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Beyond Islamist terrorism: the rise of right-wing extremism

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Right-wing extremism is growing in the UK and, while other forms of terrorism remain a threat, there is a heightened possibility that future terrorist attacks will be perpetrated by right-wing terrorists. This growing risk could be curtailed by a better awareness from law enforcement services and other relevant statutory bodies.

Europe has seen an increase in terrorist attacks on its soil, particularly since 2015. The UK is not immune to this trend, and it has also seen an increased frequency of successful terrorist acts.

The main focus of UK law enforcement services has been on Islamist terrorism, which has been at the root of the majority of the recent attacks. However, there has also been a more insidious rise of extreme right-wing terror plots. In February 2018 the UK’s former lead for counter-terrorism policing Mark Rowley stated that, in the 11 months since the March 2017 Westminster attack, the British police had foiled four extreme right-wing inspired plots.

Right-wing extremism is a loose, ill-defined concept that comprises a number of different ideologies and aims. Broadly, right-wing extremism encompasses a wish for the status quo ante, or ‘how things were before’, and neo-fascist aspects, such as ultra-nationalism. Some groups may be focused on a single issue, while others may hold several views, including anti-Semitic, anti-democratic, and anti-immigration beliefs.

Right-wing extremism has been growing steadily over recent years, as seen in the number of referrals of right-wing extremists to Prevent (one of the four branches of the UK’s counter-terrorism strategy, CONTEST). In 2017/18, 18% of referrals to Prevent were due to concerns relating to right-wing extremism, compared to only 10% in 2015/16.

Not only have right-wing ideologies become more prevalent, but there has also been a growing number of extreme right-wing terrorist attacks, attempted acts, or failed or foiled attacks. These include the murder of Jo Cox in 2016 by Thomas Mair who held extreme right-wing beliefs, the 2017 Finsbury Park attack where Darren Osborn drove a van in a crowd of people near the Finsbury Park mosque, an attack planned on an LGBT event by white supremacist Ethan Stables, and a number of arrests of members of the National Action – a proscribed neo-Nazi group – some of whom were arrested on terror charges for allegedly planning a ‘race war’.

Right-wing extremism has been deemed serious enough by the UK that MI5 is due to take over responsibility from the police on preventing right-wing extremism. Contrary to the recent Islamist attacks, which have mostly all been claimed by the Islamic State (IS), there is no single right-wing faction which claims to either coordinate or inspire attacks. Indeed, in their 2017 Terrorism Situation and Trend Report, Europol states that extreme right-wing activities are mainly carried out by lone actors or loosely coordinated groups.

The growth of right-wing extremism, and related risk of right-wing terrorist attacks, is fuelled by a mixture of factors. The rise of populist politics and movements in the UK and abroad stem from a general dissatisfaction with political elites, combined with increasing economic inequalities. External factors have also exacerbated the rise of right-wing extremism. The high migration levels from Africa and the Middle East – particularly during the peak of the migration crisis in 2015 – combined with Islamist terrorist attacks have reinforced an ‘us versus them’, and an increasingly inward-looking, mentality.

Another issue fuelling this growth is the fact that the UK’s counter-terrorism and counter-violent extremism tools and experience are primarily geared towards dealing with Islamist terrorism. Furthermore, the right-wing extremist movement has shown signs that it is increasingly organising itself, a recent development that makes it more dangerous. While Islamist extremism remains the primary cause of terrorism – driven partly by the continued threat of IS in Syria – right-wing extremist movements have increased and, consequently, so has the possibility of right-wing terror attacks.

There are a number of ways in which right-wing extremists may be impeded. Firstly, while there are some well-known right-wing groups, a better mapping of these extremist groups would be beneficial, as trends so far indicate fragmentation and a lack of knowledge amongst authorities. There is also the need to improve recognition of the early warning signs of potential right-wing terrorists by other statutory bodies involved in the UK’s counter-terrorism effort, such as schools, universities, social care and healthcare providers.

Secondly, a better recognition and understanding of the threat by law enforcement services, placing right-wing extremism more firmly in the agenda and within people’s minds as a threat factor.

Finally, there needs to be a concerted effort to prevent further reductions within counter-terrorism resourcing, in order to ensure greater preparedness by forces across the country against the threat of terrorist attacks.

