MARCHES in London, Glasgow and Cardiff this weekend will assert the working-class and grassroots character of anti-racism in Britain.

The Stand Up to Racism and trade union-organised demos could hardly be more timely. A hard-right government, egged on by Britain’s billionaire press, is whipping up Islamophobia in its bid to delegitimise the peace movement.

In the same breath as it smears such moderate representative groups as the Muslim Association of Britain under a new definition of extremism, it indulges racist hate speech against Britain’s longest-serving black MP from a top Tory donor — all while sidelining courts in its pursuit of a shameful and illegal policy of deporting refugees to Rwanda.