REFORM UK, and the pro-big business policies it peddles, are a rising threat to the working class, trade unionism and our communities.

The party chair, Zia Yusuf, has said that the party’s goal is to “remoralise” young people but our generation won’t take lessons in morality from a party run by multimillionaires.

Reform UK’s actual mission is to demoralise and divide young workers on ethnic and religious lines, whilst letting the puppetmasters of our misery, ie, the ruling capitalist class, profit from it.

The ideology of racism serves to maximise the conditions for the exploitation of the working class by dividing and weakening us. It achieves this by making the poor treatment and lower wages of black workers seem normal.

Reform UK’s supposed morality has resulted in their MPs consistently voting against the Employment Rights Bill, which, although it doesn’t go far enough to strengthen collective trade union rights and eliminate all restrictions imposed on trade unions, does offer more rights to workers, particularly young workers more impacted by zero-hour contracts and precarity.

Whilst they posture as the party of the worker, Nigel Farage openly admits to his views that the minimum wage might be too high for young people. When young workers are already struggling with soaring rent and energy prices, what else is there left to cut? Young workers are more likely to be in low-paid and insecure work before wage cuts and already paltry trade union rights are weakened, both of which would only impoverish us more.

Young trade unionists must expose the class character of Reform UK as a party not of the working class but of the ruling capitalist class. Their politics emanate from the parasitic policies of Margaret Thatcher whose goal was to weaken the labour movement.

Their record is one of opposing social spending, progressive taxation and public ownership, demonstrating their will to protect the profits of their ruling capitalist friends at the expense of the working class.

Their focus on immigration is an attempt to divide the working class along ethnic and religious lines instead of channeling genuine anger at those responsible for it — big business and the City of London.

This scapegoating breaks the unity of the working class in organising against austerity and impoverishment. Young trade unionists must rise above this shameless divisive politics and help build the united front against racism and austerity.

On top of this, Farage denies genocide in Gaza and supports arms sales to Netanyahu’s regime.

Their London mayoral candidate called for a ban on pro-Palestine demonstrations in the capital. This is the patriotism that Reform UK promotes, a patriotism that aligns with the far-right and war criminals internationally and suppresses and exploits the working class at home.

This is a bogus patriotism. Instead, young trade unionists should campaign for truly progressive patriotism.

The working-class movement in Britain must be tailored to our unique conditions and history, celebrating progressive working-class history to be able to combat the threat of Reform UK by learning and taking inspiration from the past and fighting to genuinely liberate the workers.

We must offer the alternative to our national sentiments being misused by Reform UK. Truly progressive patriotism fights for the elimination of poverty, unemployment and imperialism, as no country that oppresses other nations can truly be free.

The rise of Reform UK points to a deeper political crisis among the ruling class as many Tories defect to the party.

It also points to the vacuum created by Labour’s rightward shift and abandonment of the working class. Working people’s genuine anger at the growing cost of living, crisis in public services and housing is met with silence or continued austerity measures by Labour, whilst billions are spent on militarisation and drive to war.

It is no wonder Reform UK has leapt to fill that vacuum with simplistic scapegoating.

The TUC’s own survey, suggesting that one in five trade union members would consider voting for Reform UK, highlights the urgency with which young trade unionists must act to challenge the party’s smoke and mirrors, which enriches the bosses while harming the working class.

We cannot simply call every Reform UK supporter racist or fascist. We must offer the class-based, progressive alternative that acknowledges their genuine anger and truly aims at tackling working-class issues.

Young trade unionists must take this case into our workplaces, campuses and communities to build a strong, organised workers’ movement able to fight for progressive policies that address the working class’s needs: price controls on essential goods; nationalisation of water and energy; a wealth tax on the super-rich; and a massive programme of investment in public services and green energy.

These policies would genuinely improve the lives of young and working people, policies that the likes of Farage are diametrically opposed to because they support monopoly capitalism and imperialism.