THE government is on a racist offensive. They are actively seeking out ways to remove rights, dismiss lived experience and repeatedly fail to deal with undisputable evidence of institutional and structural racism.

Under this Prime Minister the scapegoating of refugees and migrants continues unabated. The Nationality and Borders Bill attempts to effectively remove the right to seek asylum, penalising people who by definition are in need of shelter.

A couple of years ago I visited the Penally Camp, an old disused army barracks the government were using as lodgings for asylum-seekers. The Welsh TUC campaigned with grassroots organisations, lobbying the Welsh government to back our calls for the UK government to shut it down — which they eventually did. At that point I struggled to imagine what could make their lives harder, but unsurprisingly this government have managed to come up with something that does just that.

This government has also attempted to gaslight us. Their Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report in 2021 denied the reality of institutional racism exposed by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement at a time when evidence was also coming out about the disproportionate death rate for black front-line workers and communities in the coronavirus pandemic.

And their Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill targets BLM activists and the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities. It strengthens police powers despite the ongoing reality of black communities facing disproportionate use of stop and search and deaths in police contact.

The government is playing the game of divide and rule, attempting to fool working people that “others” are to blame for the problems in our society. It legitimises thinly veiled racism under the banner of “law and order.” And it tries to make us doubt our own experiences of racism and injustice.

This divide and rule strategy risks opening the door to the racist and fascist far right, emboldened by some of their aspirations being mainstreamed into working-class communities.

This is the context for the TUC and Stand Up to Racism’s Fighting for Anti-Racist Workplaces conference today. As a movement of anti-racist and labour activists, we’ll consider how we can fight the government’s proposals and mobilise in the run up to UN Anti-Racism Day.

We’ll also consider how we can inspire more people to be confident anti-racist voices in their workplace and build the unity needed to oppose racism and bigotry.

This is a different challenge here in Wales in the context of the Welsh government’s Race Equality Action Plan to create an anti-racist Wales, which includes the workplace. It is a bold and necessary vision for Wales’s future, but it poses huge challenges to the status quo and requires leadership and direction in virtually all aspects of society.

While we are under no illusion that the work happening in Wales can counter the UK government’s racist offensive entirely, it sets an entirely different agenda for all parts of devolved society at least.

The plan illustrates the vision of a government that has listened to black communities and placed their experiences at the centre of its work on race. It shows that a different institutional attitude is possible and that some politicians get that this will require a radically different approach.

We by no means have things sorted here yet, but we’re on the right path to showing that progress is possible and that divide and rule will always fail in the end. Wales is a nation of sanctuary.

Wales is determined to move forward equitably. Currently our constitutional future is being re-examined.

Post Brexit, post pandemic, with wage stagnation and the cost of living crisis hitting everyday people the hardest, now more than ever we must unite, build unity and get ready to battle as one solid block of workers.

Shavanah Taj is general secretary of the Wales TUC.