TRADE unionists were urged to remember the quarter-of-a-million workers who saw off Mosley’s blackshirt fascists 90 years ago as they attended the Morning Star’s fringe event at TUC Congress yesterday.

TUC president and general secretary of the Prison Officers’ Association Steve Gillan told the meeting that rising fascism in Britain today meant the union movement must “not just celebrate Cable Street and make sure it’s not necessary for that to every happen again.

“What we’ve got to do is build those alliances early, we’ve got to educate our own members as well.”

PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote said: “Trade unions have for generations been at the forefront bringing communities together and tackling discrimination.”

Veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott said in a message: “We should understand that [Nigel] Farage, [Rupert] Lowe and the rest are simply dancing to Trump’s tune and the billionaires’ tune — we also have a situation where the main parties do not challenge this rubbish.”

Unite national lead officer Onay Kasab said: “We as trade unions have to embed ourselves in these communities so that if somebody is unhappy about something in the workplace or outside the workplace it is the convener they come to… so they don’t think the best thing to do is some ridiculous balaclava cosplay.”

Cable Street 90 committee chair Alex Gordon said that a third of the £15-18,000 needed to put on the event, starting at midday outside London’s Whitechapel Tube station on October 4, had been raised so far.

Anti-racists were urged to meet at Brighton station at 5pm today to attend a counter demonstration against Patriots Platform in Burgess Hill.