The far-right sees climate change as a welcome crisis and opportunity to harness energy. The ideology of this alliance is nothing new, write Climate Camp Scotland.
Fascism has had many faces. Recently, we have seen its return in particularly ugly faces across the world, from Putin’s totalitarian grip on Russia and the continuing colonial war on Ukraine that defies all logic, to Trump’s deconstruction of what remains of US democracy into a mafia state, his attack on the judiciary, academic institutions, migrants, journalists, queer people, and threats of openly imperialist expansion into Canada, Panama, Greenland as well as Gaza, to turn it into an ugly resort after cleansing it of Palestinians. Amidst all this, Trump still found time for Scotland, questioning why we have so many “costly and unsightly” windfarms, demanding that we instead “incentivise modernised drilling in the North Sea, where large amounts of oil lay waiting to be taken.”
Closer to home, we have Nigel Farage leading the polls, lately projected to win 362 seats in the House of Commons. While not projected to win any Westminster seats in Scotland, Reform is on track to win 21 seats in Holyrood next year, surpassing Labour and Conservatives to become the second largest party. Despite their Scottish wing curiously having no policies, principles or aims listed on their website, Reform UK promises to “scrap Net Zero”, cancel subsidies for renewable energy completely, fast-track new drilling licenses in the North Sea, and “test licenses” for fracking in the UK for two years. Longterm, Reform UK promises expansion of nuclear energy, a return to coal mining as well as “ethical” lithium mining on British soil. So apart from the obvious racist, misogynist, queerphobic, and tax-evader centric policies, Reform UK has a strange obsession with drilling into the land for fuels and minerals as much as possible.
But why are our new fascist faces so obsessed with fossil fuels? Why is Trump so keen on extracting minerals in Greenland and Ukraine, and clamping down hard on environmental protestors, flanked by a judicial system that is forcing Greenpeace to pay $667 million to a pipeline company for the Standing Rock protests? There are some obvious answers, and some less visible ones.
The term fascism is used so commonly among leftists that it is sometimes easy to forget its meaning, and how hard it is to define. Fascism is the most seminal political innovation of the 20th century. All of its competitors on the liberal and left side are much older, and much more thoroughly debated and researched, despite fascism being deadlier than any of them.
Commonly, there are two ways to define fascism. The more conventional approach treats fascism as a political ideology with a set of core beliefs. In these terms, fascism is an ideology of national rebirth, seeking to restore a nation to its mythic past. This ideology involves ultranationalism, an obsession with enemies within and outwith the nation, fetishisation of traditional sexual norms and hatred for any “sexual deviants” who do not conform, and an obsession with struggle and warfare: every soul in a nation is born to fight and die a hero and martyr of the nation; any weakness is met with contempt.
The second way to examine fascism is to look at what fascists do, not what they say. Fascists can and will say whatever they need to, including anti-capitalist rhetoric, in order to gain power. Political theorist and historian Robert Paxton instead defines fascism as a violent and revolutionary mass movement against the left: fascism is a form of political mass action, motivated by obsession over decline, humiliation and victimhood, forming a hyped cult of unity, energy and purity. Fascism forms a mass movement of nationalist militants, working in uneasy collaboration with traditional elites to violently attack the left and liberal institutions with the goal of internal cleansing, and ultimately external expansion.
Both ways of looking at fascism explain many recent developments, such as the massive crackdown on queer people and transpeople in particular, the obsessive attacks on academics and researchers, the disgust by the likes of Trump and Le Pen at the thought of having to answer for their actions in a court of law. Fascists have a special hatred for liberals and leftists, as the former seek to constrain power while we on the left seek to transform it altogether. So, fascists choose to attack their domestic enemies first, from spreading (often antisemitic) conspiracy theories and undermining courts and institutions until they can capture them, to violently repressing trade unions, socialists, anarchists and communists.
This does not explain the obsession of our new fascist faces with fossil fuel extraction, climate denialism, and just drilling into the ground. But fascists have long been obsessed with technologies, from the Nazis’ fascination and myth building around their “Wunderwaffen” that could bring the world to its knees, to today’s close collaboration of technological elites with Trump. From Trump turning to Peter Thiel’s Palantir for totalitarian surveillance of US Americans, to Putin’s techno-populism to advance high technology life in Russia through drone warfare on Ukraine, fascists see technology as a key part in their struggle for national rebirth, providing them with the long sought for power without constraints. All of these are fuelled by coal, oil, gas or nuclear.
Extracting fossil fuels is not only a key component of the race towards domination through technology. It is also an obsession of its own, as drilling into the earth for oil, gas and coal for fascists is an act of power over the forces of nature, a proof of their “machismo power” over their sexual anxieties. Conveniently, they also provide quick resources, fuel and power for their technological dreams and expansionist projects, which is how Putin finances his corruption and keeps the war going. For this very reason, fascists disdain any form of renewable energy, as is plain to see with Trump and Farage. Everything that “slows” them down is to be swept aside, as the nation needs to accelerate towards rebirth.
“Drill, Baby, Drill” is more than an alliance of the far-right with fossil capital. It’s the essence of fascism’s quest for unlimited power. Here in Scotland, we see this in plain sight, with Glasgow company Seapeak shipping gas on behalf of Russia to avoid sanctions and finance the Russian war effort through fossil fuels. We see it through INEOS doubling down on importing fracked gas from the US from indigenous soil, despite just having laid off hundreds of workers for profitability. And we see it through the obsession that Trump and Reform UK have with Scottish oil and gas reserves.
Where does climate change fit in with all this? Amidst everything, it is easy to forget that we are facing yet again the hottest year on record, with Scottish authorities battling wildfires that undo years of hard-fought conservation work, and reporting water scarcity across Scotland after the driest period in 60 years. But for fascists, climate change is a welcome crisis: not only does it unlock new areas of expansion in Greenland and the Arctic, but climate breakdown is a useful catalyst for the fascist struggle for rebirth, the arrival of life as constant warfare in which humanity can die and be reborn. We witness the start of this barbarism in our ever more inhumane border regimes and increasing armed conflicts across the world.
Fossil fascism is a threat to life everywhere on earth. Climate activists and their allies on the left need to wake up now and face the enemy.
Climate Camp Scotland is a national autonomous collective organising against fossil fuels and for climate justice.