And the very fact that you have to travel to London EXCLUDES a lot of people. I'm one of them. Can't walk or travel any distance, so stuck here in Leeds. But here in Leeds I can look after a stall with petitions to sign and leaflets to hand out. And I get to the stall by taxi, a lift, or a bus. Plus I can look after 3 stalls side by side at once to allow 3 stall holders to go on the march, while I sit in my lightweight fold-up chair! If you are an activist parent with toddlers and babies, local demos and marches are possible. Pushchairs and prams can be pushed round a town. Babies can be passed hand to hand, would you believe! Wheel chairs are also possible in towns by the way. Note well, your local police can't be lent to London if they are busy in Leeds either. Placards can be attached to prams, stalls, wheel chairs, spare hands of immobile people like me, and friendly passers by. (Locals are more likely to be friendly than tourists in London). So keep up your campaign (which isn't painful at all), I'm entirely with you on behalf of us non travellers!
Very good Duncan. Your analysis fits with my experience. Have you posted this article on YP Edinburgh WhatsApps and the SPIN WhatsApp? Let's meet up for a cuppa sometime this month
It's important to note that in Scotland, different forms of organising have existed and could prove invaluable across the UK.
Despite the omni pretense of SUTR, the relative autonomy of anti-racist groups allows for a multi-phased approach to exist locally, both during times of crisis (when the fash are at the doors) and times of relative peace.
Groups organised locally (such as in Falkirk for all and Perth Against Racism), leftist groups such as the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), Socialist Party Scotland (TUSC), anarchist and localised antifa do 'technically' work alongside SUTR but purely from a pragmatic point of view.
Where mobilisations are needed and SUTR falls short, these local groups have been seen to organise regardless.
Mass demonstrations involving all groups from SUTR to antifa, from local anti-racist groups to Socialists seem to be the primary mechanism for fighting the demonstrations by fascists, often upbeat, light, almost family friendly if not for the butchers aprons across from these counter protests.
However, when these local fash groups call demonstrations with less than 48 hours notice or simply patrol without any notice, local groups can quickly mobilise on their own without the need of heavy PA systems or speakers or SUTR placards.
Local anti-racist groups also do longer term anti-racist activity including public meetings, film showcases and fundraisers for local community events.
All of this is public knowledge (mainly covered by the national and the courier since there's no way the Daily Fail would ever praise anything anti-fascist) but I'm surprised by how different the racist/anti-racist movements in Scotland seem to be organisationally from their English counterparts.
I think this misses the point of a demonstration. The audience for the demonstration is the demonstration itself. It’s the participants in the demonstration. The point is to give participants hope and solidarity so that they go back to their workplaces and communities and have the confidence to do the real work. That is the responsibility of the trade unions and other social movements who are part of Together. The mobilisation for the march is the beginning of the organising work needed. The danger (and it’s always the danger) is that the mobilisation is seen as an end in itself. It isn’t. It’s the spark for the real work. But we need the spark, the mobilisation.
There's genuine insight here, and I don't want to dismiss it. The commenter is correct that the classic function of a mass mobilisation is solidarity and confidence-building: you go to the march, you see that you are not alone, and you go home ready to organise. Cable Street. Lewisham. Both understood.
But notice what the argument concedes: the danger is always that mobilisation becomes an end in itself. That's precisely our critique. And the question isn't whether good organisers understand the difference; it's whether Together's political structure makes that danger more or less likely.
Start with the "spark." The commenter calls the demo itself the spark for community organising. But sparks have causes. What ignited this particular mobilisation? Not a principled decision by the trade union bureaucracies to build grassroots anti-racist infrastructure. If that were their goal, they would have started building it. They haven't. What actually moved the union tops is simpler: the electoral rise of Reform UK is threatening public sector budgets, and therefore threatening the institutional base of the unions themselves. That is the motor here. Self-preservation, not solidarity.
