Make unions fight the far right!

Socialists and trade unionists should see the breakthrough results for Reform in the 7 May elections as an urgent political warning.

While Reform is in control in just 26 out of the 369 councils in England and has just 13% of all councillors (2,368), they could have won more on 7 May if more seats had been contested. Reform also had the highest projected share of the vote — 26% compared to Labour’s 17%. Winning more than a third of the seats in the Welsh Senedd was another worrying sign.

These results will boost Tommy Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom march called for 16 May. Hundreds of thousands of people will march behind a message of nationalism and hostility to migrants.

There have been previous poor outcomes in local elections for Labour when in government. They lost 1,150 councillors under Tony Blair in 1999 and dropped to a 23% share of the vote in 2009 under Gordon Brown — with votes and council seats going to the Tories in those years. Votes going to both Reform and the Green Party this time did indicate, from different perspectives, anger about Labour’s failure to deliver. But 7 May was more than “normal” dissatisfaction with an incumbent government.

The rise of Reform, and the Greens in a different way, show longer-term political shifts. Reform has grabbed support from Tory voters but also built on the right-wing populism embedded in British politics since the mid-2010s in the run up to Brexit and after. In many of the constituencies which voted for Reform there were high votes for Brexit. Whatever “Leave” voters now think of the dire results of Brexit, the political sentiments bound up in the divisive and reactionary Leave campaign have carried on.

From the deprived urban areas of Sunderland, Barnsley and Wakefield, to deindustrialised Thurrock to the “coastal periphery” of the Isle of Wight, people who voted Leave are turning to Reform and its policies.

How should the labour movement respond? While we can and should blame the surge in support for Reform on Labour’s poor performance in government, we have to face up to the popularity of Farage and Reform.

Distrust

Through all the iterations of a far right populist party — UKIP, the Brexit Party and Reform — Farage has preached distrust in the “Establishment”. This is one reason for his popularity. At the time he called the victory for the Leave campaign:

“A victory for ordinary people, a victory for decent people. We have fought against the multinationals; we’ve fought against the big merchant banks; we’ve fought against big politics; we’ve fought against lies, corruption and deceit.”

He’s still projecting himself as anti-Establishment even as he takes money from billionaires and preaches a radical politics of big business — cuts in public services, anti-union, privatisation of the health service, opposition to tenant rights, and a laissez-faire attitude to the destruction of the planet.

The stance is of course ridiculous. But our side — socialists, labour-movement people — have not done enough to convince working-class people, potential Reform voters, that Farage represents the interests of the bosses.

The other defining characteristic of Farage’s politics also came to the fore in the run up to the EU referendum. Against a backdrop of thousands of migrants fleeing war and dying or going missing in the Mediterranean sea, Farage and others responded with vicious hostility and racism. Remember the “Breaking Point” poster showing a queue of migrants with the slogan “The EU has failed us all”?

This kind of inhumane response to the misery and suffering of others (it was compared to Nazi propaganda at the time) now fails to shock; anti-migrant sentiment has, in general politics, in the media, become normalised. In this way many thousands of people have become indifferent to the suffering of others or actively believe in anti-migrant propaganda.

Our side has not done enough to preach working-class unity and solidarity, to convince working-class people that their enemy is not migrants, but the bosses.

The trade union movement has to stop taking the line of least resistance: financing Stand Up to Racism (SUTR) instead of organising its own confrontation with the far right on the streets; producing sometimes useful but underused anti-Reform material, instead of organising to take arguments against Reform into the workplace; making perfunctory objections to the policies of the Labour government instead of organising militant protests and making solidarity with people at the sharp end of attacks.

TUFF

On 16 May the unions will not have an independent mobilisation against Tommy Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom march. It has been left to the Trade Unions Fighting the Far Right (TUFF) network to call a symbolic counter demonstration to put forward clear alternative labour movement politics — to stop the cuts, rebuild public services, and defend migrants. This is the right thing to do, but it should have been done by the leaders of the trade union movement.

The Together Alliance (a SUTR initiative) will host what it calls “summits” in October 2026, to “plan action within local communities”. We would hope the model here could be the same as that now established in many local groups — open democratic organisations, not dominated by self-appointed leaders. Anti-far right activists should attend and argue for democratic organisation, but we do not hold our breath to see that happen.

We know, and the local election results confirm this, that support for Reform and the far-right is growing among union members — including reps and other elected officials. This has led and will lead to passivity in the face of attacks on workers. It will lead to the suppression of discussion on political issues, especially so called “woke” issues — which are in fact of vital concern to members of marginalised groups. Many members have been left to deal with these problems with little or no support from their unions. That has to stop. Local government unions need to urgently plan how to organise and fight back in Reform-led councils.

In fact we need a renewed culture of organising across the board — from fighting on pay and conditions to including equalities issues in collective bargaining, to recruiting to the union, including migrant workers.

The labour movement also needs a coherent political response based on working-class solidarity — for unity with migrant workers, for a reversal of cuts, for public services, housing, jobs, for a working-class offensive to take wealth and power from the rich.

Trade union affiliates of Labour should fight for such policies.

Trade union members inside the Green Party should demand their party adheres to the same policies and that members are encouraged to join a union and take part in union campaigns against the far right.

It is going to be an uphill struggle to beat back the far right and labour movement activists will have to fight on many fronts. In the first place by getting involved with or helping to set up a labour movement-community anti-far right campaign where they live. Help renew your local Labour Party and push members to get involved. Prepare to defend migrants and other minority communities. Organise against any renewed “fly the flag” operations. Leaflet local workplaces and talk to groups of workers about why Reform is spreading false hope and how we need to fight for our own class interests.