pics: Julie Sherry
Over 400 trade unionists attended a buzzing “emergency” hybrid conference, Countering the Far Right’, on Saturday 1 March organised by Stand Up To Racism and backed by the TUC, with nine trade unions supporting and and providing national speakers.
In an opening plenary, What can we do in our unions to take on the threat of Reform UK? over 200 delegates packed into the venue with nearly 200 joining the session online.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
TUC Anti Racist Taskforce chair and the NASUWT teaching union general secretary Patrick Roach kicked off the day’s discussion. He stressed to delegates, “We can’t defeat Reform without exposing the racism”.
pic: Julie Sherry
PCS civil service workers’ union general secretary Fran Heathcote was able to join the event online after getting caught in terrible train delays outside Newcastle, but managed to join panels in two sessions at the event. She argued in the opening plenary, “As trade unions we have to speak to our members and always reject and rebuff the arguments that come from Reform”.
pic: Julie Sherry
Chair Sabby Dhalu, co convenor of Stand Up to Racism, then thanked the newly elected FBU fire fighters’ union general secretary Steve Wright who was addressing the second national Stand Up To Racism event since taking office at the beginning of 2025.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
Steve added, “We need to be on the front line of this fight – when far right thugs take the streets, we need to be there to oppose them and we need to be challenging it in our workplaces”.
pic: Julie Sherry
The session also heard from journalist and historian Taj Ali, Stand Up To Racism Anti Fascist Officer Lewis Nielsen, and took contributions from the floor where workers raised the urgency and talked of the impact of Reform UK’s rise and the sharpening level of racist ideas emerging in the workplace.
pic: Julie Sherry
The session highlighted that Stand Up To Racism supported by the TUC and trade unions would be campaigning all across England, Scotland and Wales to expose Reform UK, as well as launching its key target areas for the May elections where we will get to the streets and knock on doors to call for people to use their vote to stop Reform UK.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
On 22 March, part of a global day of protest and action coordinated by World Against Racism and Fascism, there will be launch regional days of action mobilising to mass campaign in Doncaster, North Tyneside, Durham, Oxfordshire, Nottinghamshire, and North Yorkshire. On the day Stand Up To Racism, backed by the TUC, will also hold rallies, protest, gigs and events in towns and cities elsewhere across Britain (see standuptoracism.org.uk for updates).
With masses of leaflets, bulletins and factsheets, delegates left the conference armed with materials for campaigning in their workplaces and localities.
After the opening plenary, the first workshop session took place, with over 300 taking part in person and online across the session.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
Over 160 delegates (80 in person and 84 online) attended a workshop on The changing face of fascism and our unions’ role in fighting it, that heard from Christine Buchholz of Aufstehen Gegen Rassismus (Stand Up Against Racism) in Germany, online.
Christine was also a former Die Linke MP in Berlin and has been part of building the mass demonstrations in Germany Against the fascist Alternativ Für Deutschland (AfD) that gained 21 percent of the vote in the country of the Holocaust in February this year.
Christine talked about the rise of the AfD and the mass protests in Germany to oppose them.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
Author, historian and Jewish Socialists Group activist David Rosenberg brought an inspiring history from the Battle of Cable Street and reflected on the threat today and the history of the 1930s.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
Stand Up To Racism trade union liaison & international officer Julie Sherry talked about the echoes of the 1930s today, the nature of fascism and its relationship to the wider far right movement, and stressed the importance of building mass action through a united front approach and to learn the lessons from the rise of fascism in the 1930s.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
The session was hosted by NEU rep and Stand Up To Racism Haringey activist Julie Mukherjee.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
From the floor, delegates spoke from the experience in their workplaces and in schools on the need for education, and the need to bring a simple message to masses of working class people.
pic: Julie Sherry
The session was sparked by the sense of urgency and importance of building a mass movement with unity in action against the threat of fascism, and also was an educational session.
It drew out the unique nature of fascism within the wider rising far right movement, discussing the enabling role of Trump and Farage for the growth of fascist organisation, as well as the differences in racist populism and the tensions and contradictions on the wider far right movement in ascendancy.
pic: Julie Sherry
The session also explored at the role of mainstream conservative as well as liberal politicians in opening the space to the growth of the far right, through their racist rhetoric and policies that use the same anti refugee and migrant and Islamophobic narratives.
