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The New Extremism in 21st CenturyBritainAndy Scerri aa RMIT UniversityPublished online: 25 May 2011.

To cite this article: Andy Scerri (2011) The New Extremism in 21st Century Britain, Politics,Religion & Ideology, 12:1, 119-120, DOI: 10.1080/21567689.2011.564412

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Roger Eatwell and Matthew J. Goodwin, eds. The New Extremism in 21st Century Britain,edited by R. Eatwell, M.J. Goodwin and C. Mudde. Routledge Studies in Extremism andDemocracy. London: Routledge, 2010, pp. 258, $47.95 (paperback). ISBN 978-0-415-49435-9

This edited collection is a valuable contribution to an important contemporary field ofinquiry. The distinction made between the ‘new’ extremism and older extremist positions,such as fascism, nationalist separatism and the ‘red’ radicalism of the 1970s is extremelyhelpful. The contributions are organised around two gaps in the existing literature: anabsence of research into the primary manifestations of the new extremism, and the needto relate the research to a policy development agenda (in the United Kingdom).

What is said to be ‘new’ about the groups and their supporters examined is that theythreaten to destabilise Western democratic politics and society and, more so, they createthe possibility that ‘cumulative extremism’ and ‘interactive violence’ could break outwithin British society (pp.2, 243). It follows that the ‘extremism’ that is under examinationis identifiably extreme because it challenges representative democracy as the legitimateform of government and endangers pluralism as the legitimate principle of societalorganisation in the West.

The two primary manifestations of the new extremism that the contributors identify areradical Islamism, such as the radical violent takfiri Jihadism (RVTJ) associated withLondon’s Finsbury Park Mosque, and right-wing nationalist populism, in particular theBritish National Party (BNP). The chapters in Part I of the collection deal with Islamistextremism and those in Part II focus on nationalist populism. The diverse empiricalresearch methods that the contributors employ – including surveys and polling, actionresearch, qualitative interviews and media analysis – are brought together under a sparsemethodology that the Editors describe as a ‘Macro–Meso–Micro approach, which encom-passes broad international and national trends; localized perspectives and trends; and, aconsideration of individual actors’ (p.15).

If there is a problem with this book, it is a minor one and possibly falls beyond theEditors’ stated aims. My point is that the collection’s theoretical minimalism leads to aneglect of what I consider might be two important dimensions of the new extremism.The first dimension is the absence of an attempt to interpret what is ideologically newabout movements such as the BNP, which, I would argue, represent a perversion ofwhat might be most accurately labelled the Dawkinsian or Hitchinsesque quasi-Enlighten-ment. By this I mean that there is a need to understand what rightwing extremists and theirsupporters are thinking, what their idea of ‘Britain’ or ‘England’ is, beyond typologies thatdraw on neo-fascist ideals of authoritarianism, ethnic nationalism and xenophobia. Indeed,this kind of extremism seems to be on the march not only in Britain, but also Holland andAustralia, two places where Geert Wilders and the Cronulla Beach rioters make clear thatwhat is at stake is not so much the need for strong leaders or exclusive ethnicity but theperceived threat to ‘our way of life’ that is allegedly posed by groups who do notembrace libertarian selfhood framed by consumer desires.

Politics, Religion & IdeologyVol. 12, No. 1, 119–120, March 2011

ISSN 2156-7689 Print/ISSN 2156-7697 Online/11/010119-2DOI: 10.1080/21567689.2011.564412

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Even though reference is made to support for ‘working class authoritarianism’, I cannothelp but wonder if those attracted to groups such as the very extreme BNP splinter organ-isation, the English Defence League (EDL), are actually supporting some kind of troglodytelibertarian interpretation of freedom, which of course is no less a harbinger of authoritarianrule. After all, what seems to be at stake for groups like the BNP and the EDL is the ‘right’ ofthe English citizen to a kind of libertarian philistinism. This appears itself to be founded ona rejection of the possibility of non-extremist Islam by groups that, as many of the contri-butors to this collection demonstrate, are disenfranchised by post-industrial neo-liberalBritish society.

The second dimension of the new extremism that I feel is under-theorised in this collec-tion is the status of extreme Islamism as part and parcel of contemporary British society.Even though several contributors go to great pains to demonstrate that RVTJ extremistsand similar others are part of British society, little reference is made to the status ofthese groups as inhabiting the extreme right-wing of the community. While the BNPand its supporters are described as being on the right-wing fringe, it is very difficult tofind reference in the book to the radical Islamists as inhabiting a similar space within multi-cultural Britain. Of course, such groups are on the fringe of British Islamic society, but whatis more interesting I believe is that the two phenomena share space on the right-wing fringeof British society more generally. Indeed, a key conclusion of the collection is that ‘theMuslim community in Britain is far less alienated from British society than is normallyassumed’ (p.235).

In other words, the lack of a comprehensive normative theory of what a good Britishsociety should look like disqualifies the possibility that both the RVTJ and BNP shouldbe regarded as expressing similar ideologies or values. I am suggesting that whatboth groups share is a kind of post-modern radical conservatism that is peculiar topost-industrial society. Such radical conservatism is essentially a reaction to decades ofpost-industrialisation and neoliberal political-economic reform. I suggest that a richertheoretical framework, one recognising post-modern reactionary conservatism as the ideol-ogy that seeks to justify atomistic selfhood as the highest social value would allow simi-larities and differences between the two new extremisms to be more rewardingly examined.

Such a perspective might be especially helpful in coming to grips with what the editorsrightly see as the difficulty of generating widespread support for a ‘new form of Britishness’(p.234) that can appeal to both marginalised immigrants and the disoriented white workingclass. In both cases what the new extremists are propounding is a reactionary response topost-industrial social demands that individuals maintain a coherent self-identity in the faceof massive and unrelenting social change. That in the era of neoliberal globalisation, respon-sibility for this task has been devolved to individuals and ‘communities’ has created a situationin which doctrinaire religiosity and its counterpart in libertarian individualism fill the void thathas been left by the dismantling of a supportive social, dare I say it, welfarist nation-state.

These comments aside, The New Extremism in 21st Century Britain is a remarkableachievement. Governments and policy-makers who ignore the evidence and argumentsmarshalled here – especially in relation to claims that interactive violence is a genuinepossibility and, possibly more importantly, that nationalist populism is a bigger threatthan Islamist extremism – risk bearing responsibility for failing to address a genuinelydangerous political and social storm.

ANDY SCERRIRMIT University

andy.scerri@rmit.edu.au# 2011, Andy Scerri

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