Unions must call a national demonstration!
Matt Hirst, Socialist Alternative (ISA in England, Wales & Scotland)
(This article was first published on 8 August 2024)
Last night, after planned far-right riots had been circulating on social media, tens of thousands of anti-racists came out to oppose them. The mood was determined but positive, with a clear stance taken by all that workers and youth must stand together to oppose the far-right on the street and in our communities. In Liverpool, London and elsewhere, the far-right racists didn’t even dare to show their faces. Where they did, the small number who came out were outnumbered by workers and youth who rejected their rhetoric of hate and racism.
This was a tremendous display of instinctive solidarity and anti-racism from working class people. It highlighted that the real balance of forces in our society today is not in the far-right’s favour.
But while last night was extremely positive, this is only the first step. We must harness and build on the energy of last night’s counter protests. A mass, anti-racist movement, linked to the fight for a political alternative that offers an end to cost of living and housing crises, can decisively undermine the far-right and drive them from the streets. Trade unions should now call and mobilise an enormous national demo, to show the huge strength of opposition to the far-right.
Labour claim a ‘victory for the police’
Shockingly, despite what was seen in the streets, on social media and the news, Diana Johnson, Policing Minister, has claimed that it was the promise of “swift justice” that deterred the far-right last night. This absurd claim will ring hollow for anyone who took part in the counter protests, and again shows that Labour is afraid of the potential for working class movements to develop. This was seen starkly in Walthamstow (London) where the local Labour MP Stella Creasy actively pursued a campaign of encouraging people NOT to attend the counter-protest and “let the police handle it” in the 24 hours before the demo.
The far-right have made much of the role of the police in their destructive riots, claiming that they are the victims of ‘two-tier policing’. The reality is that there is two-tier policing – but it’s being used against workers and young people on the left. While the far-right have been handled with kid gloves, counter protests, workers movements, Palestinian solidarity supporters and climate activists are being horribly criminalised.
We have seen climate protesters sentenced to five years in prison for essentially organising a Zoom meeting, Palestine solidarity protesters charged under Section 45 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 for preventing weapons being shipped to Israel, and everyone will remember the harrowing scenes of how the Met police handled the Sarah Everard vigils in 2021. The action against the far-right burning and looting towns and cities across the UK has seen a relatively modest number of arrests and charges brought so far, especially compared with events like the 2011 riots, which followed the killing of a black teenager by police. The far-right’s claims are hollow and need to be exposed.
While millions of working class people look to the police for protection, as Marxists we understand that the police is ultimately an arm of the state, one that has the primary purpose of protecting the rule of the capitalists. The new police units introduced by Starmer, will not stop the far-right, and could in the future be used against workers, students, climate campaigners and all those looking to fight back against capitalist destruction. What will stop the far-right in its tracks will be a sustained mass movement of workers, young and oppressed people opposed to their vile racism.
Trade unions must take up the mantle
We need to confront the far-right directly and push them back through mass action. We must expose their abhorrent lies. The housing crisis, stagnant wages, and the deterioration of public services were not caused by Muslims or migrants, but by a system that prioritises profit above all else – capitalism.
We urgently need a massive national demonstration against the far-right. Such a protest would bring hundreds of thousands onto the streets, building on the defiance of local communities and showing just how outnumbered the racists are by organised working class people. The trade union movement must take the lead, both locally and nationally, using the traditions of the Battle of Cable Street and Brick Lane – where hundreds of thousands of multi-racial workers and young people faced down the racists and fascists as the basis to drive down the far-right movement.
Unions must also be mobilising and organising in every community to defend communities and build up a united struggle for jobs, homes and services for all. This means fighting for good quality, unionised jobs, mass council house building and for living wages. They must also actively fight for the right of asylum seekers to settle, work and have decent housing. This can show who our real enemies are – the bosses and profiteers, not refugees and migrants.
But, to completely eradicate the breeding ground for the far-right’s poisonous ideas, we must take on the system of capitalism itself. Capitalism cannot be reformed to remove inequality and oppression. We need a fundamental change in the way in which society is run – we need socialism, where wealth and resources are publicly owned and democratically planned collectively in the interests of the majority. Those active in the anti-racist movement should also get organised in Socialist Alternative. Together we can build a revolutionary party which can overthrow capitalism – a system built on the blood of the working class, poor and oppressed – and replace it with genuine freedom, equality and cooperation.