Consider what those same union bureaucracies did not do. They did not organise national demonstrations against the "hostile environment" when Liam Byrne, Labour's Immigration Minister, first invoked the phrase in 2007. They did not mobilise when the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition systematically implemented it through the Immigration Act of 2014, under Theresa May's deliberate policy of making life unbearable for undocumented migrants through right-to-rent checks, NHS charging, and employer verifications. They did not march when the Windrush scandal exposed that policy's racist logic applied to legal residents of decades' standing. And they have not challenged Starmer's Labour, which has not dismantled the hostile environment but intensified it: increased raids, 14,000 deportations annually, closed social care visa routes, thirty-year waits for permanent settlement. Critics are not wrong to call it a hostile environment on steroids. The unions' silence through all of this is not incidental. It is the record.
SUTR functions, in this context, as a pressure valve for the union bureaucracies. When members raise demands for genuine anti-racist organising, they can be channelled into providing footsoldiers for a structure whose politics are set elsewhere. Together is explicitly not a membership organisation. It is not establishing local branches. That is a deliberate choice. The SWP's own pre-conference documents make clear that SUTR is intended to be "the engine that drives the mobilisation." The unions provide the logos and the numbers; the politics are the SWP's to manage.
And those politics cannot bear the weight the commenter places on them. What does someone take back to their workplace from a march framed around "Hope over Fear" and "Unity not Division"? The energy, yes. But also the framework. A framework that cannot explain why their wages were cut, why the NHS is collapsing, or why it is Labour, not Reform, that has been systematically making migrants' lives harder for fifteen years. It gives people solidarity without analysis; confidence without direction.
Local anti-racist organisation will not fall, like an apple from a tree, from this demonstration. That is not the organisers' goal. It never was.
Those are all fair points and fair criticisms of both SUTR and of the trade union bureaucracies. But they don't match my current experience of Together nor of current grassroots organising. Together have produced a host of education material for use by local branches and community groups and have tried to build links with others. Within the trade unions we've developed a number of education and organising initiatives. Are the materials enough? No, obviously not - but they are a start. Is the top-down bureaucracy making things more difficult? Yes of course - but we need to continue to support grassroots/workplace organising to challenge that tendency. Does SUTR/SWP domination of Together create difficulties? Yes, of course. But the answer to that is to challenge sectarianism and build broad-based movements wherever we can.
I don't pretend that Together is perfect. But we are facing a genuine crisis and we need to build popular movements and engage people however and wherever we can. Together provides an opportunity for good work - it isn't going to happen without conscious effort. But Together isn't (IMHO) the problem.
Jon raises something important: Together is producing educational materials, local branches are doing real work, and the answer to bureaucratic dominance is to challenge it rather than abstain. None of that is wrong in itself.
But it restates the problem as the solution. The actual structure being described is narrower than "broad-based movement" suggests. Individual union branches and SWP branches can pick up Together's materials and conduct their own activities; they can then channel those efforts into the small number of actions organised through the SUTR franchise. That is not nothing. But it is also not broad. It is the SWP and whatever union branches are willing and able to organise locally on this topic at any given moment. What it is not doing is building the grassroots connections between Black and Asian communities, tenants' unions, community defence networks, and civil society that genuine anti-fascist infrastructure requires.
Manchester on 21 February made this visible. SUTR mobilised trade unionists and councillors in Piccadilly Gardens for speeches; Jeremy Corbyn spoke; the numbers were solid. Meanwhile, a separate coalition, Resist Britain First, built from revolutionary anti-racist, feminist and community defence organisations working alongside rank-and-file trade unionists and tenants' union organisers, took a different approach entirely: disciplined direct action that blocked Britain First's route, split their march at multiple intersections, and confined Paul Golding's rally to around a hundred soaking wet supporters in the Castlefield bowl. Two demonstrations, two models. The SUTR model mobilised the usual suspects. The other model had built something different: rooted in communities with their own leadership, their own tactics, and their own accountability.