Sarah Grand-Clement is a defence and security policy researcher. Her research interests include counter-terrorism, counter-violent extremism, and the Middle East. She holds an MSc in Arab World Studies from Durham University.

Drugs, guns and religion: the Hezbollah ‘model’ of criminal empire

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In aggressively pursuing crime as a source of revenue, Hezbollah has created a model which other groups are liable to copy, creating further regional destabilisation. The UK can help combat this by promoting greater global financial controls and supporting a crackdown on suspected criminal revenue streams.

Hezbollah emerged in the 1980s from a critical mass of social and political unrest in Lebanon. Shi’ites in Lebanon were disenfranchised by dismal economic prospects, and inspired by the Iranian revolution. The exporting of revolutionary ideals by Iran in the 80s and the revolutionary bent of Hezbollah allowed for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to effectively militarise Hezbollah. The IRGC reportedly sent 1,500 advisors, who transferred operational experience in small unit tactics and warfare from the ongoing Iran-Iraq War to the nascent Hezbollah. This culminated in catastrophic attacks on French and US forces in Lebanon in 1983.

As an organisation, Hezbollah grew rapidly through the favouritism shown to them by Syria in the 80s during their occupation of Lebanon. The Lebanese civil war and Israel’s occupation of Southern Lebanon provided them with opportunities for legitimation through anti-Israeli operations. However, Hezbollah’s provision of social services, reconstruction efforts, and need for advanced weapons forced the organisation to aggressively pursue crime as a form of income. Today, this drive has created a large criminal network operating across the globe.

Hezbollah has developed an international criminal operation which profits from what Europol describes as the “use of legal business structures, cross-border opportunities, identity theft, document forgery and violence”. Their ongoing operations in the Tri-Border Area of Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil raises tens of millions of dollars annually. As a testament to Hezbollah’s global footprint in illicit drug trafficking, operations have been uncovered in Germany, Poland, Romania, the US and Canada, to name but a few. This expertise has also been transposed into different areas, such as human trafficking, arms trafficking, counterfeit currency operations, and ‘blood diamond’ exports. While it is difficult to calculate revenue from these activities exactly, the proceeds are estimated to run in the millions of dollars.

This has allowed the group to gain some independence from Iran. While Iran remains the key supplier of Hezbollah’s vast missile arsenal, they have diversified their income, covering multiple criminal trades across the globe. Iranian support remains significant. Iran provides complex weapon systems, training, and as much as US$200 million annually. However, the relationship has matured into one of near equals, with Hezbollah providing key forces in Syria and intelligence operatives to support the IRGC Quds Force. Looking to the future, Iran’s co-operation with Hezbollah is only going to grow as tensions with Israel increase and the Syrian Civil War moves to a close.

Hezbollah, then, provides a viable blueprint for non-state actors in today’s globalised world. Hezbollah has demonstrated the benefits of involvement in international crime. This is not just the case financially, but also in developing organisational experience and capability which can be easily harnessed for violent ends. Many violent groups operate in areas with weak states or complicit governments, and within communities that are pliable to the benefits of organised crime.

This is especially true for other Shi’ite groups which receive Iranian support; the Houthis in Yemen and the Shi’ite militias in Iraq and Syria. The Houthi’s proximity to the horn of Africa provides access to a variety of criminal enterprises for groups in search of income. Potential criminal activities overlap with Hezbollah, with opportunities in human trafficking, the drug trade and more. This may be less true with Shi’ite militias in Iraq, whose range of possible ventures are limited by potential blowback of criminality for Iran given their geographical proximity.

The potential for non-state actors and violent groups across the world to follow the ‘model’ of Hezbollah is a concern which merits greater focus from British policymakers, especially as the UK pushes its post-Brexit ‘Global Britain’ agenda. With a major financial centre and strong diplomatic and intelligence capabilities, the UK is well positioned to take up a leading role in combating violent groups that adopt the ‘Hezbollah model’.

The British government should expand its scope from an initial crackdown on illicit Russian money to examining the financial channels from criminal networks associated with violent groups. Disrupting the illicit financial practices of violent groups can serve not only to promote global stability, but also to highlight the UK as a key player in the nexus between organised crime and terrorism.

