Workers and unions have vital role to play in standing up to far right

Last week, fascist and racist ringleaders boastfully declared plans for 100 different “protests” outside immigration centres, mosques, hotels housing asylum seekers and other targets for their hate-filled violence. None materialised, in the face of eruptions of unity against them.

Contrary to most media reports, it wasn’t police clampdowns or heavy prison sentences that primarily deterred the racist rioters, but the large-scale, united opposition on the streets from people of all colours and creeds.

But the far-right forces who cynically incited the mayhem after the heartbreaking murder of innocent children in Southport haven’t suddenly disappeared.

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And, more fundamentally, the conditions which they seek to exploit remain and, if anything, are likely to grow, as Starmer’s Labour government disappoints more and more people in the months ahead.

The full, united power of the organised trade union movement and working-class communities needs to be mobilised against the fascist and far-right thugs who are making migrants, asylum seekers, and people of colour fear for their lives.

We must unite against their assaults on black and brown people; against their divisive, racist lies; and against the capitalist system which nurtures racism as a weapon to divide and conquer the working-class people it seeks to exploit.

Thugs in suits, like millionaire former banker Nigel Farage and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – who hides behind the name “Tommy Robinson” – have used social media and mainstream media to incite violence, from safe distances; in the latter’s case, from his £400-a-night luxury hotel in Cyprus. They’ve thrown a torch on the tinderbox of despair, disillusionment and deprivation among some of the most deprived people in society.

Nigel Farage has fanned the flames of far-right anger in the UK

They and their cohort viciously and deliberately spread racist and Islamophobic lies.

Far-right “celebrities” such as Katie Hopkins (right, bottom) and Laurence Fox stooped down from the gutter to the sewers with their incendiary lies about the Southport stabbings suspect – who in fact was born in Cardiff and is the son of Christian parents. Not to be outdone, Farage (right, above) went on TV questioning the police account that the attack was “non-terrorist related”, saying:

“I just wonder whether the truth is being withheld from us.”

This cynical, self-promoting liar has since tried to distance himself from the racist violence his words helped unleash, after seeing the widespread backlash and unity rallies in most of the communities targeted by his attack dogs.

A hard core of fascist and far-right thugs, including football hooligans from the dregs of the English Defence League, openly chanted racist and Islamophobic vitriol while carrying out arson attacks in England.

In Belfast, a small gang of racist loyalist thugs took their orders from an equally small gang of racist ultra-nationalist thugs from Dublin – who had previously burnt out an asylum seekers’ centre in Coolock, north Dublin in July.

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In a grisly embrace of bigots across the sectarian divide, they unleashed terror on Muslim and black citizens of Belfast, with Nazi salutes from racists wrapped in both the Tricolour and Union Jack. To their credit, trade unionists and communities staged massive Belfast rallies against the racist bigots (15,000 attended on Saturday), uniting workers against their common enemies.

We cannot stand aside and allow fascist and racist violence against ethnic minorities in Scotland. Nor can we rely on the Labour government’s “law and order” measures to stem the growth of these vicious forces.

People such as Farage, Yaxley-Lennon and Musk – and those trying to burn people alive in hostels, homes, and shops – richly deserve to be jailed. But the trade union movement needs to mobilise its own independent power, its own collective discipline, with well-stewarded demonstrations and protection of those under attack – rather than risk the danger of future attacks on genuine workers’ protests under measures and methods being currently deployed by Starmer’s government.

Police action will not get rid of the rotten conditions and years of systematic racist propaganda conducted by the likes of Farage, the Tories and indeed the Labour leadership. “Mainstream” politicians – with all their bile about “stop the boats” and immigration – have normalised and nurtured the racism on display from far-right forces.

Celebrities such as Katie Hopkins have aided in the growth of the far right

Trade unionists and communities need to recognise the importance of independent action by the working class – of all nationalities and ethnic backgrounds – rather than rely on politicians, some of whom fuelled the fires of racism in the first place.

The numerous trade union-backed anti-racist rallies are vitally important. Unity is our strength in fighting for decent pay, quality jobs, public services fit for purpose and emergency action against the housing crisis. Migrants did not cause the banking crash of 2008, Billionaire bankers did. Asylum seekers did not impose

14 years of vicious austerity that widened the gap between rich and poor. The Tories did, and the new Labour government is hell-bent on continuing this political choice of imposing poverty.

Refugees desperately fleeing wars, famine, climate catastrophes, and oppression did not cut child benefits or slash pensioners’ winter fuel allowances. The Tories and Starmer’s Labour government in their continuation of Tory policies did.

Ethnic minorities did not create the housing crisis by selling off council houses, then failing to build any, giving private, rent-racketeering, slum landlords a field-day. Successive Tory and Labour governments did.

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Socialists, and particularly the 600,000-strong Scottish trade union movement, need to drain the swamp of despair and disillusionment which the fascists, Reform UK, and far-right generally feed on – by fighting for measures to transform the lives of all.

The planned September 7 rally against the far-right in Glasgow – which the SSP fully supports – should launch a determined, broad-based campaign for jobs for all; a £15 minimum wage; pensions matching the best in Europe; 100,000 new council houses with affordable rent; investment in health, education, transport; and public services to match the needs of all age groups.

Recent events haven’t fallen out of a clear blue sky. They are the bitter fruits of reliance – by Labour as well as Tory politicians – on the capitalist market to provide, the resulting mass poverty and inequality, and the brutal scapegoating of migrants, asylum seekers, refugees and ethnic minorities by every pro-capitalist party.

The Scottish Socialist Party has actively united with those resisting racism – as we step up the fight for a clean, green, socialist Scotland, with equal rights for all citizens.