Mental health care and resistance to fascism

Accessible summary•  The ideas and politics of British nationalism are highly topical at the moment. Issues of race and racism are key elements of this sort of fascist political movement. There are clear links between modern fascist parties and the wartime Nazis. •  The history of mental health and psychiatric services shows up problems in how ethnic minorities have been treated. •  The Holocaust offers examples of terrible treatment of people with mental health problems, including the active participation of nurses in programmes of sterilization and murder. •  We can learn lessons from all of this that are relevant to today's nurses and ethical care. •  We conclude that mental health nurses should be a visible part of the resistance to right‐wing racist politics.Abstract Mental health nurses have a critical stake in resisting the right‐wing ideology of British fascism. Particularly concerning is the contemporary effort of the British National Party (BNP) to gain credibility and electoral support by the strategic re‐packaging of a racist and divisive political manifesto. Evidence that some public sector workers are affiliated with the BNP has relevance for nursing at a series of levels, not least the incompatibility of party membership with a requirement of the Professional Code to avoid discrimination. Progressive advances, though, need to account for deep rooted institutionalized racism in the discourse and practice of healthcare services. The anomalous treatment of black people within mental health services, alongside racial abuse experienced by ethnic minority staff, is discussed in relation to the concept of race as a powerful social category and construction. The murder of the mentally ill and learning disabled in Nazi Germany, as an adjunct of racial genocide, is presented as an extreme example where professional ethics was undermined by dominant political ideology. Finally, the complicity of medical and nursing staff in the state sanctioned, bureaucratic, killing that characterized the Holocaust is revisited in the context of ethical repositioning for contemporary practice and praxis.