London’s biggest ever British demonstration against the far right

Half a million people marched in London on 28 March against the far right and for many other reasons. It was organised by Together Alliance, a coalition formed in 2020 to oppose racism and the far right, which brought together over 80 organisations from trade unions to community groups, anti-racist organizations, and environmental activists.

Most of the participants marched in their blocks. Many unions campaigned to build the march as a target for the far right or fascist targeting migrant and immigrant workers and communities, promising to target unions and have a chance of winning many local elections in May.

Many people marched for Palestine against genocide, against the war on Iran and Lebanon, against Trump and the privatisation of the NHS and its huge debt transferred to patients, and against austerity. Many said they were marching for a future without war and oppression and expressed their horror at the climate catastrophe that capitalism and imperialism have created. There were many Palestinians and Iranians on the march alongside all those people who are losing benefits, such as disabled people and many others.

The far right/fascists have put themselves forward as defending women, but in the weeks leading up to 28 March, many packed meetings to defend women from the fascists and sexism took place; such feelings were strongly expressed during Ramadan in Iftar events.

We should not forget another aspect: the role of youth. It was difficult to estimate the number, as many very young people on the march had, for the first time, pushed their parents to take them. These were part of the mobilisation of many social movements, including youth, Black, and LGBTQ+ movements, alongside organisations of precarious workers and poor communities. The artistic community also mobilised singers, songwriters, playwrights, actors, and many others.

It was the biggest and most diverse march since the Iraq marches in the early 2000s, and the biggest-ever UK march against the far right. As the ‘Together Alliance” said, “Our members represent over 15 million people. We are teachers, firefighters, care workers, cleaners, midwives, engineers, and so much more.”

Perhaps all left-leaning political parties supported the demo, and Your Party, the Green Party, was part of that and may see a resurgence if the main leadership stops trying to control from above.

The police challenged the march’s numbers, saying there were 50,000, but they could not be sure! With the helicopters, drones, and AI, of course, they knew but just decided not to let us in on their secrets. This march outnumbered any the far right had organised, such as the Tommy Robinson event, which got 110,000 last September, which was the biggest ever far right demonstration.

There are many questions raised now about how to continue this great demonstration as a democratic united front to defeat the far right and capitalism. To do that, trade unions must seek deep alliances with other forces on the demonstration and assist communities in defending themselves and defeating any attempted far-right attacks. This means organizing training in self-defence. More importantly, it means continuing to build mass actions and organizing them broadly in local union meetings and neighbourhood or city assemblies and offering a concrete political alternative to the government parties.

Campaigning in the May local elections is underway, and Farage’s Reform Party hopes to do well. If they get elected, they will try to cut services for immigrants, push for all ‘illegal’ immigrants to be expelled, and support the war by Trump and Israel against Iran and support genocide (although the feeling is so strong against the Iran war, over 59% in a recent YouGov poll, they try to hide their real policies).

The Together Alliance can build alliances among workers, youth, and people in all cities, fight for the ideas of class mobilisation, and build for a general strike that would help remove the fascists from the streets. The demonstration showed the strike wave had not been forgotten; in fact, it began with a 60,000-strong demonstration bringing together many trade unions pledged to fight. At that time, union leadership did not organise to combine all their separate issues into one national general strike, but they could have done.

Now the support for a general strike from all those different forces in Together Alliance would be huge. It is time to challenge the racist Labour government, all their pro Zionist support and war efforts for the USA against Iran, and privatisation.

The Together Alliance and the unions must open this discussion to prepare for the future and build the resistance. That 220,000 have joined the Green Party is a sign of the desire for a real change but both with the Greens and Your Party the central issue is how to assist the working class to take the lead in all these struggles and how the class builds the links with all the social movements with the aim to end capitalism – although the Greens programme is pro capitalist, while being very radical for Palestine, Trans people and against Trump. The youth and millions of others are looking for a future. That future is socialism, workers’ power, and the socialist revolution. Only the power of the working class can defeat the far right by removing profit and the private ownership of land, big business, and their control.