An ethnonationalist content creator, whose catchphrase is “remigration is inevitable”, is standing at the general election in the Kent constituency of Dover & Deal.
Steve Laws, an activist in the so-called “migrant hunter” scene, is an advocate of the Great Replacement conspiracy theory. He is contesting this election on behalf of the English Democrats, a hitherto nationalist party which, as revealed by HOPE not hate, has partnered with the explicitly neo-nazi organisation, Patriotic Alternative (PA).
Laws — whose anti-immigration agitation we analysed earlier this year — has spread the antisemitic conspiracy fantasy that Jews are responsible for the mass migration of Muslims into Europe.
In April, he wrote on X/Twitter:
“I’ve researched extensively into who funds and organises the charities/NGOs that assist in the flooding of Europe via immigration and 80% have ties to Jews […] It’s not about hate, it’s about pointing the finger at the right people.”
– Steve Laws on X/Twitter
During his career as a far-right influencer, Laws has become increasingly extreme, standing for UKIP in the Southend West by-election in February 2022, becoming a member of the now-defunct anti-Islam party, For Britain, then speaking at PA’s annual conference.
Online, Laws now openly promotes ethnonationalist views on his social media channels, aligns himself with accelerationist ideas, and uses social media to purposefully divide communities in Britain. A key idea he pushes is “remigration” — a term deployed euphemistically to denote the deportation of immigrants both documented and undocumented, plus all British citizens of foreign descent.
If his past results are anything to go by — he won a paltry 2.7% of the vote when contesting Southend West for UKIP in 2022 — Laws has no chance in Dover & Deal. Instead, Laws is using the platform of an election campaign to advance his main preoccupation: the mass deportation of millions of people from Britain.
Whereas other politicians seek credibility by outlining plans to solve issues like the cost-of-living or climate crises, Laws claims to be “the only candidate that will put the native population first”.
In a clearly dismissive turn to the people of Dover & Deal, an area which is itself at the sharp end of a range of crises, Laws has adopted an approach that almost exclusively focuses on immigration and “the deportation of all illegal immigrants”.
There are two important takeaways here. The first is that for Laws and the PA candidates standing for the English Democrats, this election presents a self-declared opportunity to attempt to shift the Overton Window – the term which refers to the socially constructed parameters of acceptable public discourse – during the campaign. On a recent live stream with PA’s leader, Mark Collett, Laws explained how he hoped his election run would encourage the other candidates on the ballot to tack further right on immigration in order to outmanoeuvre him.
The second important aspect to understand here is that Laws’ policy of the “deportation of all illegal immigrants” only amounts to what he describes as “Stage 1” in his much larger, incremental plan towards his aspiration for an ethnically homogeneous Britain.
This plan, more broadly, features serious and violent force combined with more passive forms of harassment and intimidation, all geared towards the same ends. On one level, it is focused on the forced removal of anyone Laws considers to be an illegitimate member of British society, whilst on another it contains a series of oppressive social and political prescriptions which, Laws hopes, will create a climate so inhospitable that it will ultimately force others to leave Britain of their own accord.
“Stage 1” as he calls it, includes policy ideas such as the banning of halal and kosher foods, the removal of all government assistance being claimed by immigrants, the barring of immigrants from standing for election, and a total clear out of the civil service and legal system to facilitate the deportations, amongst many other extreme measures. Together, their aim is to foster an environment of total state opposition to immigrant communities through assaults on various aspects of immigrant culture and cultural signifiers.
So-called “Stage 2”, meanwhile, is an overtly violent collection of proposals, involving a militarised and widespread mass deportation programme based upon a series of incredibly draconian parameters. This is an inhumane form of politics that would bring misery and suffering to many millions. If such measures sound like tyrannical ramblings, then, if the below image is anything to go by, “a tyrant” is exactly how Laws views himself these days.
Such references to Adolf Hitler will not land too well with the people of Dover. During WW2 it was not only within range of (and bombarded by) Nazi artillery, but also played a key role as the principal landing point for many thousands of soldiers evacuated in 1940 from the north French coast at Dunkirk. Laws’s thinly-coded fascist sympathies, therefore, ought to be something of a turn-off at the ballot box.
Finally, as stated earlier, Laws preoccupies himself with a fantasy scenario of the forced removal of millions of immigrants from Britain. “Remigration is inevitable” is a phrase that he repeats often, as if the act of repetition will somehow conjure this fringe reverie into existence.
The reality is this: such concepts remain the preserve of the worst kind of bedroom-dwelling delusionist. The idea that people will accept the mass deportation of their friends, neighbours, colleagues, classmates, local workers, healthcare professionals etc, is for the birds. It is something that would not happen without immense brutality; with families, communities and workplaces decimated in the process. This is something that the vast majority of people in Britain will have no truck with; it is unconscionable and sadistic. “Remigration” will forever remain fodder for bitter individuals like Laws to hype each other up in fascistic echo chambers, surrounded by their fellow online racist crackpots.
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