This is a disaster unfolding in plain sight. Each day Keir Starmer is smoothing Nigel Farage’s path to No 10 | Owen Jones

A simple, terrible and obvious mistake is being made. The more Labour echoes Reform’s talking points, the more it strengthens them

Britain isn’t sleepwalking into catastrophe; it’s charging towards it. Last year, a violent rightwing uprising tore through our streets – an attempted pogrom in which racists tried to burn asylum seekers alive, attacked homes and businesses thought to belong to migrants, petrol-bombed mosques and assaulted people of colour in broad daylight. That disgrace should hang permanently around the necks of the anti-migrant right, a warning of where scapegoating and toxic lies lead.

Instead, the revolt succeeded. Anti-migrant rhetoric in politics and the press has grown more venomous. Reform UK now tops polls by a decisive margin. Its leader, Nigel Farage, raises the spectre of “major civil disorder” unless anti-migrant demands are met. Lucy Connolly – who was jailed after calling for hotels housing asylum seekers to be set on fire and is married to a former Conservative councillor – has been recast as a martyr by rightwing outlets and politicians. I don’t believe in jailing people for such speech, but her canonisation is chilling.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist