I must admit I wouldn’t have used the term “spectre” in my headline, but then, I don’t determine the headline, the Editor does. This is my weekly column printed in the daily Plymouth Herald (13.8.24) following-on from the week of racist violence and the superb anti-racist demonstrations across Britain. for the record, the misogynist extremist Andrew Tate, and Yaxley-Lennon were amongst many who published lies about the ghastly killings in Southport of three young children at a day care centre. They quickly blamed Muslims despite the accused being born in Wales of Rwandan parents, and called their followers onto the streets. The point here is that “Tommy Robinson, Farage and their ilk have organisation. They can call people out. They cynically used the killing of children to promote their political ideology, having previously whipped-up fever against paedophiles and Asian gangs grooming white girls. it is orchestrated, and is a long-term project. So we’re organising, but not simply against racism. Fascism is insurgent across Europe and the USA. It is no spectre. It is very real. and growing fast.

This is a call for your readiness to come onto the streets to prevent fascism. It comes at the end of an historic week that will last long in the memory. The anti-racist demonstrations in Plymouth were followed by larger and wider rallies from local people nationally, gathered together to Stand Up To Racism.

Those racists throwing missiles were in the main, older men, confirmed in their political dogma and flying the Union Jack to represent white male supremacy. Their fascism must be challenged.

Fascist cadre from elsewhere came to Plymouth to whip-up hate and violence. Leaders of the far-Right in Britain had travelled to Plymouth, including the head of the UKIP party, Nick Tenconi, a self-publicised racist and misogynist, who travelled from London and spoke via megaphone of the immediate threat from communists and Islamists – an obvious reference to the trade union banners and Palestinian flags across the road.

This was not mindless violence but an orchestrated fascist incursion. Most importantly, they are well-resourced and not about to go away. 

The younger people screaming hate had been groomed, over years, by racists in their communities and racism across social media, to hate those even poorer and more destitute than themselves.

Beneath their anger was organised political challenge, firing the first salvo against the new Labour government. It is easy to remember the rise of the fascist National Front in the 1970’s, during a Labour Government that enforced welfare cuts and wage-restraint deeper than anything Margaret Thatcher cuts were demanding by the International Monetary Fund and represented the start of the era of neo-liberalism, now in a state of collapse.

Today, the vast majority of Muslims in Britain are part of the working class poor. The refugees arriving in boats are not responsible for the price hikes and record profits, or the crisis in housing, health and education. Britain has been plundered by the most powerful and dominant corporations for record profits, who are now blaming the most powerless and destitute in society, setting us against each other in order to protect their riches. 

And the failure of any collective fightback to force distribution of wealth back, away from the super-rich and into wages and social welfare, has opened the doors to the politics of hatred and scapegoating Almost unrecognised, the super-rich have ensured their continued plunder of the public purse by inundating all media with racist tropes. 

Just five individuals of the ruling elite own eighty-percent of our news media, and have, for years, systematically ramped-up race hatred and fear with endless front-pages condemning refugees and asylum seekers for every social problem. 

The multi-millionaires like stock-exchange trader Nigel Farage and Irish passport-holder Stephen Laxley-Lennon (“Tommy Robinson” amongst his many aliases) whip-up racism and “English Nationalism” (!) for personal wealth and power on the backs of the discontent of the “squeezed middle” as well as the poor. 

The multi-billionaire, Elon Musk, purposefully and provocatively speaks of a civil war in Britain. It is impossible to become a multi-billionaire without exploiting huge masses of ordinary working class people. No wonder he wants the blame for our poverty focussed elsewhere.

The far-Right and open fascist parties have grown in the last few years across Europe and the USA. They feed on the hopelessness and despair caused by The Age of Austerity begun in 2008 with the crash of banks, the super-rich bailed out by our taxes resulting in the impoverishment of millions of working class people. 

We are living a period of repeat of the 1930’s, in slow motion but accelerating. Sections of the Capitalist ruling class are now so worried by our righteous anger and discontent that they are turning to fascism – a totalitarian version of Capitalism – to protect their riches. They echo the fascist broadcasts of the 1930’s, pretending to be anti-Establishment and all the time seeking to control the existing system of vast inequality, offering to smash all opposition in return for personal wealth and power.

Hitler gained power in Germany with the backing of sections of the Ruling Class (including in Britain) but managed the working class through the use of gangs of street thugs, scapegoating individuals and groups and systematically maiming and killing all opposition. Trade unions were his first target, even before the gypsies and Jews that would become his vehicle for absolute power. 

Hitler stated that his opponents should have fought and killed his gangs of killers on the streets, while we could still do so. The trade union tradition , in search of workers democracy, was always for swamping the streets with such a mass of anti-fascists as to remove their oxygen. It should have been done then, it must be done now.

The Capitalists use the poverty that they have caused and profited from in order to focus the blame away from them. Theirs’ is the Great Lie of modern times. The wholesale corruption of politicians tied to protecting financiers and corporations by stealing our taxes and public services has demolished most people’s faith in Government. 

Fascism can only be stopped by our numbers – our opposition on the streets and in the workplaces. We need millions of working class people here to oppose racism and directly expose the fascists seeking the total destruction of working class organisation and workers’ rights. 

We must mobilise for the largest national demonstration against fascism. Trade Unions – Ready!