Build working class unity to defeat the far right
Trade unions must lead the struggle against racism
Glasgow has recently seen a rise in far-right violence. On June 9th, masked thugs racially attacked bystanders and workers, on a rampage through the city centre.
This was after a racist pogrom on migrants and asylum seekers in Belfast, including families being burned out of their homes. This followed a knife attack in which the named suspect is a refugee. Trade unionists and anti-racists mobilised across Northern Ireland in their thousands to oppose and check this dangerous descent into racist violence.
On 25th July, far-right activists again violently attacked shoppers and delivery workers in Glasgow city centre and parts of the southside. This was after an “anti-illegal immigration rally” of hundreds called by the “Unite the Clans” and featuring neo-fascist organisations like Patriotic Alternative. They were reacting to being outnumbered by a anti racist counter protest of thousands.
This summer, a series of mobilisations have been called by “Unite the Clans” and other far right social media influencers in some working-class housing schemes, often under the slogan “enough is enough”.
These protests have attempted to mix anti-migrant rhetoric with the palpable anger that exists at the social crisis in working-class areas, particularly related to the shortage of quality housing. The organisers have also whipped up fury against the authorities over the housing of alleged and convicted sex offenders and reported rapes and sexual assaults in these communities.
Need for working-class unity
It is correct that calls for “unity” against racist violence are being made by anti-racist activists and trade unionists. But what kind of unity is needed? What are the most effective methods of countering the violence, misinformation and divisive impact on the working class posed by the far-right?
Socialist Party Scotland believes the power of the working class – most importantly through the trade unions – must be mobilised to fight racism and the social conditions in which it breeds.
This means workers acting and organising independently from forces of the state, like Police Scotland, and also from the political forces who have implemented austerity and cuts to public services.
The organised working class is the only force capable of drawing behind it all who have a real interest in ending racism and the profit system, capitalism, that causes it.
Socialist Party Scotland has played an important role in anti-far right mobilisations in Dundee, Falkirk, Glasgow and other areas over the last year.
The Glasgow Unity press conference
On 5th August, Aamer Anwar, a prominent campaigner and lawyer, chaired a “Unity press conference” in response to the violence of the far right. This initiative was supported by the Scottish Trade Union Congress (STUC), faith groups and third sector organisations, including migrant and refugee rights groups and Rape Crisis, as well as Stand Up to Racism and its campaign, Women against the Far Right.
Also speaking were representatives from Scottish Labour, the Scottish Greens and the Scottish Liberal Democrats. The party in government in Scotland and who runs Glasgow City Council, the Scottish National Party (SNP), were invited but did not attend
Aamer Anwar began the press conference explaining that the event was “a united front to call out the far-right”, but also to “support Police Scotland in acting more robustly” against them.
Roz Foyer from the STUC also called for “all parts of our state to come down hard” on those “who are trying to cause disunity in our society”.
They both made eloquent points about the real terror in communities inflicted by far-right activists.
Aamer Anwar also correctly criticised the council for its cuts policies, which have undermined the safety of women in the city, where there has been a large increase in sexual attacks. We agree with his calls for public investment in street lighting and free night-time transport.
While we agree that thugs who inflict violent attacks must be brought to justice, there are serious dangers in solely calling for the state to use its powers to prosecute or ban the far right.
Like all capitalist state forces, the police, in the last analysis, exist to defend the capitalist system, which is the root cause of oppression and division. This is particularly the case when the working class seek to challenge the rule of big business. For example, the Timex strike in 1993 and the miners’ strike of 1984/85 saw the police used as a battering ram against the workers’ movement.
The Chief Constable of Police Scotland even admitted in 2023 that it was institutionally racist.
The Rape Crisis speaker at the press conference vividly highlighted how difficult it is for women and girls to come forward after rape or sexual assault to the police, showing the role they play in society.
Aamer Anwar himself was brutally attacked as a young socialist activist by the police and has been involved in many cases defending people from police violence, including the killing of Sheku Bayou.
The powers he demanded be used by the police, including “kettling” under the Public Order Act and surveillance against the far right, can and are also used against socialists and trade unionists.
All activists should pay attention to the Spy Cops scandal, which saw state infiltration of anti-racist and socialist organisations, including Youth Against Racism in Europe in the 1990s.
When trade union leaders describe the state as “our state”, they are making a serious mistake. In fact, it is ultimately a machine of oppression used by the capitalist class to maintain its power over society and oppress the working class. The workers’ movement can only rely on its own power, it’s own class organisations and it’s own political cohesion.
Trade Union leaders
Roz Foyer was correct to point out that organised labour “is the biggest civic force in Scotland”.
She was also correct in pointing out the role of “well-funded misinformation” in whipping up anger over “real social issues” related to austerity.
Yet isn’t the most effective antidote to division and the real issue of rising misogyny, which she also rightly highlighted, the potential unifying factor of the workers’ movement?
