Britain’s Double Standard on Extremism
27th February 2026
The recent brutal killing of the nationalist student Quentin Deranque in Lyon by suspected far-left ‘anti-fascists’ has provoked serious questions in France regarding the inconsistencies between reactions to left-wing and right-wing extremism. Also, various journalistic outlets in the United Kingdom have pored over the tragic tale, some with the tacit perspective that this sort of thing doesn’t happen in Blighty. While such lethal left-leaning violence rarely occurs in Britain, we do, of course, have various groups on the hard left, and, just as in France, the responses to the very notions of ‘left’ and ‘right’ are extremely different.
The overlooked reality is that far-right extremism is treated as one of the primary domestic threats (viewed on a par with Islamism), while far-left extremism is consistently minimised, excused or rebranded as activism. The result is a political and media culture that sees right-wing violence as ideological terrorism but often treats left-wing violence as understandable, even romantic, protest. The issue is not whether far-right extremism exists—it clearly does—but whether left-wing extremism is judged by the same yardstick. Many of us would argue that the answer is no.