slide, you are not staying neutral. You are helping it become normal.
History, Shame, And The Fight Over National Memory
We spent real time on the idea that mature democracies do not hide from their past. They learn from it.
Key takeaways:
You can love a country without lying about it. I talked about how America’s repeated refounding is part of what makes it worth fighting for, not a reason to avert your eyes.
Germany is a lesson in what accountability can build. The point is not perfection. The point is that reckoning is a prerequisite for democratic resilience.
Musk’s messaging is dangerous because it attacks that resilience. When someone tells Germans they should not be ashamed of their history, it is not “confidence.” It is an attempt to dissolve moral guardrails.
Britain’s own wealth is inseparable from colonialism and slavery. James gave a vivid explanation of how stunning buildings and prosperity were financed, and how denial today fuels resentment toward the very communities whose labor helped build the system.
Core point: The authoritarian project requires historical amnesia. Democracy requires memory.
The Corruption Pipeline Is Part Of The Same Project
We connected authoritarian cruelty to oligarchic self-enrichment, including crypto opacity and the wider pay-for-play ecosystem.
Key takeaways:
Corruption is not separate from the cruelty. Both are expressions of the same worldview: power for the in-group, humiliation for everyone else.
Opacity is the weapon. When transactions are harder to track, influence-peddling becomes easier to deny and harder to punish.
The “stupor breaks” eventually, but the damage is real. We both agreed that history catches up, but it often catches up after harm has already been done.
Core point: Ethnonationalism is the emotional cover for oligarchy.
Press Intimidation And Why Independent Media Has To Scale
We discussed Don Lemon’s arrest and the broader attempt to intimidate independent journalism.
Key takeaways:
This is targeted deterrence. The message is: if we can do it to a prominent figure, we can do it to anyone.
Corporate media pressure is real, but independent media is the next frontier. When institutions are cowed, the regime tries to frighten the distributed voices that cannot be controlled by one boardroom.
The only answer is scale and solidarity. If independent journalism is fragmented, it is easy to pick off. If it is networked, it becomes resilient.
Core point: An attack on one independent journalist has to be treated as an attack on the whole ecosystem.
The Action Step We Landed On: A Transatlantic Independent Journalism Alliance
We ended with something that matters: not just diagnosis, but blueprint-level thinking about building infrastructure.
Key takeaways:
The right has an ecosystem. It is financed, fed, and protected. That is why it endures.
Pro-democracy media needs a funding model that is bigger than individual creators. We talked about the failure of pouring vast sums into campaigns that vanish after election day, versus building a durable journalism infrastructure.
A shared charter could be powerful. James floated the idea of a standards-based coalition, a “charter” grounded in truth and verification. The important point is not branding. It is building trust and leverage.
We need something like NATO, but for independent journalism. That was our closing metaphor for a reason: deterrence works when solidarity is credible.
Core point: If the far-right is globally networked, the truth has to be globally networked too.
Closing Thought
This conversation was not simply “UK reacts to US politics.” It was a map of how the modern far-right collaborates.
And we were clear about the counter: international solidarity, historical literacy, moral clarity, and a scaled independent media ecosystem that cannot be bullied into submission.