Jack Sargent is pursuing a Masters in the History of International Relations at the LSE, with a particular interest in non-state actors in the Middle East.

Why globalisation is disadvantageous to women

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The macro-economic policies underlying globalisation exacerbate female inequality. The ‘hegemonic masculinity’ of global capitalism and corporate non-responsibility have informalised and exploited female labour. Moreover, gendered migrant labour reproduces a gendered and racialised order, which disadvantages women.

Whilst I consider ‘women’ as individuals with a configuration of intersecting identities, rather than a monolith, I believe that globalisation is bad for women overall, on either side of the North/South divide, and particularly those from ethnic minorities and lower socio-economic spheres. In order to explore this issue further, I employ Peterson’s dual understanding of globalisation as both a continuation of the ‘capitalist racialised patriarchy’ that characterises modernity and a new conjecture constituted by neo-liberal policies since the 1970s.

The concept of feminisation is important for understanding the uneven effects of globalisation on men and women. The devalorisation of the feminine, and all things considered so, produces processes of exploitation and violence against feminised concepts. Globalisation and the pursuit of profit has resulted in the ‘feminisation of employment’ with respect to the increased number of women in work and the deterioration of labour conditions, income and employment status. This has resulted in the overall degradation of women’s work as subjective, voluntary, unskilled and poorly paid or not paid at all.

Transnational competition has forced domestic capitalists to cut labour costs in order to increase productivity, with multinational corporations relocating production to the global South in search of cheaper wages. In the global North, women of colour are disproportionately impoverished by the relocation of well-paid jobs due to a legacy of racialised gender inequality. A rise in ‘McJobs’, or low-paid positions lacking in benefits, and reductions in minimum wage are the result of this repositioning. In the global South, poor working-class women fulfil the low-wage labour demands of multinational corporations that establish production in areas with weak labour laws. Globally, labour has become increasingly ‘flexible’ with the expansion of informal sectors, temporary and self-employment or a ‘feminisation’ of labour.

Capitalist workplaces are built around hidden assumptions of a separation of reproduction and production. Neo-liberal capitalism is characterised by a division between the masculinised and productive ‘monetary’ economy and the feminised and reproductive ‘non-monetary’ economy. The process of capital accumulation renders reproductive survival needs invisible, assuming informal economic activity to be in unlimited supply. Consequently, women are subordinated in both spheres, being responsible for reproductive labour in the ‘private’ sphere and holding a marginalised position in the productive economy.

Although women have increasingly participated in the labour market since the 1970s, this period has seen a deterioration of the material conditions of life for poorer women globally, as a result of macro-economic policies of privatisation, deregulation and structural adjustment. The flexibilisation of labour has seen the creation of feminised jobs that are temporary, part-time, and precarious. Cutbacks in social welfare have increased poverty for women, who are more reliant on social programs due to their burden of caring. In the global North, ethnic minorities and the working class have suffered from reduced public spending – in Britain, 86% of the burden of austerity since 2010 has fallen on women. In the global South, cuts to public health have seen increases in maternal mortality and school dropout rates for girls.

Structural adjustment programs (SAP) imposed on the global South as a form of international debt repayment by International Financial Institutions such as the IMF and World Bank, have forced women to take up additional productive and reproductive labour to survive austerity. Higher prices, reductions in government food subsidies and the devaluation of local currencies have disproportionately affected urban-poor and working-class women and disrupted the education of young girls. In Nicaragua, for instance, macro-economic gains achieved by a SAP, including a drop in inflation and increase in exports, also caused a rise in infant and maternal mortality, malnutrition, poverty and unemployment.

Neo-liberal capitalism’s neglect of the reproductive economy has prompted a commodification of the immigrant labour of Southern women. This ‘maid-trade’ – the employment of immigrant women from the global South to fulfil the domestic needs of the global North – has become a resource, upon which the centres of transnational business in ‘global cities’ depend. Immigrant labour, which frees Western women from their domestic ‘duties’, also exempts men from domestic responsibilities and relieves states’ pressure to support the reproductive economy, instead exploiting the racialised inequality of Southern women. Although foreign domestic work can be an important source of remittances for Southern countries, immigrant workers are particularly vulnerable to employer intimidation and abuse. In Britain, the domestic workers of wealthy Gulf families have faced conditions of slavery and trafficking. The Modern Slavery Act 2015 was introduced to protect migrant workers from exploitative employers, however the UK government’s measures to date have failed to significantly reduce levels of abuse.

