On 28 March, 500,000 people marched through London in the biggest anti-racist demonstration in British history.
The march dwarfed the far right march organised by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka ‘Tommy Robinson’) last September, in a historic show of mass opposition to the politics of the far right.
Scandalously, the police have sought to dramatically downplay the turnout at the demonstration – in what can only be described as an attempt to puff up the far right and undermine anti-racist opposition. Anyone who attended the protest could plainly see that this was orders of magnitude bigger than the police estimate. Many activists have remarked that this felt like the biggest demonstration they have ever attended – of a similar scale to the largest Palestine marches, and going back further, the massive TUC-led anti-cuts protests of the 2010s or even the anti-Iraq war movement.
The demonstration has set a powerful example. But now we need a strategy to turn this massive momentum into a movement to take on Reform, or the racist policies of the current Labour government. We are going to need more than calls for ‘hope’ and ‘love’.
It is for this reason that in the past few months, Socialist Alternative has been pushing hard for a Your Party bloc on that demo with a distinct socialist profile to challenge the capitalist system driving the far right today. This was a big success, with hundreds of YP supporters, including Socialist Alternative, bringing banners, placards and with chants such as “unemployment and inflation are not caused by immigration”, “Deportations, HELL NO, This whole system’s go to go!” and bold calls for socialism. It shows what is possible – even after the crises gripping the party over the past year – if the thousands of activists involved in YP branches can build an organisation based in struggle.
Smash Racism & Fascism With Working Class Struggle!
The far right is on the rise in Britain and around the world. These fake ‘anti-establishment’ forces look to scapegoat refugees, immigrants, trans people and left-wing activists for the crises we face today.
But we know these parties have nothing to offer working-class people. Farage has threatened attacks on trade unions rights, public services, and wants to see a British ICE ramping up deportation raids against our neighbours, classmates and colleagues. In doing so, they have emboldened even more extreme far right and fascist forces, who seek to intimidate migrant communities on our streets.
Labour Are the Best Builders of Reform
Starmer and Labour are just as guilty for the growth of the racist right! They peddle the same racist policies in order to desperately cling on to power. It is Labour as much as the Tories and Reform who have normalised the racist rhetoric that we see coming from all corners. Meanwhile, they oversee the ongoing poverty, austerity and social crisis that drives people further toward the far right. That’s why fighting the far right means building a left alternative to the political establishment.
Your Party’s bloc can be a launchpad for further organising across Britain, with YP branches on the front lines of the struggle against the far right. This means showing up everywhere they do, and bringing our politics with us. The far right blames small boats – we blame the billionaires!
We need a political force that can mobilise to fight for rent control, not racism. We need to shut down the war machine which drives new refugee crises around the world. We need to end austerity and the cost of living crisis. With well-organised local branches, rooted in struggle, we can begin to build that force. And with bold socialist policies, we can fight for an alternative to the system that is driving the turn toward racist policies, authoritarianism and war.
Socialist Alternative – revolutionary socialists in Your Party – are active around the country, fighting for exactly this. We stand for a socialist programme to nationalise the top corporations and banks under democratic control, for an economy planned for need rather than private profit. We’re part of International Socialist Alternative, fighting for socialist change around the world.
- For rent control, not racism
- Build working-class and community resistance against deportations
- For public sector unions to organise strikes and protests against all cuts and anti-worker attacks by Reform-led councils
- Your Party branches must show up against the far right, wherever they organise!
- Tax the rich to invest in health, education and housing, not war and repression. Nationalise the banks to stop the tax-dodgers!
- For international socialism, a world free from imperialism and war!
