The UTK demo and the tiny counterprotest were setbacks for the workers’ movement and demonstrated the strength of a political force violently opposed to the principles of working-class solidarity and equality. 

That Reform is doing well in the polls and is likely to make further gains in the May 2026 elections is a further indication of the depth of the problems.

In the face of the far right, a new anti fascist coalition has been launched called the Together Alliance. It is a coalition of many campaign groups and most trade unions, backed by some celebrities. It has called a mass protest in London on 28 March, which we encourage everyone to attend.

A mass anti-racist mobilisation in London in March – one that rivals or dwarfs the Unite the Right demonstration – would be a huge boost for progressive forces and help reset the narrative about the direction of political travel. This is an opportunity to really build in workplaces, trade unions and communities against the growth of the far-right – and the threat of what will happen in May’s election.

Why reactionaries are growing

The erosion of post-war social democracy, the defeat of the vanguard of the trade union movement in the 1980s, the deliberate deindustrialisation of areas where these were strongest, and the austerity agenda of the political class have created the basis for the growth of the far-right.

While Labour in government has been forced to make concessions to reduce attacks on living standards, including eventually reintroducing the winter fuel allowance and scrapping the two-child cap, it has done so reluctantly. And it was a Labour government that launched attacks on disabled people – in work as well as out – over benefits. While again a partial retreat was imposed, this strand will almost certainly return in the months ahead.

We live in a society that is more divided, less hopeful for the future, and riddled with reactionary sentiment. 

The social and equality gains of the post war era have now unravelled, with trans people as the thin end of the wedge, as well as refugees and ‘illegal immigrants’ under direct attack daily from the press and politicians from the far-right. Immigration is the primary question driving support for the reactionaries, a spectrum from opposition to illegal immigration to demands for remigration and an all-white Britain. 

The development of the ‘protect our (white) women and girls’ and the Pink Ladies as a key theme of the summer hotel protests shows the extent to which the misogyny of the MAGA movement is central to the far-right in Britain. 

The response of the Labour government, which is to move further to the right both in terms of policy and ideology, is deeply problematic even in electoral terms – why vote for the imitator rather than the original? And as Tony Benn once said, “The way a government treats refugees is very instructive because it shows how they would treat the rest of us if they could get away with it.”

The racism that is growing, not just in Britain but internationally, is driven by complex factors. They are increasingly congealing around a number of ideas:

• The clash of civilisation worldview, that Islam is inherently or uniquely barbaric, and that multicultural integration is impossible
•  Scarcity politics, that money spent on refugees is not spent on what the ‘natives’ need.
• A growing return of race science and eugenicist theories, such as the so-called Dark Enlightenment, and the increasing popularity of outright Nazis like Nick Fuertes, who are openly pro-Hitler.

Their movement in Britain is a coalition of people largely mobilised around immigration, ranging from some who don’t mind Black people but are opposed to ‘illegal immigration’ to others who are outright white supremacists and back mass deportations. The fascists’ goal is to start from wedge issues, which are common talking points in the right-wing press, to generalise out towards a more consistently violent supremacist ideology. What is clear is that their hatred of the left as ‘traitors’ who have helped facilitate mass migration (as they see it) justifies their violence against our movement.

The left’s response

Socialists and those with progressive politics are on the backfoot but there are some serious social forces on our side. The mobilisations against the hotel attacks in the summer in many areas show the strength of local organising and the popularity of solidarity.

The emergence of Your Party and the growth of the Green Party England and Wales (GPEW) show that there are still hundreds of thousands of people, particularly young people and women, who want to get organised and build a fairer society.

The 100,000-plus who came out for Trans Pride in London in 2025, as well as the sizeable protests in other cities, show the widespread sentiment to resist the government’s attacks, as does the strength of the Palestine solidarity movement, which can draw numbers that have dwarfed the Robinson protests. But we cannot be complacent.

