There is an urgent need to build an anti-racist movement in Britain. The 28 March Together Alliance demonstration against the ‘far right’ not only made no contribution to doing this but actively undermined the kind of movement that is needed – one that uncompromisingly condemns and con-fronts the racism of the imperialist British state.
The Together Alliance, led by Stand Up to Racism – in reality the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) – headlined four Labour MPs, representatives of the very party that, within its first 18 months of government, has deported a record 58,500 migrants, ramping up both racist rhetoric and legislation. That reality was completely ignored by this lovefest of celebrities, trade unionists and political figures so hyped over many months by the British left: the demonstration in practice served as a cover-up for the actually existing racism of the Labour government.
The coalition of Stand Up to Racism and its allies on the left and in the trade union movement remain determined to protect the Labour Party at all costs, reducing the fight against racism to empty moralistic slogans and a lowest common denominator opposition to ‘fascism’. In its breathless coverage of the day’s event, Socialist Worker had not one word to say about the anti-immigrant policies pursued by the Labour government.
The rise of far-right forces in Britain is a direct consequence of the racist and divisive policies of the ruling class, of its concerted attack on the most oppressed sections of the working class. But the real terror on the streets of Britain is being carried out at the behest of the Labour government by border guards, police and immigration officers as they intensify raids on migrant com-munities. It is Labour that is corral-ling asylum seekers into barracks, prisons and detention centres and passing yet more racist immigration laws that split up families, force migrants into life-threatening journeys in small boats across dangerous seas, and intensify poverty and exploitation. Yet not a single one of the headlined speakers or Together Alliance orga-nisers made even a passing reference to any of this.
The tens of thousands of people who marched ‘against racism’ on 28 March are being deliberately diverted from the urgent task of confronting the British state. That is why the Revolutionary Communist Group intervened to challenge the presence of Labour MPs on the platform. Dozens of comrades spread across Whitehall in central London as Labour MP Dawn Butler, a founding member of Together Alliance, began to speak, drowning her out with chants of ‘Labour Party, racist party!’ and ‘Leave the Labour Party!’ Despite being aggressively insulted and physically assaulted by rabid middle-class Together Alliance supporters, who attempted to tear down our ‘No alliance with racist Labour’ banner, comrades refused to be provoked and stood their ground. We blocked off the platform from the crowd behind and ensured our message was heard. The Together Alliance platform also featured Labour MPs Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Richard Burgon and Apsana Begum.
Together Alliance is founded on the privileged fiction that racism originates with the far right. It does not: racism is a product of the imperialist state. It is the state which is deporting migrants and asylum seekers under the direction of the Labour government, not the far-right. It is Labour which operates the whole apparatus around migration control, not the far right. The SWP and Together Alliance in effect deny the foundations of racism in Britain and the imperialist character of the British state.
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! is clear: the far-right will always exist in some form, waiting in the wings as an adjunct of the ruling class until we destroy capitalism. It will have to be confronted on the streets. But that resistance can only emerge out of a class conscious campaign which emulates the anti-ICE movement in the US, a movement in which the involvement of the most oppressed sections of the working class, including migrant workers, will be key. Such a movement has to recognise that its primary target is the vicious, racist British state – whatever capitalist party is in power. That means that ultimately the fight against racism must be a fight for socialism.
New RCG pamphlet
Taking inspiration from the resistance on the streets of Minneapolis against ICE, the Revolutionary Communist Group has published our new pamphlet Fighting Racism: the state and the streets. This pamphlet explains how imperialism forms the material basis of racism in Britain. It shows that for the fight against racism to be effective, it must inevitably confront British imperialism and therefore the British state; it must oppose all immigration laws which inevitably are an instrument of racial oppression. Imperialism is an inherently racist system that cannot be reformed – only socialism can create the conditions to end racism and it must be fought for by a revolutionary working-class movement on the streets. This pamphlet is a weapon for the working class in its struggle against the racist British state.
Fighting racism: the state and the streets
This pamphlet explains that imperialism forms the material basis of racism in Britain and that racism is the form national oppression takes within Britain. It shows that for the fight against racism to be effective, it must inevitably confront British imperialism and therefore the British state.