To conclude, the ‘hegemonic masculinity’ of neo-liberal capitalism, rooted in the ‘racialised patriarchy’ of colonialism, reproduces female inequality in its neglect of the non-monetary economy and feminisation of women’s labour. Prioritising profit over reproductive needs and rendering domestic work invisible, marginalises women in the global North and South as they are simultaneously devalued in the productive economy and carry the burden of reproductive labour and caring.

Isla Wilson is active in the field of gender equality, and holds a Masters degree in International Relations.

The Irish backstop could damage, not secure, national sovereignty

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The unpopular Withdrawal Agreement vote inflicted the largest defeat on the Government in history. The Irish backstop within the Agreement, far from Brexit bringing back national sovereignty, will in reality undermine it.

The UK has always had an ambivalent view of the European project since it joined in 1973. One of its criticisms is that since the UK joined, it has morphed into a political union from an economic community. The media narrative has invariably been about what the EU has done to us, as opposed to what we have contributed to the bloc as a whole. Even during the referendum campaign, the argument against the EU was that faceless bureaucrats in Brussels were to blame for forcing our country to abide by rules and regulations – often downplaying the fact that elected Members of European Parliament (MEP)’s and Prime Ministers of the member states shape and change these very regulations. Since the UK voted to leave this institution many hours have been spent deciding how.

The result of this negotiation is the deal before the House of Commons, which suffered a record breaking defeat of 230 votes. A large reason for this was due to the Irish backstop, which would keep Northern Ireland tied to Single Market rules and customs codes in order to avoid a hard border through the island of Ireland. According to the agreement as it currently stands neither the UK nor EU can unilaterally decide to end this backstop, without the agreement of the other party. If the two sides can come to a trade deal then this never needs to be implemented, as May and the EU are at pains to point out. The result of this is, in effect, an insurance policy against a hard border. Nevertheless, there is potential for this to be implemented. This forces a key referendum campaign issue back to the surface: parliamentary and national sovereignty.

Whilst the UK is a member of the EU, it is bound to follow the rules and laws created by the initial legislation that passed through the house in 1972, the European Communities Act which Parliament voted to ascend to the statute book. In theory, the country could leave the bloc by repealing this act, a sovereign decision. However, additionally the Lisbon Treaty gives member states the sovereign right to leave the EU through the mechanism of Article 50. This is a mechanism the UK has decided on its own to invoke. If May’s deal had passed in Westminster, as well as in the European Council and the European Parliament, it would have become legally enforceable in international treaty law.

May is looking to negotiate changes to the backstop from Brussels, however the EU have said many times that the principle of a backstop is non-negotiable. As a result, it is difficult to see any significant changes being made which would facilitate the Agreement’s passage through the House of Commons.

For the sake of argument, imagine the deal with the backstop makes it through a meaningful vote and becomes law. Although the UK will have used its national sovereignty to formally leave the EU and all its institutions we will have a perverse situation whereby the UK, will be committed into a mechanism, which, if activated, will not allow it to leave by its own volition. The referendum campaign slogan ‘take back control’ in this scenario seems rather hollow a statement.

In fact, in leaving the EU’s Institutions the UK will no longer be there using its connections to states inside the EU to shape the laws of the EU. As a consequence, the UK will have less sovereignty than it did when a fully-fledged member. Both the Commission President Jean Claude Junker and the President of the Council, Donald Tusk have said this deal is the only deal on offer.

The implications of this for the island of Ireland remain worrying. The UK and Ireland joined the EU at the same time to ensure trade between the two would not be subject to friction, and the common travel area would not be impacted by a hard border between the two nations. As the former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair stated on Good Morning Britain on ITV on 3 December, this would be the first time in both our relationships with Europe that the UK and Ireland would be on opposite sides of the line.

This whole exercise in exerting national sovereignty has the potential to hand over greater sovereignty, over the issue of the backstop. Whatever the eventual result of the negotiations with Brussels, and the meaningful vote in Westminster, the prosperity of both sides of the border hang in the balance.

