Every journalism school should show its students the video clip of the moment on Saturday when a chirpy Polish state television reporter asked a man decked out in red and white national colours what it meant to him to participate in a march celebrating Poland’s independence day. “It means,” replied the man, “to remove from power … Jewry!”

This weekend’s march in Poland proves the far right isn’t going away without a fight | Paul Mason Read more

Since Poland is governed by the rightwing populist-nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS), the obvious next question is: who exactly do you have in mind as Jewry’s current representative in power? The PiS party leader, Jarosław Kaczyński? The prime minister, Beata Szydło, perhaps? Or do you mean someone who is in power elsewhere: Donald Trump or Theresa May, or the Jews on Mars?

Throwing away this rare journalistic opportunity to interview an antisemite ready to speak openly to camera, the flustered reporter turned to a nearby woman, asking what it meant to be a patriot taking part in the march. When she agreed with the previous speaker, and said she was proud to be there as a Pole among Poles, the reporter turned back to camera saying cheerily: “This is pride, pride that one may be a Pole, pride that one is a Pole!”

Call yourself a journalist? Actually, he’s a hack working for the public TV channel TVP Info, now degraded into a PiS propaganda conduit, and he was desperately sticking to the party line that this is just one great, warm, patriotic pride parade. The clip is a brilliant 58-second lesson in how not to be a journalist.

I’ve turned my lens on the journalist rather than the antisemite because, faced with a global mainstreaming of far-right ideas and slogans from Charlottesville to Moscow, the crucial question is: how should we respond?

First, we have to understand what’s going on. In every case, there’s a combination of unique local and generic transnational features. This 11 November “independence march”, which has been an annual event in Warsaw for some years, is organised by homegrown rightwing groups, and has steadily grown in strength.

Within the larger demonstration, which this year adopted the motto “We Want God”, there has been for some time a “black bloc” of radical right and fascist extremists. On Saturday they wielded a giant banner reading “White Europe of Brotherly Nations” and depicting a Celtic cross, a symbol rarely seen in Poland but used elsewhere by white supremacists. Far-right leaders from countries such as Italy, Britain, Hungary and Slovakia participated in the march.

What we see here is something new. Whereas nationalists in the past tended to be, well, national, there is now an international network of far-right xenophobic activists. These thoroughly modern reactionaries make skilful use of social media to spread their insidious messages. A new report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue shows that some of the most popular trending hashtags favouring the populist-nationalist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in the German election in September – including the seemingly benign #traudichdeutschland (“Trust yourself, Germany”) – were heavily and successfully promoted by far-right activists.

With the AfD set to be the second-largest opposition party in the Bundestag, Germany is another example of a dangerous blurring of the line between conservative nationalism and far-right extremism. We also see this in Trump’s America. And a recent tweet from the official account of Leave EU described the 15 Tory MPs opposed to enshrining the Brexit date in UK law as “the cancer within their party and traitors to their country”.

‘The cancer within their party and traitors to their country’ – a recent tweet from Leave EU

In the popular front that needs to be formed against this mainstreaming of far-right language and ideas, three things are especially important: online platforms, public figures and everyday neighbours. What we need from the platforms is more transparency. Twitter, Facebook and others need to understand more quickly how their own platforms are being abused by Russian and other actors to influence the Brexit referendum or national elections, and then share the essentials of what they find more fully with us. What we then do about it is a more difficult question, but the first imperative is to see what is going on.

Public figures need to speak up whenever the outer boundary of legitimate political debate is crossed. The Polish government has just spectacularly failed to do this: minister after minister talking dismissively of minor “incidents” or “provocations” in an otherwise “beautiful march”. (Poland’s honour was saved only by some clear words from its president, Andrzej Duda.)

In another astonishing failure, Mike Pence, the US vice-president, defends every indefensible Trump remark with his fixed sanctimonious smile, as if he were doing the Lord’s work. All honourable Brexiteers should distance themselves from the poisonous language of cancer and treason.

But it’s not just up to the politicians. In Poland, the failure of the leaders of the Catholic church to speak out, if only to defend the words “We Want God” against such gross political abuse, is truly shameful. Originally the refrain of a traditional hymn which became an unofficial anthem of Poland’s struggles for independence from foreign domination, “We Want God” was famously quoted by Pope John Paul II when he visited a Poland still under communist rule. Then there are journalists, whose job is certainly not to give sermons on political correctness, but to report, question and expose. Teachers, footballers, television actors and film stars also have voices that will be heard.

And then there’s you and me. For nowadays we are all neighbours of people susceptible to such extreme views – if not physical neighbours, then certainly virtual ones. We shouldn’t just leave it to the platforms, the politicians and the clerics. Every time we hear such views expressed, whether in the pub or the cafe, at the football ground or on Facebook, we need to speak up.

It doesn’t have to be angry polemic. It can also be ridicule. Humour is a great antidote to fanaticism. In that spirit, I would like to propose a new prize for bad journalism. It should be named after that so-called journalist from TVP Info.

• Timothy Garton Ash is a Guardian columnist