The huge Labour losses in the May 4 local council elections are just what the Labour Right was hoping for.
The left has to be crystal clear about what is happening here. There are many subsidiary factors, but the root of the Conservative Party's substantial gains – 500 seats won against about 400 losses for Labour – is the xenophobic nationalism of Brexit which the Tories have used ruthlessly.
Thousands of opposition supporters chanted, “We know we won, we know they lost, we are not afraid”, in the streets of major cities after Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed victory in the April 16 referendum to strengthen presidential power.
Late in the evening police attacked opposition demonstrators outside the headquarters of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
The victory of the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union (“Brexit”) in the June 23 referendum was the result of — and is intensifying — a huge right-wing anti-immigration campaign.