How Brazil’s Anti-Bolsonaro Struggle Exposes the Failure of ‘Progressive Neoliberalism’
After London's September Defeat: What Brazilian Resistance Teaches British Anti-Fascists"
Lula’s return to power was supposed to defeat Bolsonarism. Instead, his government’s austerity policies are strengthening the very forces he was elected to stop. This failure offers vital lessons for the British Left still reeling from the strategic defeat of 13 September 2025, when Tommy Robinson mobilized 150,000 marchers while anti-fascist forces managed only 5,000. The Brazilian experience reveals how “neoliberal progressivism” creates the conditions for far-right advance—and what revolutionary forces must do to prevent Reform UK from following Bolsonaro’s path to power.
For more background on the Brazilian context, we recommend readers listen to today’s podcast.
I. The Conservative Left Model: From Lula to Starmer
The strategic failure that enabled Bolsonaro’s rise now threatens to repeat itself across Europe. Brazilian revolutionary analysis identifies “neoliberal progressivism” as the fatal combination of social recognition policies (feminist, anti-racist, LGBTQIA+ rights) with neoliberal economic frameworks. This model allows financialization and labour precarization to gain legitimacy by association with liberal virtues.
Lula’s Strategic Error The current PT government exemplifies “Conservative Left” politics: prioritizing institutional stability over structural change. Lula’s New Fiscal Framework (Arcabouço Fiscal) maintains austerity logic, severely limiting social spending while guaranteeing public debt payments to financial elites. When the left administers neoliberal policies, working-class disillusionment drives support toward far-right alternatives promising radical change.
Starmer’s Parallel Failure Britain’s Labour Party follows identical patterns. Starmer combines progressive rhetoric on social issues with fiscal conservatism that refuses wealth taxes and accepts spending constraints. His muted response to Robinson’s march—refusing to characterize it as “far-right”—demonstrates how Conservative Left politics normalizes fascist mobilization rather than confronting it.
II. Strategic Parallels: From Brazilian Austerity to British Anti-Reform Preparation
Brazilian experience reveals how quickly neoliberal progressivism collapses into far-right ascendancy. With Reform UK polling consistently above 20% and Farage positioned for potential government participation, British activists need concrete anti-austerity demands that can mobilize mass resistance before it’s too late.
Learning from Brazil’s 6x1 Campaign The fight against Brazil’s abusive 6x1 scale (six days work, one day rest) demonstrates how specific labour demands unite broader anti-fascist struggle. The successful PepsiCo strike shows workers mobilizing around concrete dignity issues rather than abstract political appeals.
British Application: The Four-Day Working Week campaign addresses similar work intensification and material conditions. Unlike moral appeals against Reform UK’s racism, this demand directly counters the economic misery that fuels far-right support. Revolutionary forces must build rank-and-file trade union power around such concrete demands, learning from Brazilian unions like CUT that legitimized workplace exploitation by supporting government proposals workers themselves rejected.
From Tax Revolution to Wealth Redistribution Brazil’s call for revolução tributária (tax revolution) targeting profits and dividends provides a template for countering fiscal austerity that enables far-right growth. Wealth taxes (mansion tax, windfall profits tax on energy companies) directly challenge the rentier capitalism underlying both Starmer’s fiscal conservatism and Reform’s scapegoating of immigrants for economic decline.
Public Services vs Privatization Brazilian resistance to fiscal frameworks that benefit financiers parallels British struggles over public service cuts. NHS renationalization campaigns must frame healthcare privatization as part of the same system that benefits from austerity. When Reform UK inevitably promises to “save the NHS” while implementing further cuts, organized left forces need concrete demands that expose this contradiction.
III. Organizational Intelligence: Independence vs Accommodation
Brazilian left debates offer crucial guidance for British revolutionaries navigating coalition politics. The Partido Socialismo e Liberdade (PSOL) demonstrates both successful resistance and dangerous accommodation.
The MES Position: Revolutionary Independence The Movement for Socialist Left (MES) within PSOL maintains that success must be measured by organizational legacy left in the working class, not electoral outcomes alone. Their Tese Militante insists on political independence from Lula’s government to preserve anti-capitalist profile.
Concrete Evidence of Strategic Tension This struggle became explicit in PSOL’s vote on Tax Reform (PEC 45). MES called for abstention, arguing the reform was built on “bourgeois consensus” and risked legitimizing class collaboration. The recent electoral defeat in Belém was attributed to institutional limits of PSOL-led government and factional failures to allow necessary political debate.
British Applications The PTL faction’s “uncritical adherence to Lulism” parallels British left organizations that adapt to Labour’s neoliberal constraints. While engaging in necessary anti-fascist unity against Reform UK, revolutionary organizations must maintain clear anti-capitalist programmes and avoid the programmatic dilution that strengthens the right.
IV. Anticipating Reform UK: Lessons from Bolsonaro’s Rise
The most urgent lesson concerns timing. Bolsonaro’s victory wasn’t inevitable—it resulted from the left’s failure to build alternatives while neoliberal progressivism collapsed. With Reform UK positioned for electoral breakthrough, British revolutionaries face similar strategic choices.
Digital Ecosystem and Mass Action Reform UK, like Bolsonarism, operates through digitally networked mobilization bypassing traditional organizing. Robinson’s 150,000-strong march demonstrates this power in practice. Brazilian analysis emphasizes that mass action on the streets remains paramount—successful resistance against Milei in Argentina shows how militant confrontation shifts the balance of forces.
