I’VE been able to spot a racist from a mile off from an early age.

This has been necessary as a matter of physical and mental health rather than due to any magical powers.

I should be really clear that I have never believed that racism is something that is peculiar to the right or far right in politics. Experience has taught me that.

As we move towards next month’s very important All Together March in London please don’t try to convince me that there is no racism on the left. Pretty much every black activist I know will tell you that this would be a delusional lie.

Having said that, the main focus we need to concentrate on right now is clearly the growing threat of the far right. But it would be the height of dangerous self-delusion to believe that racism was also not a problem that required addressing on the left too.

The All Together March is clearly much more than about race or racism. It is mainly, at least as I understand it, about the numerous ways that the far right seek to divide the working class against each other. But racism is one of the key tools they use to do this.

I encourage as many people as possible to attend the march. I’ve lost count of the number of these kinds of marches I have attended. I have spoken at a fair few of these over the years, particularly when I held a very senior position within the trade union movement.

I remember on one occasion marching for part of one demonstration, until I could get away, next to a then very senior trade union leader who, not long before, had thought it appropriate to tell me what was clearly a racist “joke.”

This is so long ago now that I can’t even remember what this person said to offend me but I do remember being shocked (unusual for me on this topic) because of the person’s constant public pronouncements against racism.

I think many of the black sisters and brothers reading this will have similar experiences within the trade union movement or the white-dominated political parties they may belong to. Similar, I expect, to the experience that many women will have in these often male-dominated institutions — even where women may be, at least, numerically in the majority, if not in the leadership.

This is sounding very much like a bash the left and all that sail in her for its racism.

It’s not meant to!

This is about my firm belief that the left is more than capable of walking and talking and chewing gum at the same time — however disgusting that analogy may sound.

We can march and campaign against the far right with more than a token recognition of the racism that clearly exists — at least to many black people — within the ranks of the left.

The perennial question is what is being done to tackle racism within our movement — the tackling of which makes us “All Together” stronger to confront and beat the far right?

In recent years I have run what has become an increasingly popular course for the General Federation of Trade Unions on the roots of racism. I believe the nature of this course is about to change but at least it’s still being offered to the movement.

I took a decision some time ago that it was important for me to not be pigeonholed into being the black person who teaches courses in anti-racism or only speaks on race. The problem is I also understand that it is largely unacceptable for a white person to be leading such a course, at least on their own. I hope that the rationale for this is clear without me having to waste the limited space I have here to explain.

I thought long and hard about writing this and each of the other articles I have written about race and racism over the years for fear of “that’s all Roger ever talks about” coming out — as it has a few times even given the many international issues I also write about.

I almost always get emails sent to me after these articles on race, demanding I name names or some even slagging me off for besmirching the good name of the holy left! No doubt the same will occur again.

I will probably get attacked for indulging in so-called identity politics even though I’m constantly told to spend more time looking at the material circumstances facing the working class except, seemingly, the most obvious — my blackness.

Whether or not I personally choose to tutor future anti-racism courses — or whether I am even asked — is neither here nor there.

The point is that examining the historical roots of racism is critical to understanding why we are where we are today.

I have no real idea what unions are currently doing to educate their members against racism and fascism. I suspect very little.

What I do know is that there are a fair few trade union members who have little difficulty in carrying out their duties as reps while giving their political support to the far right.

We have known about this for ages but made little headway in dealing with it except by the very necessary step of disciplining these union members.

Our strategy largely entails marching down streets to a rallying point from where we can hear the great and the good expound their anti-racist or anti-fascist credentials — all of which can be intensely satisfying — it has been for me in the past for sure. But on its own it’s not enough.

The left needs to think about what more we can do to take the fight against racism and the far right into workplaces and communities.

For what it’s worth, and to add to the complication, I don’t think there is one slick, easy solution that can be applied everywhere. If there was, I’m sure we would have done it already.

Let me explain this a tad further.

One union I used to work for had members in 300,000 workplaces of massively varying sizes, experiences and challenges. No one solution for taking the anti-racist or anti-fascist message out will do or work.

Similarly, communities across Britain vary in their diversity and we need to recognise this when we seek to organise to win them over to an anti-racist and anti-fascist message.

We can continue to march with the already converted and celebrate the hundreds of thousands who will undoubtedly turn out but we must also look at strategies for winning over the yet to be convinced beforehand and afterwards.

We need to fundamentally shift the paradigm of our anti-racist and anti-fascist work. But let’s do it with the honesty that we also need to get our own house in order.

The Together March Against the Far Right takes place in London on Saturday March 28 2026. For more information visit www.togetheralliance.org.uk.