Meanwhile, in the same session, around 120 (80 in the room and 38 online) were in the workshop Trade Union Network to Stop the Far Right: developing organising online and in the workplace. It discussed using social media and technology towards organising and how it can be used effectively to build a mass network orientated on organising action by unions to challenge the growth of far right narratives.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
The session was crucially about using the network and building Stand Up To Racism at the level of the workplace, and tying workplace organisation and union branches into the work of local Stand Up To Racism groups and the wider anti racist movement in their localities.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
To join the Stand Up To Racism Trade Union Network to Stop the Far Right, see HERE
To link in with your nearest Stand Up To Racism local group, see HERE
pic: Roy Osarogiagbon
An RMT delegation who met on the Stand Up To Racism RMT What’s App group for the Trade Union Network to Stop the Far Right organised to meet up at the event and share experiences and resources from the different sessions they attended.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
“Our members are often on the frontline of racist abuse at work, so great to see a good TSSA showing at the Stand Up To Racism trade union conference today (plus members joining online!) – debating how we organise in the trade union movement to tackle racism and the far right.”
pic: TSSA
pic: Dave Gilchrist
This session heard from Siobhan Endean Unite Director of Equalities and Education, Danny Scott Jarrow Insights, and Ameen Hadi Unison North West Black Members Committee secretary and North West TUC Black Workers Committee chair.
The session was co hosted by Ben Liao from the Stand up to Racism national office and Chioma Amadi-Kamalu Love Music Hate Racism national organiser.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
A second round of workshops saw three sessions running, with over 280 delegates taking part across the session.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
Up to 140 (90 in the room and 50 online) joined a passionate workshop, Refugees Welcome: Busting Scapegoating Myths and demanding safe routes, chaired by Hussein Said, human rights lawyer, Stand Up To Racism Cardiff & BLM Cardiff.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
Steve Smith Care4Calais CEO spoke alongside refugee speaker Rahand.
Steve opened the session stating, “People are fleeing for safety — but there are no safe routes, so they will take any system they can to get to safety.”
“With safe routes in place, the demand for the people smugglers would drop exponentially”.
Rahand shared his experience, explaining “Most politicians and people with power that can actually do something about this situation do not seem to understand that we do not have a choice – they don’t have time to think about legal routes.”
pic: Dave Gilchrist
Wanda Wyporska Safe Passage CEO told the workshop, “The government can’t out-Reform Reform. And it’s in danger of losing more of the people who are the backbone of the country, who believe in compassion and dignity, at the heart of which are the trade unions.”
pic: Dave Gilchrist
Nazek Ramadan from Migrant Voice spoke about the need for unity and argued that language matters, with the session highlighting the demonisation and dehumanisation of refugees and migrants pushed by mainstream politicians that opens the space for the far right to use this scapegoating to grow and spread toxic hate in our communities and workplaces.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
Fran Heathcote PCS general secretary joined the session online – the PCS has been at the forefront of action that has pushed back and challenged government attempts to attack the human rights of refugees and
pic: Julie Sherry
The discussion in the session explored how trade unions can counter this and organise solidarity with refugees and migrants and demand safe routes and human rights.
pic: Julie Sherry
Next door in another workshop, around 40 delegates in the venue and online took part in the session Asian Fightback in Britain, that heard inspiring stories of struggle from the 1970s to today.
pic: Julie Sherry
pic: Dave Gilchrist
pic: Dave Gilchrist
Speakers included Mukhtar Dar founder of Sheffield Asian Youth Movement, Taranjit Chana TUC LGBT committee, Balwinder Rana co founder of Indian Youth Movement and Rajiv Sinha director of Hindus for Human Rights UK.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
The session was hosted by Sabby Dhalu Stand Up To Racism co convenor.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
In the same session, upstairs at the venue near Euston in London over 60 crammed in to a workshop on Developing action to implement the TUC Anti Racism Taskforce, where Stand Up To Racism trade union liaison officer & former TUC Equality Officer led a vibrant and focussed discussion on our unions’ role in fighting institutional racism.
pic: Julie Sherry
pic: Dave Gilchrist
pic: Julie Sherry
The conference that brought together seasoned trade union activist with a new layer of younger workers and anti racist activists was rounded off with an inspiring closing plenary with over 200 crammed into the room and another 80 online or around the stalls, for a session on The international fight for a World Against Racism and Fascism: opposing the far right, Islamophobia and antisemitism.
pic: Julie Sherry
Film maker Felipe Bustos Sierra, director of Nae Pasaran, gave a thoughtful and moving introduction to the closing session, where he talked about his well known film about the East Kilbride (just outside Glasgow) workers who refused to work on Hawker Jets bound for Chile during the 1973 coup, how they blacked the engines and how inspired he was learning of the story as a child of a Chilean refugee.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
He described this incredibly powerful piece of working class history and solidarity as “like the mosquito preserved in the amber in Jurassic Park”, there fully preserved but unknown. Felipe then went on to talk about his current project, Everybody To Kenmure Street, which will tell the story with a mixture of live footage from many participants of the mass action in May 2021 that stopped a Home Office detention van removing two neighbours from the Pollokshields community of Glasgow’s southside.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
Co host Julie Sherry, Stand Up To Racism trade union liaison & international officer ans a resident of the area who took part in the mass action urged delegates to support Felipe’s project and pass the model motion in their branches – available at the conference – to help fund the project and get it over its last hurdles of production.