And the very fact that you have to travel to London EXCLUDES a lot of people. I'm one of them. Can't walk or travel any distance, so stuck here in Leeds. But here in Leeds I can look after a stall with petitions to sign and leaflets to hand out. And I get to the stall by taxi, a lift, or a bus. Plus I can look after 3 stalls side by side at once to allow 3 stall holders to go on the march, while I sit in my lightweight fold-up chair! If you are an activist parent with toddlers and babies, local demos and marches are possible. Pushchairs and prams can be pushed round a town. Babies can be passed hand to hand, would you believe! Wheel chairs are also possible in towns by the way. Note well, your local police can't be lent to London if they are busy in Leeds either. Placards can be attached to prams, stalls, wheel chairs, spare hands of immobile people like me, and friendly passers by. (Locals are more likely to be friendly than tourists in London). So keep up your campaign (which isn't painful at all), I'm entirely with you on behalf of us non travellers!
Very good Duncan. Your analysis fits with my experience. Have you posted this article on YP Edinburgh WhatsApps and the SPIN WhatsApp? Let's meet up for a cuppa sometime this month
Thanks Bob. No, I'm try to control myself and not post everything :)
Great piece.
It's important to note that in Scotland, different forms of organising have existed and could prove invaluable across the UK.
Despite the omni pretense of SUTR, the relative autonomy of anti-racist groups allows for a multi-phased approach to exist locally, both during times of crisis (when the fash are at the doors) and times of relative peace.
Groups organised locally (such as in Falkirk for all and Perth Against Racism), leftist groups such as the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), Socialist Party Scotland (TUSC), anarchist and localised antifa do 'technically' work alongside SUTR but purely from a pragmatic point of view.
Where mobilisations are needed and SUTR falls short, these local groups have been seen to organise regardless.
Mass demonstrations involving all groups from SUTR to antifa, from local anti-racist groups to Socialists seem to be the primary mechanism for fighting the demonstrations by fascists, often upbeat, light, almost family friendly if not for the butchers aprons across from these counter protests.
However, when these local fash groups call demonstrations with less than 48 hours notice or simply patrol without any notice, local groups can quickly mobilise on their own without the need of heavy PA systems or speakers or SUTR placards.
Local anti-racist groups also do longer term anti-racist activity including public meetings, film showcases and fundraisers for local community events.
All of this is public knowledge (mainly covered by the national and the courier since there's no way the Daily Fail would ever praise anything anti-fascist) but I'm surprised by how different the racist/anti-racist movements in Scotland seem to be organisationally from their English counterparts.
I think this misses the point of a demonstration. The audience for the demonstration is the demonstration itself. It’s the participants in the demonstration. The point is to give participants hope and solidarity so that they go back to their workplaces and communities and have the confidence to do the real work. That is the responsibility of the trade unions and other social movements who are part of Together. The mobilisation for the march is the beginning of the organising work needed. The danger (and it’s always the danger) is that the mobilisation is seen as an end in itself. It isn’t. It’s the spark for the real work. But we need the spark, the mobilisation.
There's genuine insight here, and I don't want to dismiss it. The commenter is correct that the classic function of a mass mobilisation is solidarity and confidence-building: you go to the march, you see that you are not alone, and you go home ready to organise. Cable Street. Lewisham. Both understood.
But notice what the argument concedes: the danger is always that mobilisation becomes an end in itself. That's precisely our critique. And the question isn't whether good organisers understand the difference; it's whether Together's political structure makes that danger more or less likely.
Start with the "spark." The commenter calls the demo itself the spark for community organising. But sparks have causes. What ignited this particular mobilisation? Not a principled decision by the trade union bureaucracies to build grassroots anti-racist infrastructure. If that were their goal, they would have started building it. They haven't. What actually moved the union tops is simpler: the electoral rise of Reform UK is threatening public sector budgets, and therefore threatening the institutional base of the unions themselves. That is the motor here. Self-preservation, not solidarity.
