The emergence this summer of the ‘Patriotic Platform’ against the background of renewed protests against asylum-seekers poses again whether the approach of the SWP and the Stand Up To Racism campaign is effective in curbing the growth of the far-right. ISAI MARIJERLA writes.
This spring, in an article entitled ‘Why the CWU union leadership is wrong over anti-racist strategy’, the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP) dealt with what they described as “sharp debates” on the issue at the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) conference (Socialist Worker, 15 May 2026). The issues raised are part of an ongoing and crucial discussion across the trade union movement on how to successfully cut across the growth of right populism.
At the CWU conference a motion to affiliate the union to Stand Up To Racism (SUTR), an organisation in which the SWP plays a key role, was rejected. The CWU general secretary, Dave Ward, argued against affiliation, saying that SUTR’s approach was “just shouting at people that they are racist”. Instead, he called for “a comprehensive, class-focused approach to resolving the political division that has spread across our society”. The SWP article argued that “in practice, it means focusing on Reform UK’s economic policies – and downplaying or ducking the arguments about immigration”. They accused Socialist Party member and CWU conference delegate Deji Olayinka of being “explicit about this” because he “made a plea” for “a slogan of ‘jobs and homes, not racism’”.
The SWP article summarises what they believe are the “main problems” with this approach. “First, the bulk of Reform UK’s vote comes from the right – not from former Labour supporters”. Secondly, they assert, it “misunderstands what is driving Reform UK” support. They justify the first point by quoting opinion polls that suggest “28% of people who voted Tory in the general election switched to Reform UK in the English local elections” whereas “only 5% of Labour voters in the general election” have since switched to Reform. Further they quote a “Hope Not Hate survey of Reform UK members [which] found that 31% would be less likely to vote for someone campaigning for a wealth tax”.
Time to face reality
But these statistics do not give an accurate picture. The SWP wrongly imagine that you can draw firm conclusions about voters today based on whether they cast a ballot for Labour or Tory in the last general election (in July 2024) because they do not recognise that Labour, then and now, is an out-and-out capitalist party which is not seen by broad sections of the working class as ‘their party’ in the way it once was. Nor is any other party – instead workers are picking up different electoral weapons to express their rage including, in some cases, Reform.
The increase in Reform voters certainly includes a layer of more middle class ‘traditional Tories’. But it is among working-class voters that Reform’s support has grown most. Polling at the start of this year showed 39% support for Reform in ‘routine and manual occupations’ compared to only 19% in ‘higher managerial and professional’ jobs. Look at the places that Reform won councils in May – including Barnsley, Wakefield, Gateshead and Sunderland. It is refusing to face reality to suggest that was driven primarily by ‘traditional Tory’ voters!
The SWP point to a report that 31% of Reform members don’t like the idea of a wealth tax, but Reform party members are, of course, a much narrower strata than Reform voters. And even then, presumably 69% of them don’t mind or even support a wealth tax. Meanwhile, polling of Reform voters shows large majorities for nationalisation of the privatised utilities. Yes, it is true that immigration is cited as a much bigger issue among Reform voters than for the electorate as a whole, but this is clearly not the only issue motivating them. If it was why did one million people who had previously voted for Nigel Farage’s UKIP switch to Labour in the 2017 general election when, under Jeremy Corbyn, it had an anti-austerity and anti-racist manifesto?
None of this is to disagree with the SWP that “we need many more activists in every workplace patiently putting the argument that migrants aren’t to blame” and “pinning the blame on billionaires, bankers and bosses for low wages, bad housing and crumbling public services”. But, in fact, the motion to affiliate to SUTR put no concrete demands on the trade union movement beyond “raising awareness across the wider union membership” and encouraging branches to affiliate to SUTR. It did not call for any of the action needed by the workers’ movement to take on the far-right. The SWP criticise Deji for arguing for a mass trade union campaign on the slogan of “jobs and homes, not racism”, but such a campaign is very obviously not ‘downplaying or ducking’ fighting racism, but instead arguing for a serious campaign linking the need to oppose racism to working class unity to fight against the “billionaires, bankers and bosses” to win improvements in wages, housing and public services.
The SWP think that the only means to oppose racism and Reform is to “mobilise the anti-racist majority to come out and use their vote to stop Reform UK”. They see Reform supporters as racists and discount any possibility of winning sections of them over. In reality Reform supporters do not have one uniform set of ideas. A survey done by Hope not Hate, tells that Reform UK is made of what they call a coalition of voters, many with quite different and contradictory views to each other. It is also the case that one individual can have multiple, confused and contradictory ideas all at the same time. The support that Reform gets cannot be simply translated as support for far-right ideas or against migrants. Consciousness is not fixed, the direction of travel of an individual’s outlook depends concretely on the objective situation.
