AS ANTI-FASCISTS, we always feared a return to the dark days of the 1970s: the National Front (NF) running rampant, often aided by the police; the racist murders of Altab Ali, Blair Peach and Tosir Ali.    

But it seems we have indeed been dragged back there, slowly at first and then very quickly: and are in danger, now, of hurtling back to the 1930s. 

In Europe, the cordon sanitaire that aimed to keep the far right from power has collapsed.  

In Britain, last September saw the largest ever fascist march in London, led by Tommy Robinson and funded by the 21st-century’s Friedrich Flick, Elon Musk.  

The threat is unprecedented, and growing.  

This week Nigel Farage and Tory Nick Timothy have whipped up Islamophobia over the Trafalgar Square iftar: Farage sounded moments away from saddling a horse and calling for a new crusade as he declared Reform would “stand firm for the Judeo-Christian principles upon which our nation was built.”

Of course, the group really driven by a hatred of democracy and tolerance, and wanting to seize control of the country is not the Muslim community but the extreme right.  

Thankfully, resistance is growing too, and a new, broad-based alliance offers fresh hope.   

More than 600 unions, organisations and celebrities have joined the Together Alliance, which holds its first-ever mass demonstration on Saturday March 28.   

I met with three key figures to find out why everyone should join them.    

Sabby Dhalu, co-convener of Stand Up To Racism and Unite Against Fascism, first encountered racism as a child, when NF youths tried to drive her out of a playground. 

Dhalu stood her ground then, and ever since: she’s played leading roles in campaigns that decimated the BNP and EDL.  

As a woman of colour, she has no illusions about the escalated threat we’re up against. She tells me that British Punjabis who experienced the 1970s had a tradition of building houses back home: safe havens “just in case.” What we’re facing now, she says, is precisely why. 

“We need a big, powerful response. Look at September’s ‘Unite the Kingdom’ (UTK) fascist rally, and the influence of Musk, who’s called for the dissolution of our Parliament: what might happen if the next march had half a million?  We could see a potential Munich situation, an attempted far right putsch.

“‘It’s an existential threat. To all good people: progressives, liberals, anyone left of centre: to Jews, Muslims, Christians.” 

History, Dhalu says, “shows this is real, and dangerous.” The cost of living crisis is an undeniable factor; so is the recklessness of politicians: “The seeds were sown by Suella Braverman’s attack on the November 2023 Palestine rally. Her pretence that the Cenotaph was in danger directly caused a far-right riot.”   

The size of the pro-Palestine marches shows what we can achieve: “We need the Palestine movement with us on the 28th, and the unions, the Greens. We have a proud tradition of uniting against fascism here: but victory isn’t guaranteed.   

“Our march will work, if we all do our part: Tommy Robinson will notice how many oppose him; so will Musk, and Trump.”

It’s this generation’s turn to do what prior ones did: “With the ANL, with Rock against Racism: white, black and Asian communities together.  

“We still have the numbers, and if we bring them to the streets, it will demoralise the fascists. 

“We know we’re the majority, but knowing isn’t enough: it’s time to show it.”  

Kevin Courtney is the former co-leader of the National Education Union (NEU) and trade union liaison for Stand up To Racism. 

Courtney was born in Pontypridd, his granddad a collier who died of “black lung” (pneumoconiosis), and his trade unionist parents understandably desperate to keep their son out of the mines.    

Courtney remembers NF supporters in his school, often the middle class boys, laughing about “P***-bashing.” He decided then that he was an anti-racist.   

Courtney became active in the ANL, attending the legendary Victorian Park carnival in 1978.  

Today he’s working to build the Together Alliance, his patience and ability to bring people together proving invaluable.      

Like Dhalu, Courtney believes things are worse now than the 1970s: the working class feels, with good reason, both disillusioned and unrepresented, which has created a vacuum for far-right populists to fill.    

“People see things going wrong, society starting to collapse- but rather than attributing it to a failure of the system, they’re encouraged to blame migrants.

“The likes of Farage are more sophisticated than the NF. People believe he’s on their side — this multimillionaire with nothing in common with them, who’s never going to honour his promises.”

Courtney points to Farage making a big noise about opposing the two-child benefit cap, then doing a complete volte face to support it.   

Divisions in the far right, while good for us, he says, also mean a “ratcheting up” of dangerous rhetoric as they compete in extremism.  

But, he says, the Together Alliance is built on a well-founded belief that has the capacity to beat them: antiracists are still in the majority.  

We can succeed, Courtney says, by first rallying our side, then widening our networks, having workplace conversations with the “soft racists” whose minds can be changed.  

He cites legendary Communist Party anti-fascist Phil Piratin, who in the ’30s helped a pro-Mosley family avoid eviction, showing them in the process that they had more in common with their Jewish neighbours than they ever would with the wealthy men who sought to divide them. 

Steve Wright has been general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) since 2025, and a firefighter since 2001.  

He’s seen for himself the dangers of far-right encroachment in workplaces: “Farage and Robinson are bringing working-class people with them.”

Like Courtney, he cites the importance of having hard conversations in workplaces: and the FBU, historically one of the first unions to move anti-racist conference motions, is also leading the way with anti-racist training. 

“We have to train our people as well as mobilise in numbers — it’s incredibly urgent.  

“Unions need to be the voice of the working class again, across the board. As well as the bread and butter issues, pay and conditions, we have to go further.”

When it comes to the far right’s true attitude to the working class, Wright has receipts.

Reform’s Richard Tice called him a “left lunatic communist leader,” simply for fighting for his members’ pensions: “…and the Tories who are with Reform now, we remember them when our members were on the front line with Covid: they attacked us, they didn’t stand with us in government.” 

His members have also suffered from Reform’s incompetence at local level: “Because of Reform’s disastrous leadership in Kent, the council was suspended, and the fire service couldn’t get access to operational funding. I call Farage Captain Chaos — that’s what any Reform government would bring.”

Wright is clear that the Together March can’t be just a one-off event: its message of resistance needs to be “built into trade unions, and our culture. We need music events, counter mobilisations, an online presence — and funding!

“People need to donate if they want to see fascism fought. And we’ll have to literally fight them on the streets, too, if necessary.”

Can I quote you on that, I ask? Wright smiles: “Definitely!”

Find out more at https://www.togetheralliance.org.uk/march

Louise Raw will be marching with the Survivors against Fascism banner, and asks for allies to help her in carrying it: survivorsAF@proton.me