Consider what those same union bureaucracies did not do. They did not organise national demonstrations against the "hostile environment" when Liam Byrne, Labour's Immigration Minister, first invoked the phrase in 2007. They did not mobilise when the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition systematically implemented it through the Immigration Act of 2014, under Theresa May's deliberate policy of making life unbearable for undocumented migrants through right-to-rent checks, NHS charging, and employer verifications. They did not march when the Windrush scandal exposed that policy's racist logic applied to legal residents of decades' standing. And they have not challenged Starmer's Labour, which has not dismantled the hostile environment but intensified it: increased raids, 14,000 deportations annually, closed social care visa routes, thirty-year waits for permanent settlement. Critics are not wrong to call it a hostile environment on steroids. The unions' silence through all of this is not incidental. It is the record.
SUTR functions, in this context, as a pressure valve for the union bureaucracies. When members raise demands for genuine anti-racist organising, they can be channelled into providing footsoldiers for a structure whose politics are set elsewhere. Together is explicitly not a membership organisation. It is not establishing local branches. That is a deliberate choice. The SWP's own pre-conference documents make clear that SUTR is intended to be "the engine that drives the mobilisation." The unions provide the logos and the numbers; the politics are the SWP's to manage.
And those politics cannot bear the weight the commenter places on them. What does someone take back to their workplace from a march framed around "Hope over Fear" and "Unity not Division"? The energy, yes. But also the framework. A framework that cannot explain why their wages were cut, why the NHS is collapsing, or why it is Labour, not Reform, that has been systematically making migrants' lives harder for fifteen years. It gives people solidarity without analysis; confidence without direction.
Local anti-racist organisation will not fall, like an apple from a tree, from this demonstration. That is not the organisers' goal. It never was.
Those are all fair points and fair criticisms of both SUTR and of the trade union bureaucracies. But they don't match my current experience of Together nor of current grassroots organising. Together have produced a host of education material for use by local branches and community groups and have tried to build links with others. Within the trade unions we've developed a number of education and organising initiatives. Are the materials enough? No, obviously not - but they are a start. Is the top-down bureaucracy making things more difficult? Yes of course - but we need to continue to support grassroots/workplace organising to challenge that tendency. Does SUTR/SWP domination of Together create difficulties? Yes, of course. But the answer to that is to challenge sectarianism and build broad-based movements wherever we can.
I don't pretend that Together is perfect. But we are facing a genuine crisis and we need to build popular movements and engage people however and wherever we can. Together provides an opportunity for good work - it isn't going to happen without conscious effort. But Together isn't (IMHO) the problem.
Jon raises something important: Together is producing educational materials, local branches are doing real work, and the answer to bureaucratic dominance is to challenge it rather than abstain. None of that is wrong in itself.
But it restates the problem as the solution. The actual structure being described is narrower than "broad-based movement" suggests. Individual union branches and SWP branches can pick up Together's materials and conduct their own activities; they can then channel those efforts into the small number of actions organised through the SUTR franchise. That is not nothing. But it is also not broad. It is the SWP and whatever union branches are willing and able to organise locally on this topic at any given moment. What it is not doing is building the grassroots connections between Black and Asian communities, tenants' unions, community defence networks, and civil society that genuine anti-fascist infrastructure requires.
Manchester on 21 February made this visible. SUTR mobilised trade unionists and councillors in Piccadilly Gardens for speeches; Jeremy Corbyn spoke; the numbers were solid. Meanwhile, a separate coalition, Resist Britain First, built from revolutionary anti-racist, feminist and community defence organisations working alongside rank-and-file trade unionists and tenants' union organisers, took a different approach entirely: disciplined direct action that blocked Britain First's route, split their march at multiple intersections, and confined Paul Golding's rally to around a hundred soaking wet supporters in the Castlefield bowl. Two demonstrations, two models. The SUTR model mobilised the usual suspects. The other model had built something different: rooted in communities with their own leadership, their own tactics, and their own accountability.
That is the grassroots organising Jon is right to call for. It did not come through Together. It came despite the framework Together represents. https://anticapitalistresistance.org/far-right-humiliated-in-manchester/