FIREFIGHTERS are committed to protecting our communities. Every day we seek to keep people safe, to protect the public from danger and to save lives.

Firefighters are proud to serve at the heart of our communities, we enter people’s homes, schools and businesses, protecting them at their most vulnerable. We answer the call to serve those who need our help regardless of who they are.

As firefighters we understand the importance of strong communities. Our core values are protecting one another and looking out for our neighbours. We believe in working together for the common good. Our safety and our communities’ safety are non-negotiable.

That’s why, when we see our communities in danger, we cannot ignore it and sit idly by.

Just as we rush to defend our communities and neighbourhoods against the dangers of fire, so we must now stand together to defend against the threat posed by the far right.

The far right — in its various guises from Reform to the street thugs mobilising around Tommy Robinson — poses a real and present danger to us all. We will not allow them to pit working people against one another, divide our communities, spread hate and misinformation, attack our public services and divide our class.

The rising influence and electoral gains of the far right threatens everything we hold dear. Wherever the right has gained power across the world, they have attacked workers’ rights, sought to undermine trade union bargaining and fought against the hard-won victories of our class.  

The far right is a threat public services as it offers more austerity and a neoliberal agenda that only benefits the wealthy elite.  

And it is an immediate danger to the migrants, black, brown and LGBT+ communities who they attack in the streets, by spreading hate in the media, and through their divisive polices.

The far right — and the wealthy individuals who fund them and in whose interests they serve — seek to divide our class. They aim to weaken our collective strength and destroy our industrial bargaining position. This is the classic approach of divide and rule.

Reform, for example, backed by extremely wealthy individuals create a false narrative — they tell us that all the problems working people face are due to too many immigrants or “leftie” governments wasting taxpayers’ money.

The reality is that they do this so we turn on each other, diverting us away from the real cause of the problems society faces — greedy bosses underpaying workers, governments underfunding public services, racketeering landlords and private companies price-gouging their way to bigger profits at our expense. These are the people who want the far right to succeed and, if we are to build the better society we deserve, then we in the Fire Brigades Union and the wider trade union movement need to make sure we don’t let that division happen.

That’s why I’m proud that the FBU is at the forefront of the Together Alliance movement which has formed to counter the far right.  

When the call came to march through the streets of London on March 28 in a show of hope, unity and solidarity, FBU members answered the call. Firefighters from across the country organised in their workplaces and communities to ensure that firefighters will join the thousands of trade unionists as a visible presence on the demonstration.

Today’s demonstration is a vital starting point in the fight against the far right, it will send the message throughout the country that the working class is united, is standing tall and is fighting back.  

But we know that this is just the beginning. If we want to defeat the far right and prevent the horror of a Reform government then the hard work starts now.

We need to be active in every workplace. The more we fight to improve conditions for working people, the less the far right can exploit genuine social grievances by peddling false narratives that blame immigrants for the problems caused by capitalism.

In Oxford, FBU members are fighting back against dangerous cuts to the local fire service that will put lives at risk, and we’ll take this fight to every community where jobs and services are threatened.  

Trade unionists must engage in difficult conversations with colleagues who are susceptible to far right ideas and we must present a positive alternative based on working-class unity.

We need the Labour Party to offer a genuine socialist alternative to the austerity, scapegoating and fearmongering of the far right. Labour must change course — there must be no more attacks on migrants and adoption of Reform-lite solutions. Instead, Labour should offer solutions that will improve the lives of working-class communities including genuine investment in our public services.

Our class has seen off the threat of fascism in the past. If we stand united, resolute and Together we will do so again.

Steve Wright is general secretary of the FBU.