EVERY week, the political discourse is plunging further depths of racism. To paraphrase Pastor Martin Niemoller, first they came for the illegal migrants, then for legal migrants and then for the British-born who do not have white skin.

This degraded debate is deteriorating rapidly. Politicians on the right are leap-frogging each other in the drive to demonise anyone who does not correspond to their imagined white British ideal.

Nigel Farage sets the tone by turning British politics all across the summer into a single issue — “stop the boats” — although those entering Britain by that route are small in number and often fleeing persecution, starvation and imperialist-sponsored immiseration.

Then Tory leader Kemi Badenoch picks up the baton, pledging action against migrants living here legally.

Not to be outdone, her right-wing rival Robert Jenrick, shadow justice secretary with undisguised ambition to oust Badenoch and head off Reform UK by moving the Tories in a far-right direction, pitches in.

He complains that in the Handsworth district of Birmingham, he went 90 minutes without seeing another white face.

This is brazenly racist, and has been rightly called out as such by West Midlands Metro Mayor Richard Parker. Even Parker’s Conservative predecessor, Andy Street, took issue with Jenrick’s comments.

The sinister Jenrick claims he was simply trying to promote integration. Exactly how his remarks were going to achieve that is mysterious. His dogwhistle message was simple — if you are not white, you are a problem.

Jenrick’s comments could be compared to Enoch Powell’s infamous “rivers of blood” speech in 1968. But there is one significant difference. Back then, Tory leader Edward Heath immediately fired Powell from the shadow cabinet.

Today, Badenoch indulges Jenrick, probably because she agrees with him and perhaps because her own political position is scarcely strong enough to allow her to take any form of action.

This is contributing to a climate of mounting fear in many ethnic minority communities, coming as it does atop a sustained campaign of Islamophobia developed over decades but radically intensifying in mainstream discourse today.

It would be pleasant to report that the Labour government is standing firm against this pernicious development, but it would offend against the truth.

Barely had Keir Starmer launched his anti-racist rallying cry at the Labour conference than he was reverting to type, talking of tougher measures to curb migration.

New Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has also pitched her political tent deep in right-wing territory, planning to make it harder for legal migrants to receive indefinite leave to remain, making them jump through hoops which would defeat many British-born.

Yes, one can debate how much migration might be ideal, but even here, it would be an improvement if the discussion was based on facts rather than scare-mongering.

For example, shadow home secretary Chris Philp told a conference fringe meeting that “many” asylum-seekers living in hostels had committed crimes, an assertion for which there is no evidence.

It is clearly vital that all people of decency and goodwill unite to resist this race to racism. It cannot be long before this poisoning of the public well leads to mass disorder and violence worse than that seen hitherto.

The left should lead on this, but it should seek allies among the millions of liberals — even perhaps some conservatives — who reject the demonisation and division spread by Farage and Jenrick.

And the trade unions, which, for all their imperfections, have a proud record on this, now need to foreground the fight against racism and its concomitant, fascism.

This is a struggle for unity and equality in society, and also for democracy. None can afford to stand aside.