DEMONSTRATIONS across the United States over the weekend give the lie to claims that all is lost in the struggle for people’s rights and social justice against the conservative right and its far-right allies.

Of course, there are always the defeatists — notably the “centre-left” intellectuals — who insist that the working classes on both sides of the Atlantic are too stupid, lazy, selfish and racist to resist injustice.

In the words of Private Frazer: “We’re all doomed!” Fascism is inevitable.

Meanwhile, millions of protesters of all colours, creeds and political affiliations, from the centre-right to the real left, from Los Angeles to Washington DC, marched in defence of jobs, women’s rights, the US constitution, the young, the elderly, the sick, black communities, the world’s poor and the Palestinians against the Trumpian onslaught.

They face a deeply reactionary Republican administration backed by a sizeable section of ruthless monopoly capital and a powerful state apparatus. The US working class, the labour and progressive movements and the people will need all the unity they can muster to block the advance of the resurgent right and its proto-fascist elements.

But as the worldwide pushback grows against Donald Trump’s global trade war, cracks will open up within the ruling Republicans, the monopoly capitalist class and even within and between the agencies of the state. Provided the insurgents put not their trust in Democratic Party politicians on the big-business payroll, they can generate their own vision, strategies and leadership to turn back the Maga maniacs.

In Britain, too, the “centre left” must not be allowed to divert or demoralise the emerging opposition to Keir Starmer’s treacherous regime and its pro-City, pro-Nato policies.

In many local communities, people are beginning to mobilise to defend their public services, their social facilities and their rights.
Never have such policies as a wealth tax, public-sector housebuilding and public ownership of energy and public transport been so popular. The Alternative Economic Strategy is making a welcome comeback.

Protesters march every week against the British government’s sickening silence about — and complicity in — the Israeli genocide. Britain’s armed forces can blast the Houthis and defend Israel against incoming rockets, can bomb and invade Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Yemen — yet not a finger can be lifted to protect defenceless Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

Public cynicism about the West’s real motives for pouring yet more weapons into the Ukraine war cauldron instead of genuinely seeking the end to a conflict that did not begin with Russia’s brutal incursion three years ago.

In Britain, we can build a people’s mass movement around these burning issues and, in the process, expose the anti-working-class politics of Reform UK, whose four top officers made their millions in banking, property development or the City.

Again, though, we need unity to be built on solid foundations.

These cannot include demands for Britain to align itself with the EU in a trade war against the US and even China. Nor should there be illusions that deep-seated problems which festered during decades of EU membership can somehow be more readily resolved by rejoining the big-business club or its capital and labour markets.

Nato rearmament must be opposed. The US-led cold war anti-socialist alliance has now outlived the Warsaw Pact by more than 30 years.

Clasping these two serpents to its bosom would spell suicide for any people’s movement that stands for public services, social justice, peace and solidarity.