The far-right mobilisation on Saturday shows how urgent it is that the left mobilises its forces, in the Palestine movement, trade unions and among Your Party supporters, argues Pete Webster

Saturday’s ‘Unite the Kingdom’ demonstration saw over 120,000 attend and was a huge success for the far right. It should be a wake-up call to the very real threat of fascists becoming more confident and emboldening them to organise further violent anti-migrant actions over the coming days and weeks.

A Met Police statement issued Saturday evening stated that: ‘There is no doubt that many came to exercise their lawful right to protest, but there were many who came intent on violence. They confronted officers, engaging in physical and verbal abuse and making a determined effort to breach cordons.’

Questions need to be asked of the Met’s operational decisions on the day, as it was obvious that a hard core of right-wing thugs were intent on creating widespread and violent disorder from the very start of the day. As we have seen, the police have no problem on enforcing restrictions, bans and dispersal orders when it comes to our pro-Palestinian demonstrations. They could have closed roads that would have stopped significant numbers of hardened racists from gathering in Trafalgar Square effectively surrounding the counter-demonstration and cutting off any safe exit routes. Instead they ended up being confronted by a riotous mob, many of them drunk from early morning onwards.

The counter-protest organised by Stand Up to Racism attracted no more than 15,000 and an alternative approach to its strategy and tactics is desperately needed. It simply is not enough to organise counter-protests hoping that ‘we’ can outnumber ‘them’.

If we are to rise to the challenge, we need to take a heed of what lessons can be learnt from defeating the National Front in the 70s and 80s and the BNP in the 90s. Key to that was the establishment of the Anti-Nazi League and the essential ground work that was required to build sufficient forces to push back against the fascists. Chris Bambery’s recent article explores this more fully.

There are other significant weaknesses that need to attention too. Several very good union General Secretaries addressed the demonstration and it was good to see a number of union branch banners but the level of mobilisation was poor overall. These unions have significant resources at their disposal and could instigate anti-fascist campaigns at all levels and put on transport to swell our numbers. Despite a fall in recent years, there are still over five and half million trade unionists and this provides a great environment in which to build.

It is also disappointing that that there was no call out to oppose the Unite the Kingdom march from the organisers of Your Party. They have gathered nearly a million sign-ups in recent months yet communication with this enormous base has been lacking, while many among them could be drawn in to organising resistance to the right. This needs to be rectified.

It was also obvious from the events that there is a synergy between the hard-core fascists and the Zionists supporting Israel’s genocide, as evidenced by the number of Israeli flags on display. Hatred of the Palestinian fight for freedom is underpinned by Islamophobia. This too should be a wake-up call to all those active in the wider pro-Palestinian movement, since any gains or victories for the far-right is to the former’s detriment.

It was good to see so many pro-Palestinian people displaying keffiyehs, T-shirts and placards amongst the counter-demonstration but there was no mobilisation call from many of the movement’s leaders. This too would have resulted in a significant increase in numbers.

Given that this overwhelmingly working-class movement has been sustained over the last two years, collectively engaging millions and that it continues to grow, it would seem politically essential to build links to strengthen both movements.

The rapid rise of the far right, fuelled by Starmer’s tailgating of Reform, the Tories and much of the mainstream media indicates how quickly things can change, in this case, for the worse. Time is of the essence here. There is much work to do and that needs to start today.