KEIR STARMER’S appointment of the former chief secretary of the Treasury, Darren Jones, to a newly created Cabinet role as chief secretary to the prime minister signals a doubling down on the austerity agenda.

With Labour lagging behind Reform UK in the polls and the Greens and the fast-growing new left party making waves at the local level, Jones will be tasked with pulling some pyrotechnics out of the No 10 policy bag.

Starmer’s tactic of tacking right to mirror Reform UK’s on the small boats issue has had the predictable effect of validating Nigel Farage on migration and has gifted Kemi Badenoch a sliver of political turf on which to pitch to opinion now much excited by the far-right Operation Raise the Colours campaign.

It is extremely worrying that this highly organised national initiative, planned and executed by interlocking circles of far-right figures and well-known fascists, has captured headlines and galvanised activity in many localities.

Last summer, the far-right street campaign was marked by a certain opportunism and spontaneity.

This year it is being carried out according to a plan which feeds off and intersects a tendentious and manipulated narrative on migration given salience by the rhetoric of both the two main parties of government and by their Reform UK challengers. It is government policy and the demands of employers in the capitalist economy which drive the vast majority of migration into Britain.

Operation Raise the Colours is marked by a much higher level of ideological preparation and sophistication than previously. Mobilising the symbols of English nationalism through a national campaign of street action has been carried through to fuse working-class anger over inadequate and worsening services, runaway rents and housing shortages with a distorted understanding of the role of migration in 21st century capitalist states like Britain.

There can be no more perfect illustration of the idea to which Marx gave voice: that the ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas in society. And to give effect to this idea, the Home Secretary today announced plans to further prevent the families of refugees and asylum-seekers from reuniting.

Notwithstanding the valuable initiatives by Labour figures at the local level, particularly worrying is the complete paralysis of both Labour as a political party and Labour in government.

Britain’s far right and fascist groups are both highly surveilled and completely penetrated. It is in the nature of the bourgeois state to maintain a constant level of supervision over such groups both for the purposes of intelligence-gathering and of manipulation.

That Labour in government has either not been prepared for this campaign or has chosen to take no significant political initiative to thwart it but, in fact, is doubling down on its existing policy and rhetoric, means that the anti-racist and anti-fascist movement must redouble its efforts in communities and workplaces to counter this toxic campaign and tackle it organisationally. That this is not possible without a big input by the trade unions is apparent.

Farage wants a British version of Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement to spearhead the seizure and deportation of up to 600,000 people. This would naturally meet resistance and would turn our cities, streets and workplaces into a battleground between state-organised street squads, workers and local people.

Far-right demonstrations must be confronted, the fascist element needs to be exposed and isolated with the martial resolve of St George, the patron saint of Palestine. But dispelling widespread and mistaken ideas about the role of migration in the capitalist economy is impossible without bringing home to millions the role of imperialist wars, exploitation and climate change.