David Reece is a Global Politics and International Relations Graduate from Birkbeck, University of London.

Parliament is playing with fire. MPs should back the Withdrawal Agreement

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In December the Government was forced to pull the meaningful vote in Parliament on its negotiated exit deal with the EU. This poses a huge risk to the UK and, with no ready alternative for avoiding the very hardest of Brexits on 29 March 2019, Brexiteers and Remain MPs alike should vote through the Withdrawal Agreement to avoid the cliff edge of ‘no deal’.

For all the turbulence of the Brexit talks between the UK and the EU, everything had run broadly according to schedule. Both sides of the negotiating table agreed a legal text for UK’s withdrawal from the bloc back in November, which the EU27 then rubber stamped at the European Council meeting shortly after. The Withdrawal Agreement stipulates the UK’s outstanding commitments (including a financial settlement), maintains citizens’ rights on both sides of the channel, and provides for an open border on the island of Ireland. Crucially, it also delivers a transition period that keeps Britain in the Single Market and Customs Union until the end of 2020.

Troublingly, with ‘Brexit day’ now less than three months away, there is no clear support for the Withdrawal Agreement in the House of Commons, as evidenced by Theresa May’s decision to postpone the planned meaningful vote until after Christmas. Nor, however, has Parliament been able to articulate a common, alternative course of action. It has not even come close.

This is mostly because MPs’ opposition to the Prime Minister’s deal comes from opposite ends of the political spectrum. The Government cannot count on its thin working majority holding up, largely because the DUP and hard-line Eurosceptics on the Conservative backbenches object to the so-called Irish backstop arrangements.

On the other side of the debate a growing number of MPs are calling for a new referendum on EU membership – or at least a public vote on the Withdrawal Agreement – with a view to halting Brexit altogether. This group was emboldened by the ECJ’s recent judgement that Article 50 can be unilaterally revoked (albeit with a number of key caveats), but there are huge barriers in their way. There is not yet a clear consensus on what question would be asked, and neither main party has backed a new vote at all. More significantly, there is obviously not enough time to organise and hold such a major national vote before 29 March. True, an extension to the Article 50 period is possible, but this requires the unanimous approval of the EU27. It is hard to see why European governments would wish to indulge further British prevarications. Difficult questions would also be raised by delaying Brexit until after the European Parliament elections in May.

If Theresa May is to break the impasse in Parliament then she may be better served looking across the political divide to disillusioned Labour MPs than to her own party behind her. The Opposition does recognise at least the need for a transition period to avoid an economic cliff edge (after all it was Labour who called for such an instrument before it became government policy).

One way of gaining the backing of pro-Remain MPs could be to drop the Political Declaration – which points the way towards a future UK-EU relationship – from the deal that is voted on. This addendum to the main Withdrawal Agreement could be removed and renegotiated later, as it relates to matters beyond the transition period and is not a binding legal text. Although this would mean going back to the EU27, their consent should be easy to get as it is their stated interest to see the UK stay closer to their Union beyond 2020.

A further possibility for the Government would be to put a series of motions before the Commons to advise on the future relationship. This could serve two purposes. Firstly, it would help guide the next phase of talks and help prevent a similar blockage at the final hurdle to the present one. Secondly, it would likely make explicit to MPs, in undeniable Parliamentary arithmetic, that no other, single option – remain, referendum, EEA membership, no deal – currently enjoys any greater support than the current offer.

Regardless of whether Theresa May opts for either of these routes, MPs have a responsibility to approve the Withdrawal Agreement as it stands. It is a fair and pragmatic deal, in that it extricates the UK from the EU whilst keeping the two closely aligned for a time-limited period. More importantly, it is the only sure way to avoid a ‘no deal’ scenario on 29 March 2019, with all the economic catastrophe that the Treasury, Bank of England, and others predict this would bring. Bravado and brinkmanship have plagued the Brexit process, and they are in danger of doing so again. MPs must vote for the Withdrawal Agreement when Parliament resumes.

John McStravick is Vice-President of Agora, and Senior Political Analyst researching Brexit for a political monitoring firm.

