How the far right is manipulating the public | Jeremy Corbyn

When Jeremy Corbyn takes the floor in Parliament and asks, “When you're in hospital, do you really refuse to be cared for by an African nurse or an Asian doctor? Or do you refuse to be cared for by someone who is an immigrant?” the question is not rhetorical. At that moment, even those who espouse anti-immigration rhetoric, when faced with real life, realize that their fear of the “other” vanishes and only reality remains: humanity comes first. Yet, politics and the media still manage to steer millions of people toward the opposite responses. We often think that the rise of the far right is a gut reaction, a sudden outpouring of hatred toward the “other.” But Corbyn flips the perspective: the radical right gains strength where the left and the Social Democrats have left a void. For him, the problem is not immigration, but the disappearance of stable employment, deindustrialization, and the lack of public investment. In the forgotten towns of northern France, eastern Germany, Wales, and northern England, factories have closed, permanent jobs have disappeared, and nothing has replaced them. It is there that the right finds fertile ground, offering a simple and flawed explanation: “It's the immigrants' fault.” But Corbyn insists: it's a lie, and also a cunning ploy. He recounts how, during their speeches, members of parliament from the Reform Party describe poverty in British cities and then, with a dramatic twist, link everything to the “refugees crossing the Channel.” He calls this ploy “total nonsense, but very clever.” Corbyn doesn't limit himself to denouncing the right: he also accuses the mainstream left, which, across Europe, has shifted to the right and adopted anti-foreigner rhetoric, almost word for word. He gives a specific example: Keir Starmer, the current Labour leader, has stated that the United Kingdom risks becoming “an island of strangers” and that it is necessary to “regain control of the borders,” using – according to Corbyn – the very words of Enoch Powell, who was notorious for his racist speeches in the 1960s. But, according to Corbyn, history can still surprise us. He recounts how, as a young member of Parliament, he fought for the release of the Guildford Four, four young Irish men unjustly convicted of terrorism. Not only did he incur the scorn of the media and his own party, but he also learned the hard way how powerful the establishment is at crushing those who oppose it. Yet, in the end, those young men were released. Today, he says, the same scapegoat logic is being repeated: the crisis is not the fault of the latest arrivals, but of those who have taken away resources and jobs. And in practical terms, while there are more than 130,000 vacancies in the social care sector in the UK, immigrant workers who fill those gaps continue to be deported. This is a short circuit that affects everyone: people who go to the hospital want to be treated, not to know where the nurse comes from. But there is one element that Corbyn adds and that almost no one mentions: the radical right, while preaching hatred of foreigners, also proposes “true left” economic policies, such as the nationalization of water or steel, to appeal to those who feel abandoned. This trap works because the traditional left has stopped genuinely defending those who are worst off. What is the blind spot of so many analysts? Believing that the problem lies solely in right-wing propaganda. For Corbyn, on the other hand, the real mistake is to let people seek answers where the left no longer listens. After all, his most powerful statement is this: “When it comes to real life, humanity comes first.” If this perspective has sparked something in you, on Lara Notes you can mark that it is now part of how you view the world: it's called I'm In. And if you happen to discuss it with someone who thinks it's always someone else's fault, you can come back here and tag that conversation with Shared Offline: a way to remember that the ideas that matter always arise from genuine dialogue. This note comes from The Institute of Art and Ideas and has saved you over an hour of interviewing.