THIS weekend’s Together march promises to be the largest anti-racist demonstration in generations.

It is needed as a confident assertion that we have an anti-racist majority in Britain and we will not allow the far right to turn communities against each other.

We have seen that anti-racist majority in action. In the summer of 2024 a wave of racist riots swept British towns. Neighbourhoods were trashed, hotels housing refugees targeted.

The community response was swift and magnificent, both the collective clean-up efforts in affected towns and the huge mobilisations, from Newcastle in the north to Brighton in the south, warning that the racists would not pass. The riots fizzled out.

But the far right has advanced since then. Donald Trump’s re-election that winter in the United States has emboldened it globally, as liberal governments cringe before a leader of the “free world” who peddles racist conspiracy theories, openly supports ethnic cleansing and unleashes state terror on immigrants, black people and entire communities like Minneapolis.

The US right is not just an inspiration for the Tommy Robinsons and Nigel Farages.

It supports them politically. The White House National Security Strategy commits to promote “the influence of patriotic parties” to “help Europe correct its current trajectory.” Last summer US Vice-President JD Vance used a “holiday” in England to meet a suite of far-right politicians and “influencers.”

It supports them financially. Reform UK is awash with foreign cash and tech tycoon Elon Musk paid Robinson’s legal fees last October.

Rolling in money, the far right is well placed to exploit the grievances felt by millions of people who — rightly — see Westminster politics as an insiders’ game where corrupt politicians dance to the tune of big business and ordinary people’s living standards and public services decline year on year.

These factors lie behind the huge demonstration organised by Robinson last September, whose 150,000 marchers made it the biggest far-right show of force in British history.

They explain the rise of Reform UK, which has established a steady lead over all other parties across national opinion polls. It’s a long way short of majority support, but party politics is fracturing and with three, four or five-way contests increasingly common it could win a parliamentary majority under our first-past-the-post electoral system.

A far-right street menace linked to a far-right electoral threat backed by the richest man on Earth and the most powerful state, one that already wields huge influence over British government. The situation is dangerous.

We must come together. Unite all forces for a counter-attack that demonstrates the far right are not the answer.

They are pawns of the very elite whose greed has gutted this country — advocates of more deregulation, more cuts.

Reform reneging this week on pledges to nationalise water and energy — like its front bench stuffed with ex-Tories like Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman — show it is no breath of fresh air but more of the same. Farage’s love-in with Trump shows it is not about taking back control, but surrendering our country’s future to rich megalomaniacs.

They must be exposed for the frauds they are. But more than that, the left needs to show we have solutions for a broken Britain — public ownership, redistribution of wealth and an economy planned in the public interest.

We must lead the fight to tax the rich, raise incomes and control prices in response to the economic catastrophe Trump’s war on Iran is unleashing.

Together, uniting much of the trade union movement with charities and community organisations, has the potential to be a game-changing alliance.

It must be more than a one-off demo, but the start of a movement that brings these forces together across Britain, channelled through trades councils, town hall meetings and street stalls, making the case for a better future.