The privatisation of immigration detention in the UK

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The privatisation of immigration detention in the UK symbolises a policy shift from restricting movement due to nationalist concerns to extracting financial value from migrants. Today, seven of the nine Immigration Removal Centres (IRCs) in the UK are outsourced to private companies. Mitie, G4S, Serco and GEO receive Government contracts worth £243 million a year. The growing political influence of the immigration ‘security’ lobby has been accompanied by allegations of severe abuse of vulnerable detainees, cost-cutting measures and a nebulous lack of accountability.

Within the framework of the Private Finance Initiative, private companies running immigration detention centres in the UK claim that they are better equipped to deliver specialised services efficiently than the state. There has, however, been no concrete proof that privatisation is better value for money. In contrast, the privatisation of immigration detention means big business. From 2010 to 2014, outsourced contracts between the National Offender Management Service and G4S and Sercor accounted for more than 70% of NOMS’ 2.5 billion budget. Mitie, after taking over Harmondsworth and Colnbrook IRCs near Heathrow Airport in 2014, experienced an increase in annual profits from £333,000 to £2 million as it secured a Home Office (HO) contract worth £180 million over an 8-year period. Although some contracts might not be as profitable, they still provide a steady, state-backed, low-risk income. Private contractors receive on average £92 per detainee daily (£34,000 per detainee annually).

Clearly, the growing hostility of the British immigration system is influenced by the financial interests of private sector companies. Private contractors, moreover, employ 1.2 million people in austerity Britain, which only increases the political capital of the migration ‘security’ lobby. The entanglement of private companies and the public sector have made the big security firms ‘too big to fail’ as outsourcing reinforces the Government’s dependence on private corporations. This trend is increasingly worrying because the corporate endeavour to increase profit margins is accompanied by allegations of extreme violence at detention sites, cost-cutting measures, hardening penal laws and a lack of accountability.

Due to private sector interests, the bottom line of a company now is what counts in immigration detention. The strict management of detention facilities is ensured by recruiting senior staff who worked in prisons or the military before joining the ranks of private contractors like G4S, the world’s biggest security company whose portfolio includes security services in Guantánamo. To reduce running costs in labour-intensive IRCs, the number of junior staff is decreased. Serious staffing issues have been reported at Colnbrook IRC since Mitie took over a contract whose value was reduced by 30% while demanding the same service. Unsurprisingly, Mitie has been accused of aggressive cost-cutting practices.

The HO, nevertheless, continues to shed responsibility and dismiss reports of abuse. In 2008, a dossier of 300 alleged assaults at IRCs was collected by an NGO coalition but did not provoke any response from the HO. When Jimmy Mubenga was killed during his forced removal from the UK in 2010, the G4S guards were acquitted of manslaughter despite their racist messaging. Mitie’s CEO justified a large fire in Campsfield IRC in 2013 by claiming the HO had not instructed the contractor to install water sprinklers. The Global Detention Project details numerous cases of sexual assault and harassment at Yarl’s Wood IRC, which received limited attention when two Serco staff members were suspended in 2015. These reports have critics wondering whether the Government deliberately benefits from blurred lines of accountability to shed responsibility.

Despite high-profile failures of private companies, a serious investigation of privatised immigration detention seems impossible. Private companies delivering public services are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act and their Government contracts are protected from public scrutiny by ‘commercial confidentiality’. CorporateWatch questioned the integrity of the ‘self-audit’ system between private firms and the HO in 2014. Since 2013, G4S and Serco have been under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office for overcharging the Government on electronic monitoring contracts. After paying £109m and announcing a ‘corporate renewal plan’, G4S was however awarded further contracts. The Government also reached a £70.5m settlement with Serco, which has additionally been investigated by the Financial Reporting Council since 2016. Recently, Bail for Immigration Detainees initiated a judicial review to officially brand G4S a “High Risk” supplier to hold the global outsourcing company accountable.

In conclusion, treating immigration detention as a profitable business is clearly dangerous for detainees and undermines accountability. Despite severe failures of private companies, as well as numerous judicial reviews, the lack of accessible information and accountability complicate a genuine investigation of outsourced immigration detention. To improve conditions in the short term, G4S, Serco, mitie and GEO must submit to systematic, public oversight but in the long run the privatisation of immigration detention in the UK must end to enable the fundamental reform of a failing system.

Josefine Brons studies Politics and International Relations at SOAS University of London.