The massive outpouring of solidarity against the far right on 7 August showed the huge scale of opposition to the recent wave of racist far-right riots. But we can’t stop there – this must be followed up with further working-class action to decisively push them back.
We support this call from trade unionists, including members and supporters of Socialist Alternative for a trade-union initiated national demonstration against racism, islamophobia and division. This could play a crucial role as a next step toward marginalising and stamping out the current wave of far-right organising and the workers movement has a key leading role to play
We need to build a fighting movement against the far right, involving mass demonstrations, rapid response networks to defend local communities involving community members, groups and campaigners, local unions and trades councils, and ultimately a left party with a socialist programme that can politically challenge the racist scapegoating propagated by figures like Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage, and echoed by Labour and the ruling-class media establishment which tries to blame migrants for the endless crisis bred by the capitalist system.
Open letter: For a trade union-led national demonstration against Islamophobia, racism and division
We the undersigned note with alarm the rising trend of riots and violent racist disorder across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. These events have been encouraged and enabled by the organised far-right, but also the demonisation of asylum seekers pushed by the leadership of Reform UK, whose divisive and incendiary language has been increasingly mimicked by the Tory Party. Unfortunately some of this language has also been echoed by the leaders of the Labour Party, who sought to pose as taking a ‘tough’ stance on immigration and asylum, yet has dismally failed to take a stand against child poverty by not scrapping the two child benefit cap. This has resulted in the scapegoating of Black and Asian communities, especially the Muslim community.
We also recognise that some of the young people caught up in these riots feel totally alienated from the economic and political system and have been seduced by the propaganda of the far-right and social media commentators such as ‘Tommy Robinson’ and Andrew Tate. Challenging the influence of poisonous racist and divisive ideas requires a movement which offers a real answer to all the acute problems of unemployment, poverty, poor housing and welfare cuts.
Providing such an answer is the responsibility of the labour movement, which represents the working-class majority in this country. We call on the trade union movement to make its voice heard in standing up against the racist thugs and in solidarity with our minority communities. Among other positive steps by unions and activists, we applaud the initiative of the RMT and CWU in encouraging its members to approach all local mosques and asylum hostels offering practical support and solidarity.
Our movement also has to respond quickly and forcefully by calling a trade union-led national demonstration against racism and fascism which can effectively mobilise the united force of our movement. Such a demonstration, if built for, will rally hundreds of thousands of working class people, showing the real balance of forces in society, against the racist poison of the far right.
We call on all national trade union bodies to urgently come together to name the day for such a demonstration and begin immediate preparations for a mass mobilisation. The anti-war, climate, anti-racist, feminist and LGBTQ+ movements should all be invited to help organise and build for an historic show of strength. At the same time, we must also encourage all local and regional trade union bodies to organise worker solidarity and self-defence for those communities which are coming under attack. We cannot solely rely on the police to defend working class communities.
Historically our movement has played a crucial role in bringing working people together standing under the banner of ‘unity is strength’. The events of this summer place that responsibility on our shoulders once again. An injury to one is an injury to all!