Problems of the anti-fascist movement

Stand Up to Racism (SUTR) was launched in 2014 by Unite Against Fascism, a former organisation that was largely run by the SWP and received nominal support from trade union and left political leaders. Several related weaknesses stand out from then to now.

First, its focus, particularly in terms of major mobilisations, has often been on racism coming from the far-right and not from the state itself. There are local instances where, e.g., deaths in custody have been the basis for action, but most have focused on counter-mobilising against various far-right groups – including in situations where there has been little or no local preparation, or action to limit the likelihood of injury or arrest.

This means the organisation is often not seen as relevant – or even as a hindrance – by those on the ground. Second SUTR has no real democracy; for example, its AGM in 2025 did not take resolutions from affiliated organisations, and there are no minutes of its leadership, etc. 

There remains a bad taste, particularly in Scotland, but about the fact that SUTR Scotland allowed a Zionist group to participate in a march there carrying Israeli flags years ago, unbelievably conflating the fight against antisemitism with support for Israel. Finally, SUTR’s tactics on the street seesaw – sometimes more confrontational with the fascists than the balance of forces safely allowed, while at other times making agreements with the police behind the backs of local groups, planning a different approach.

All of this shows that, at the national level, SUTR, in its current incarnation, may have largely run out of steam and is still seen as mainly a front for the SWP. The call for a new anti-racist umbrella – The Together Alliance is intended to be a shot in the arm in the fight against the fascists.

Zack Polanski from the Greens is publicly backing the protest on 28 March. We need Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn to also issue a call for a mass mobilisation of YP members and the wider left to build and attend the protest. Anti fascism and socially progressive views are still in the majority across Britain among the working class, despite a massive propaganda machine to spread reactionary ideas. We need to show that the far right can be isolated and beaten, and this march is part – but not the conclusion- to that struggle.

We need class politics

AntiCapitalist Resistance is, however, critical of the political basis of the Together Alliance. It is pitched as a celebrity-led initiative that unites political forces and trade unions, but on the most painfully liberal terms. Together calls for us to “unite our communities in love, hope and unity” – fine ideals, but they don’t address the main issues driving support for the far-right. 

The far-right’s argument against the left is that they are all middle-class liberals who hang out with rich actors or musicians and are out of touch with ‘ordinary [white] working-class concerns’. Farage and the far-right have done a lot of work, as has the hard right of the Tory Party, to make the case that only they represent genuine white working-class interests, and to defend immigration is a ‘luxury elite’ position held only by better-off people in North London. Farage has even been trying to cosy up to trade union members recently. Together does nothing to challenge that narrative.

It is important to bring trade unions and the TUC together into a common anti-racist cause. However, there is the problem that unions outsource their ‘activism’ to these types of campaigns and do not do the real work of challenging racism in the parts of the country where only the trade unions still have much influence amongst the working-class communities there.

They sign up to anti racist campaigns so that union bureaucrats look good at the annual conference, but do very little to mobilise their members around these issues, either in terms of mobilising for events like 28 March or challenging racist arguments in their workplaces. We need to find ways to challenge this approach in trade unions where we are active, as well as to build alliances between trade union branches and local antiracist groups in different areas.

There has been some criticism from trans groups that some of the key figureheads of the protest are also prominent transphobes, for instance, Mark Serwotka and Kevin Courtney. We appreciate these concerns, and opposing anti-trans ideas is something that is at the core of our work. We believe we are better placed to oppose transphobia by having a presence in this formation to show that the fight against racism needs to be consistent with a fight against all oppression. After all, the far-right attacks trans people as well as refugees and Black people. Transphobia exists within the workers’ movement, so their ideas need to be challenged. That is why boycotting the Together Alliance would be a mistake in our view.

 A mass, class-based anti-racist movement does not currently exist in Britain. We need to continue discussing and exploring opportunities to create or support the building of the same as part of our goals for this march. 

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