Far-left London Mayor Sadiq Khan has warned that the “spectre of a resurgent fascism” threatens the West with the rise of populists in Europe, tech giants rolling back censorship, and the return of Donald Trump to the White House.
The leftist Labour Party politician, writing for the Observer, the sister paper of the Guardian, likened the growing rejection of neo-liberal globalist policies in Europe and America to the rise of fascism in the “1920s and 1930s”.
“The far right is on the march,” Mayor Khan exclaimed. “From Switzerland and Sweden to Hungary, Austria and Italy, European nations are coming under the influence of extreme nativist parties that are hostile to democratic institutions, immigrant populations and fact-based journalism.”
“In Germany, the AfD is on course for a breakthrough in next month’s federal elections. In France, the National Rally is topping presidential polls. And, of course, in the US, Donald Trump is back,” he lamented.
The far-left mayor said that the rise of populist parties is “deeply worrying… especially if you’re a member of a minority community.”
“We should be in no doubt, this is a perilous moment. The spectre of a resurgent fascism haunts the West,” Khan declared.
Khan went on to argue that the global left must do more “to inoculate our societies against the virus of far-right populism. History shows us the time to act is now.”
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) May 19, 2024
A major area of concern cited by the London mayor is social media, which he claimed is “fuelling racist populism and polarisation.”
Khan pointed to X owner and Donald Trump ally Elon Musk, whom he accused of using his social media platform as a “propaganda tool to amplify lies and advance the cause of the far right.”
He also lamented the decision by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta to remove its so-called fact-checking apparatus in favour of an X-style community notes system, which he claimed was an act of bending the knee to the incoming Trump administration.
Khan, who has long advocated using state power to crack down on speech, suggested that countries like the UK should use legislation such as the Online Safety Act to counteract the popularity of populist messages on social media.
This act empowers the government to impose hefty fines of up to ten per cent of a large internet firm’s global revenue if it fails to police so-called “harmful content.”
The London mayor has been a vocal critic of Trump, demanding in 2017, for example, that the then-president should be barred from having a state visit with Queen Elizabeth II over his supposed use of “xenophobia, racism, and ‘otherness’ as an electoral tactic”.
Not one to take such accusations lightly, Trump branded Khan a “stone-cold loser” for failing to tackle knife crime and terrorism in London.
Mugged by Reality: Sadiq Khan Gets Gov’t Fact Check over False Claims of Reducing London Knife Crimehttps://t.co/M8oswu2w0b
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) December 6, 2023