This means working-class people, through their trade unions, discussing and then acting collectively in mass mobilisations, rather than appealing to the police and courts, who themselves have a long track record of restricting the rights of the labour movement.
Trade Unions are not like any other organisations; they are mass membership bodies of the working class with members in every community in Scotland. The STUC’s own figures show that in 2023-24 they won £4.4 billion in wages and pension settlements from the bosses, governments and councils for their hundreds of thousands of members in Scotland.
They are working-class people’s most fundamental weapon against poverty and austerity – and are potentially the most powerful weapon against racism.
Jobs, homes and services for all, not racism
The trade unions should, as their main anti racist campaigning priority, urgently launch a united working-class alternative. This means fighting against the divisive scourge of racism and for decent jobs, high-quality council housing, and major public investment in services for all, including specialist support and justice for survivors of rape and sexual violence.
There is an immediate need to launch such a campaign in Glasgow and nationally. Workers are being attacked at work, whether they are migrants in the delivery gig economy or housing association workers who have had to leave their offices as protests have targeted their workplaces.
Meetings of reps and shop stewards should come together urgently to plan action and concretely seek to link workplaces with the housing schemes in campaigning against the divisive threat of racism and the far Right, and for the jobs, homes and services our communities need.
Trade unions must organise unionisation drives and fight for a union rate for the job in all sectors so the bosses cannot divide us.
The fight against racism and the far right now cannot be divorced from the need for the STUC/TUC, to call a mass demonstration against austerity this autumn. As well as supporting striking workers and those who are balloting to strike, by looking to coordinate action nationally.
Trade unions, the organised working class, unlike the police, can be democratically trusted to organise and defend anti-racist activists at demonstrations from not just the far right but also the forces of the state. Democratic and organised stewarding by trade unions should be the norm for anti -far right mobilisations.
System failing working class people
We agree with RMT Scottish Secretary Gordon Martin, who said at the press conference that the far-right’s rise is linked to a “political and economic system that is failing working-class people”.
The lack of housing, endless NHS waiting lists, cuts to council services and Women’s Aid/Rape Crisis, rises in food bank usage, drug deaths, and low pay, which blight working-class communities are fuel to the far-right.
Who is to blame for these miseries? Those in government, nationally and locally – that’s not just Tories, but the SNP, Labour and the Lib Dems – who were wrongly invited to the press conference, as well as the Scottish Greens.
Holly Bruce, Scottish Green MSP, did depart from the unity of the other cuts politicians who just called for more police action saying: “we need more social housing and rent controls” and rightly raised the right for asylum seekers to work.
While this is laudable in words, the record of her party in government and in Glasgow City Council, where she was a councillor from 2022, has been to vote for cuts budgets, exacerbating decline and shortages in services.
Reform was rightly excluded from the event. But the austerity policies of the politicians who were invited allow Reform’s claim that their “unity” represents an “elite political class, out of touch with working-class communities” to gain an echo.
This is why slogans like “don’t vote Reform”, put forward by campaigns like Stand up to Racism, are utterly inadequate. This campaign fails to deal with the need to build a political alternative to fight for the working class and even platforms the politicians who inflict attacks on the working class.
It also vaguely refers to mobilising the “anti-racist majority”, giving the illusion that a kind of “progressive” unity exists between parties like Labour (who as well as implementing cuts, actually engage in anti-migrant rhetoric and policies) and workers and youth against the likes of Reform.
We agree the anti-racist movement needs to be as large as possible, but the most powerful way of achieving this is through working-class methods, with trade unions taking the lead. It’s even possible to win over some of those initially taken in by far-right ideas through a class appeal
Socialist Party Scotland are campaigning for a coordinated socialist electoral challenge in the 2027 council elections on socialist, anti -cuts, anti-racist policies, including no cuts and needs budgets to defend and expand public services. This can be step towards the building of a mass workers’ party based on the trade unions.
Anti-racist unity needs to be linked to the existing campaign of the Glasgow council trade unions for no-cuts budgets, demanding councillors utilise all financial mechanisms to hold off cuts and then launch a mass campaign mobilising the working class to demand the funding that is needed from government.
Housing crisis
Glasgow has a massive shortage of social housing to meet escalating need, including for those seeking asylum.
When Housing Associations and private landlords raise rents and fail to provide what is needed, it inflames tensions. This was seen in Possil recently, where the far right whipped up anger over housing allocation.
Working class unity can be built through raising the demand for the council to build housing, renovate empty properties and compulsory purchase those that are empty.
The stock transfer of decades ago must be reversed, with large housing associations in Glasgow being brought back under democratic public ownership. There should also be organisation of tenants and housing workers with powers and democratic oversight over rent control, building programmes and allocation.
The fight against racism must be linked to working-class struggle for socialist change.
Socialism means the expropriation of the billionaires, including those who utilise their abundant wealth and media access to promote reactionary ideas and far-right poison.
By placing the major parts of the economy and society’s resources under the democratic control and management of the working class internationally, the needs of the majority can be fully met.
