ON SATURDAY the far right, summoned by the fascist thug calling himself “Tommy Robinson,” will march through central London. It is important they are outnumbered.
People should take care when marching against violent racists: heed Stand Up to Racism’s advice on travel to and from the demo, avoid places the far right are known to be gathering and respect the authority of the demonstration’s organisers and stewards.
But do stand up and be counted if you can.
The far right want to build on August’s riots, when mobs were whipped up to attack Muslims and refugees. For days fear stalked communities as fascists smashed up high streets, terrorised neighbourhoods and tried to burn down hotels with refugee families inside.
But Britain rejected them. The counter-mobilisations were immediate and huge. Locals poured onto the streets to repair broken walls and clear away the wreckage. Gigantic anti-racist demos assembled to show the fascists would not pass.
It showed the strength and reach of organised anti-racism. Experienced activists from groups like Stand Up to Racism were at the heart of the mobilising effort.
The demos were not encouraged by politicians or the police — Keir Starmer warned Labour MPs and councillors not to take a stand — but they changed the narrative of the summer.
So clearly did they speak for the majority of us that they won praise in unlikely quarters — Metropolitan Police chief Sir Mark Rowley acknowledging that the anti-fascist rallies helped prevent disorder on the streets, and hard-right newspapers like the Daily Mail saluting the anti-racist efforts.
So the racists are not representative, but we cannot underestimate the importance of facing them down on that account.
Theirs is not a small constituency either, as shown by the speed with which August’s pogroms spread or indeed by the very significant vote for Nigel Farage’s far-right Reform UK party in July’s election.
The riots did not take place in a vacuum, nor were they set in motion by sinister puppetmasters overseas, whether your ideological preference is to blame Russia or Israel.
Their most prominent slogan, Stop the Boats, came directly from our last prime minister Rishi Sunak. The fixation on attacking refugees reflects years of anti-immigrant showboating from a Tory Party keen to distract attention from their own responsibility for housing shortages and overwhelmed public services.
The Islamophobic character of the rioting grew out of anti-Muslim propaganda that has been a staple of all governments since Tony Blair’s, and more particularly the disgusting slander of the mass movement for peace in Palestine as “hate marches.” Both the Tory and Labour leaderships colluded in this smear campaign.
Though we won in August — the violence petered out and the fascists were made to look an embittered, and at times ridiculous, fringe group — the fundamentals haven’t changed.
Reform has five MPs. It came second in scores of Labour seats, and Labour, elected anyway on the smallest share of the vote of any majority government since universal suffrage, has only made itself more unpopular since through the freebies scandal and its cruel attacks on pensioners and children in poverty.
The Tories, whose vote combined with Reform’s was bigger than Labour’s in July, have whittled their leadership options down to two hard-right agitators whose politics is not easy to distinguish from Farage’s. Racism and Islamophobia are very much part of the British political mainstream now.
To defeat fascism we must tackle the anxieties it preys on — forcing Labour to take real action to address low pay, job insecurity and crumbling public services will be essential, and these questions will be to the fore when we hear what’s in next week’s Budget.
But first and foremost we must stand up to the fascists themselves, make it abundantly clear that they do not speak for this country and are not welcome on our streets.