Rigid regulation of Big Tech platforms by national bodies must combine with cultural resistance. Brazilian movements like Bloco Maria Sapatão use carnival as political resistance, while campaigns like Brasil é Solo Preto e Indígena promote anti-racist memory and political education.
Culture War and Intersectional Strategy Bolsonaro’s success exploited culture war dynamics, targeting feminist, LGBTQIA+, and anti-racist movements. Reform UK follows identical patterns. Revolutionary response requires understanding that anti-capitalism, anti-racism, and feminism remain interconnected struggles.
Brazilian Feminism for the 99% links class demands (wages, housing, public services) to anti-oppression organizing. The successful mass mobilization that defeated abortion restriction legislation (PL 1904/2024) shows how militant organizing around concrete rights challenges fundamentalist agendas.
V. Immediate Strategic Choices: Building Anti-Reform Resistance
Brazilian experience demonstrates that the window for building effective anti-fascist resistance closes rapidly once neoliberal progressivism collapses. British activists face immediate strategic choices determining whether Reform UK’s potential electoral success meets organized resistance or finds a fragmented, demoralized left.
Material Demands That Unite Anti-Fascist Struggle
Four-Day Working Week campaigns following the Brazilian 6x1 model address work intensification while providing concrete alternatives to Reform’s immigrant scapegoating
Wealth tax implementation exposes rentier capitalism underlying both Starmer’s austerity and Reform’s false solutions
NHS renationalization frames healthcare privatization as financialization benefiting elites while ordinary people suffer
Avoiding Strategic Paralysis The Brazilian MES faction emphasizes that revolutionary forces must not fear proposing demands that “seem unacceptable now” but are necessary for resolving crisis. The 5,000-person counter-protest failure cannot be repeated. Building capacity for mass street mobilization requires concrete organizing around immediate material demands that bring thousands into militant confrontation.
Organizational Independence While engaging necessary anti-fascist coalitions, revolutionary organizations must maintain programmatic clarity. Brazilian experience shows adaptation to Conservative Left positions ultimately strengthens the right by validating neoliberal frameworks that create conditions for fascist advance.
The central lesson remains that what drives political change is class struggle, requiring independent mobilization that offers genuine alternatives to both Conservative Left accommodation and far-right reaction. Brazilian revolutionaries demonstrate that building this alternative requires connecting anti-oppression struggles to class demands while maintaining organizational independence from forces that would dilute revolutionary programmes in pursuit of respectability.
Further Reading: Strategic Analysis from Revista Movimento
The following articles and interviews from Revista Movimento were particularly useful in drafting the analysis of the Brazilian Left’s strategy against neoliberal progressivism and far-right mobilisation:
1. Camila Souza Menezes (Interviewer): “Transformar a memória numa arma política” (Transforming Memory into a Political Weapon), Revista Movimento, ano 9, n. 48, mar. 2024. (An interview with Vladimir Safatle discussing the failure of Brazil’s redemocratization, the continuing political strength of the military, and the necessity of building a “disruptive left” capable of confronting the extreme right with a programme of radical equality and popular sovereignty.)
2. Auditoria Cidadã da Dívida: “Novo arcabouço fiscal mantém teto de gastos sociais para privilegiar gastos com o sistema da dívida” (New Fiscal Framework Maintains Social Spending Cap to Privilege Spending on the Debt System), Revista Movimento, ano 8, n. 37, abr. 2023. (Critique of the Lula/Haddad government’s fiscal policy (NAF), arguing that it perpetuates the logic of austerity by imposing controls on social spending while guaranteeing debt payment, a key material failure exploited by the far right.)
3. Movimento Esquerda Socialista (MES): “Tese Militante: PSOL independente e anticapitalista” (Militant Thesis: Independent and Anti-Capitalist PSOL), Revista Movimento, ano 8, n. 41, ago. 2023. (The foundational document outlining the MES position for the PSOL Congress, emphasizing the need for political independence from the Lula government’s social-liberal project and defining a strategy rooted in ecossocialist and anti-capitalist rupture.)
4. Bruno Carvalho e Letícia Chagas (Interviewers): “Não podemos seguir tendo a polícia mais violenta do mundo” (We Cannot Continue Having the Most Violent Police in the World), Revista Movimento, ano 9, n. 48, mar. 2024. (An interview with Bruno Paes Manso examining the structural relationship between the military dictatorship’s urbanisation process, the formation of paramilitary groups, and the perpetuation of extreme state violence (necropolitical structure) that the left must address.)
5. Israel Dutra: “Grande greve geral na Argentina: assim se enfrenta a extrema direita” (Great General Strike in Argentina: This is How the Extreme Right is Faced), Revista Movimento, ano 9, n. 45-46, dez. 2023 - jan. 2024. (An analysis of the mass mobilisation and general strike against Javier Milei’s ultra-liberal measures in Argentina, serving as a contemporary, actionable model for militant street resistance against the far right.)
6. MES Pajubá - Núcleo de Pessoas Trans do Movimento Esquerda Socialista: “Manifesto Marxista-pajubá” (Marxist-Pajubá Manifesto), Revista Movimento, ano 9, n. 51, jun. 2024. (A manifesto detailing the necessity of integrating the struggle for trans liberation with the materialist, class-based programme of revolutionary Marxism, resisting the far-right’s culture war attacks and affirming the interconnectedness of anti-oppression and anti-capitalist struggles.)