SCOTLAND’S trade union movement has committed to taking action in workplaces across the land to tackle the threat from the far right.

The first motion to this year's congress registered delegates' “grave concern” at the rise of the far right and of political parties which espouse many of their ideas — exacerbated, they warned, by powerful economic and media interests "which are funding sophisticated political campaigns using misinformation and fake news to further polarise politics."

Moving the motion, which not only instructed the general council to “commit campaigning and staffing resources” to building a strategies, but to holding a “specific trade-union-wide event” on the matter by the end of the year.

General secretary of teaching union EIS Andrea Bradley told congress that those duped into backing far-right parties needed to be “educated, not ostracised,” and insisted that any campaign must “punch up and not down.”

Trades councils across Scotland have been at the forefront of facing down far-right activity in recent years, from the Paisley and District TUC’s role in the defence of people seeking asylum housed in Erskine, to the more recent actions to counter the threat in Clydebank.

Addressing the root causes must be essential to any strategy, according to Clydebank TUC’s Tommy Morrison, who told congress: “Clydebank was the home of Red Clydeside and the UCS work-in, but it is now being targeted by far-right groups Patriotic Alternative and Homeland.

“It is striking how people, understandably alienated from the system, repeat the language of the far right.

“We hear that asylum-seekers are taking their homes, their jobs, and to blame for what are failures of government.

“Allowing asylum-seekers the right to work and pay taxes would soon undermine this allegation.”

On Reform UK, Unison’s Davina Rankin told comrades: “They want to take us back to a romanticised version of 1950s Britain, where woman could be sacked for getting married and people like me were told they did not belong.

“The far right pose a real threat to black people in the workplace.

“As a trade union movement, we are in a real position to unite working people, but we now have to turn our words into action.”

The motion passed without opposition.