The trade union movement taking independent action in defence of working-class interests would change the objective situation. As Deji put it at the CWU conference, “to stop the growth of the far right, the trade union movement needs to push anti-racist class politics, to drive a wedge between racist scum leaders and the working-class people that are being misled into their hands. To defeat the right, our union needs to build working-class political campaigns. In 2018, the TUC agreed to launch a campaign for ‘jobs and homes, not racism’. They didn’t, but the union movement must do that now”.
Frustration with SUTR approach
During the May council elections, and in the Makerfield and Clacton by-elections this summer, the SWP and SUTR mass distributed leaflets to ‘Stop Reform UK’ and ‘Vote against Farage’. Their leaflets in Makerfield offered five reasons to vote against Farage but gave no indication who to vote for – other than not Reform. This approach does nothing to cut across the support for Reform and their right populist ideas.
There has been growing frustration and anger at the approach of SUTR amongst a layer of trade union activists. The discussion at the CWU conference was a reflection of that. The SWP’s organisational conclusion to this has been to promote the Together Alliance but this does not represent a better approach. Yes, the huge Together Alliance anti-racist demonstration in March this year was a show of anti-racist strength. It was mostly mobilised for, and funded by, the trade unions. Yet it was called under the slogan ‘love, hope and unity’ and as a result did not have any significant effect on cutting across support for Reform in May’s elections.
Had the trade union leaders themselves called the demonstration under a slogan such as ‘No to austerity – jobs and homes, not racist division’, it could have appealed to an even broader layer of the working class, including to unorganised and demoralised layers, drawing them into the struggle for a better life.
The CWU conference voted down the SUTR affiliation motion and supported the trade union movement taking a lead. This could be a step forward, provided it is acted on. The strength of the trade union organisation lies in bringing together workers from all backgrounds in a common struggle to improve our lives and livelihoods. Therefore, the trade union movement must urgently discuss the serious approach and programme needed to defeat the far right, challenge divisive ideas, and offer a united working-class solution. This is a task facing all workers, but it cannot be separated from the fight against the cost-of-living crisis and cuts to jobs, homes and services.
The May council elections saw an increase in support for Reform, but the most significant development was the collapse in votes for both Labour and the Conservatives. This revealed the rottenness and shallow social base of Britain’s old established political order. It was another qualitative step in the hollowing out of the support base of traditional bourgeois parties and the development of a new period of instability and polarisation. Burnham’s coronation as prime minister has given Labour a small amount of breathing room, but as he too fails to deliver for the working class he will suffer the same fate as Starmer.
We are living through the ending of the duopoly via which British capitalism has ruled for the best part of a century. The Tory Party, once the oldest and the most successful capitalist party in the world with millions of members, was reduced to 1.9% of the vote in the Manchester Gorton and Denton by-election in February and 2.2% in Makerfield in June. This is a period of flux and electoral instability. For many ordinary people, there is a feeling that we can’t trust any establishment politicians, and Reform are cynically attempting to portray themselves as ‘anti-establishment’.
Trade unions need to take a political stand
The primary blame for the rise in support for Reform lies with the trade union leaders who are not carrying out their duty to establish a political party for the working class. This needs to be urgently addressed. The absence of such a party is leaving space for division, an increase in scapegoating, and a decrease in the standard of living for working class people.
The search for an alternative has been clear; whenever a slightest step has been made on this, tens of thousands of people have shown their support. Around half a million signed up for the Enough is Enough campaign in 2022, launched by Mick Lynch, general secretary of the RMT transport union, and Dave Ward in the midst of the biggest strike wave in Britain for over 30 years. This was when Mick Lynch rightly claimed the working class is back. However himself and Dave Ward were adamant that Enough is Enough was not going to be a political party or a political alternative to Labour.
At the CWU conference Dave Ward called for a “a comprehensive, class-focused approach to resolving the political division that has spread across our society”. However, as the Socialist Worker report says, he “fought hard against the union disaffiliating from the Labour Party” in a separate conference debate on its political strategy, reinforcing the union leaders’ “inertia over fighting Reform UK”. This mistaken approach of continuing to back Labour will indeed fuel further support for Reform. But what the SWP don’t mention is that it was the Socialist Party’s Deji Olayinka amongst whom Dave Ward was ‘fighting hard against’, who seconded the disaffiliation motion on behalf of his branch. Because it doesn’t fit their narrative that the Socialist Party ‘downplays or ducks’ the arguments about how to counter the populist right.
If not the CWU, many other trade union leaders are more than happy to keep franchising out the anti-racist fightback to organisations like SUTR and the Together Alliance. This is a derogation of duty. It is the role of the trade union movement with it’s 6.6 million members to be the backbone in the struggle against the divisions pushed by the capitalist class.
The Socialist Party is fighting for the TUC to enact its Congress policy to name the date for a national trade union demonstration against austerity, war and racist divisions. Only the organised working class has the power to unite the struggle for a society free from oppression, divisions and exploitations.
The SWP are right that this is both a sharp and important debate. It can only help the struggle against racism to reach clarity on these issues.