“This story will 100 percent be inspiring and uplifting for trade unionists and anti racists everywhere and must be shared in the movement today at a time when the rise of the far right focuses so heavily on demonising refugees, and at a time where we need stories of the power we have to win.”
“After detaining our neighbours for 7 to 8 hours, the cops – who had an enormous presence in our community disrupting what should have been a day of celebration for Eid – told us we could go home and they would see our neighbours up to the Mosque. We told them – NO, YOU will leave and WE will see them to the mosque – and thousands of us marched them there, and turned to sing ‘Cheerio, cheerio cheerio’ as the police were left with nothing else but to leave on mass.”
pic: Julie Sherry
The session then heard from Daniel Kebede NEU education union general secretary, who talked of the importance of such events and the need for them to be even bigger.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
Daniel warned of the shift taking place with the rise of the far right and looked at the indications of a growth in support for Reform UK among a section of trade union members, showing the need to call out racism, take on the far right narrative and organise resistance.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
TUC Head of Equalities Kudsia Batool insisted on the importance of the trade union movement being at the heart of challenging the far right and stopping a tide turning us backwards on racism in Britain.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
ASLEF rail workers’ union general secretary Mick Whelan talked of his journey to being a trade unionist via being drawn into activism as a young anti fascist and the Anti Nazi League, and made an impassioned speech about the role unions must play today in standing up to racist division and organising to stop the far right growing among working class people.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
Stand Up To Racism co convenor Sabby Dhalu insisted on the need for us not just to unmask the far right and Reform UK’s myth as an anti establishment party that somehow represents working class interests, but in doing so alongside calling out their racism, in order to “mobilise the progressive vote against them”. She called out Keir Starmer’s Labour leadership for its echoing of the racism that is being peddled by the far right.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
One of the most sobering and focussing contributions in the closing plenary was from Rory Linton, national secretary of Ver.di public services trade union for post and logistics in Germany, who had travelled to the conference from Berlin that morning.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
Rory talked about the alarming rise in support for the fascist AfD, sharing that in some workplaces, the union can not go there because of the levels of support for the AfD. He stressed the importance of calling them out and exposing them as a fascist party, and of united mass mobilisations on the streets to oppose them with the trade unions at the heart of these demonstrations.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
Unison National Black Members Committee chair Adejare Oyewole spoke powerfully and proudly as a migrant worker about the role of migrant workers in running society in Britain, and spoke of the myths and misconceptions and the experience of the rise of the far right and racism in Britain.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
Stop the War Coalition’s Alex Kenny brought a message against Trumpism, against Farage and talked about the mass movement that has been on the streets unwaveringly against the genocide in Gaza for more than 16 months, and the challenges that face the movement as a whole from the rise in Islamophobic racism to the attacks on the right to protest and the recent trials of Stop the War national organiser Chris Nineham and Palestine Solidarity Campaign leader Ben Jamal. Alex’s contribution stressed the need for a movement against the far right that united against racism, Islamophobia and antisemitism.
pic: Dave Gilchrist
Stand Up To Racism co convenor Weyman Bennett summed up the conference with a sense of the challenge we face, but reflected a sense of galvanising our side that had been a thread running through the event attended by hundreds of determined anti racist trade union activists. Weyman pointed towards the polarisation that meant our side was also strong and able, with a method of building a united mass movement, to organise the action that must be taken up in workplaces, in local areas and the links we must build internationally to turn the tide.
Internationally, the far right is growing, although it also faces opposition from anti-racists. Trump has given another boost to the global far right. Stand Up To Racism and the TUC is calling on unions to mobilise regionally and locally for Stand Up To Racism events on 22 March as part of a global day of action by World Against Racism & Fascism.
The day includes campaign launches in target areas against Reform UK, and rallies, gigs and protests in towns and cities elsewhere across Britain.
JOIN STAND UP TO RACISM’S TUC SUPPRTED TRADE UNION NETWORK TO STOP THE FAR RIGHT
pics: Julie Sherry
pics: Dave Gilchrist