FOLLOWING Saturday’s divisive show of strength by the far right, where 110,000 people demonstrated their anger with politics-as-usual, the internet abounds with suggestions of how we tackle the rise of the far right.

What most commentators agree on is the need to direct far more energy into organising in communities.

This argument shouldn’t be misunderstood.

There is still an absolute need for community defence — for example, of mosques, of synagogues, of hotels housing refugees. These visible mobilisations to defend our local communities against those seeking to stir hatred and division can play a key role in uniting communities and drawing a hard line against the far right.

And when fascists mobilise on the streets, particularly when they try to march through our communities, they must be confronted with mass working-class mobilisation, as they were on Cable Street 89 years ago. We should never step back from the need to confront fascism physically.

However, there is also a recognition that simply shouting “fascist” at those whose anger, while misdirected, is motivated by very real problems in their communities, is a dead end.

This realisation should be welcomed and can act as a point of unity for the anti-fascist movement. The recognition of the need to organise, to speak and, crucially, to listen in working-class communities where support for the far right and populist right has grown, is a recognition of the need for a range of tactics in fighting fascism.

It is also an opportunity for organisations to come together, recognising that they all contribute to this struggle in different ways and that that is OK.

What there is maybe less agreement on is what exactly we should be saying in our communities. There are those who would argue that against the fear and alienation promoted by the far right, we should pit hope and faith in the fact that Labour can transform Britain, that Your Party — once established — can provide an antidote to the right, or that the Green Party under a new left leader can take us forward to socialism.

There are those who would argue that what we are confronted by is ignorance and a lack of education, that if those who attended Saturday’s dystopian “Unite the Kingdom” rally just knew a bit more, they would embrace the multicultural world we live in.

The problem is that none of this directly addresses the real driving factor in the rise of support for the far right — the economy (or more specifically, how it is experienced in working-class communities).

Clearly, we shouldn’t be reductionist about this — people don’t wake up one day, realise they are poorer than they were a year ago and feel a bit more racist. It takes those actively promoting the poison of racism, from the Nigel Farages to the “Tommy Robinsons” to the wannabe Hitlers of the Homeland Party and Britain First, to plant the seed. But the current economic circumstances are the soil within which that seed grows.

Modelling by data company Bombe.io, for example, shows that the three most significant factors affecting people’s political orientation are (in order) personal finances, family problems and job security. If we cannot answer these worries by winning higher wages and benefits, job security and security for people’s families, halting the rise of the far right will likely prove impossible.

The trade union movement needs to develop an alternative economic strategy — a strategy which becomes the basis of the economic demands of the Labour left, the Green left, Your Party and the rest of our movement. But we also need immediate wins that make our people better off and give them and their families security.

That is why we must welcome the open letter and campaign launched today by Acorn, alongside a number of trade unions, MPs and others. Giving people security in their homes — for them and their families — and removing the fear of bailiffs, repossession or even prison for late payment of council tax, is an essential part of chasing the far right out of our communities.