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The far right and abortion rights

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This month has seen a mass mobilisation of people in support of Tommy Robinson’s ‘call to action’, and a rise in racist campaigning across the country. This comes at the same time as Donald Trump was welcomed to the UK on a second state visit, whose attacks on migrants and abortion rights have been celebrated by the conservative right in the USA.

We are also seeing public discourse around abortion coming up again and again. Over the last few years, there have been a rising number of convictions under Victorian-era abortion laws. And that’s just in the UK – across Europe, many countries are seeing far right governments being voted into power and abortion rights threatened. Similarly, the rights of trans people in the UK are also at extreme risk, with a ruling banning them from ’single sex’ spaces on the brink of becoming law. But how are these three things connected?

Abortion rights, trans rights, migrant rights = same fight

Far-right activists in the UK are spreading misinformation about migration and the asylum process, and building support for harsher border policies to ‘stop migration’.  

Some of this misinformation is being mainstreamed into government policy. This normalises the narrative that migrants are a threat, which means these ideas have even more space to take root.  

Part of the false narrative around migration is the idea that we need to ‘protect women and girls’ from migrants, and that men who migrate to the UK pose a risk to white women. We have even seen government ministers sharing false information on the link between migration and crime. This contributes to a deeply racist narrative that men who aren’t white are inherently dangerous and predisposed to ‘criminality’, and positions white women as a group who are in danger and need to be protected.  

This is a strategic weaponisation of women’s concerns for their safety

Data shows that women are most at risk of violence from men they already know. Many of the men who took part in the racist riots in 2024 had been previously reported for domestic abuse themselves. But the idea that women should fear migrant men is taking hold, and this leads to the idea that white women are ‘safest’ with white men. 

If we buy into the idea that white women are safest with white men, we can quickly reach the conclusion that we should encourage, promote, protect the white, heterosexual family unit. And this is one of the goals of Christian nationalist organising. 

Trans people and abortion are similar ‘threats’ to this idealised white Christian family unit. Trans people are targets of violence from the far-right, and in the last few years we have seen the mainstreaming of transphobia leading to, among other things, a ban on trans people using public toilets aligning with their lived gender. Trans rights and abortion rights are deeply connected, and are both threatened by the same groups. And what’s more, transphobia has been successfully used as a wedge issue in the feminist movement to divide our resistance to attacks on our bodily autonomy.  

The Alliance for Defending Freedom is a strategic, well-funded conservative Christian lobbying group which believes “marriage and family are the foundation on which human civilization is built”. They oppose abortion, trans rights, and gay marriage. And, bringing us full circle, the ADF has been working with Nigel Farage and other UK politicians to push for a reduction in abortion access across the UK.

What can we do? 

This is an urgent moment to stand up for people who are experiencing racism, transphobia and sexism. It’s a great time to learn about bystander intervention.  

Anti-racist organising is happening all over the country, and there is likely to be a group near you to join. 

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