THIS week’s loss of life in the English Channel is one in a long line of tragedies that are the direct result of the abject failure of the British government and governments across Europe to design and implement a humane system for supporting refugees.

Refugees seeking safety in Britain represent just a tiny fraction of the world’s total. They are fleeing from the war-torn and repressive cauldrons like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan that Western imperialism has done so much to create and foment.

Our march and rally is now 33 years old. In 1988, the General Council of the STUC was approached by the Scottish Asian Action Committee (SAAC) to help organise a Scottish Day of Action against Racism in November of 1988.

The reason for this first march was that the British National Party (BNP) was attempting to hold rallies on St Andrew’s Day in Glasgow. This was the one in a long line of attempts by the far right to seize upon nationalist sentiment and to combine it with the poverty and alienation felt by many workers and their communities, in order to pursue their neonazi aims.

The STUC was clear then, as it is now, that there could be no complacency about Scotland being immune from this. Scotland was not free from racism then and it is not free from racism now.

In 1988, as now, we had communities torn apart by unemployment, low pay, bad jobs and poor housing. This is, of course, exactly the context in which disinformation and fear can spread easily with extremely dangerous consequences.

Just as we did then, we have to continue to recognise that workers are not immune to the climate of fear created by the Tories and their allies and that only an active, campaigning approach to combatting their lies will do.

Of course, the livelihoods and the way of life of workers and the communities in which we live are not endangered by a small number of children, women and men taking to the water because the water is safer than the land they are leaving.

The threat to our livelihoods comes from the profiteers who seek to drive down our wages and attack collective organisation. The threat to our way of life comes from the two-job Tory toffs who actively seek to divide our communities. And the threat to the way of life of people around the globe comes from big business and the corporations who, unchecked by governments, are on course to throw up millions more refugees as their inaction on climate change impacts first the global South and then all of us.

That is why it is no accident that along with trade unionists and anti-racist organisations, youth climate campaigners will be on our march today.

The theme of this year’s march and rally is “Pushing Back, Marching Forward.” At the rally, we will look back on 25 years of campaigning activity driven forward by our Black Workers’ Committee first formed in 1996.

Over those years the trade union movement has actively organised against the far right, campaigned for the closure of Dungavel Detention Centre and for a humane asylum system, we actively supported the fight for justice for Surjit Singh Chhokar and we continue to support the fight for justice for Sheku Bayoh.

And even before the tragic events of this week, our Black Workers’ Committee had chosen to highlight the way in which workers and communities can come together to oppose racism. In May, in a historic display of defiance, the people of Glasgow pushed back the Home Office’s dawn-raid policy and the specific targeting of Sumit Sehdev and Lakhvir Singh.

Hundreds of Glaswegians including many trade unionists gathered in Kenmure Street to block the dawn-raid vans. This active alternative to sowing of seeds of division in our communities deserves celebration, but most importantly it demands replication.

That is why part of our message this year must be to redouble our efforts to combat racism and support grassroots community organising in our towns and cities. It also means recognising that we have much work to do within our structures and in our union branches to combat racism and actively promote equality. We need to build the collective power to combat the income inequalities that blight Scotland and to fight for a future in which no-one is left behind and in which refugees are welcomed.

Roz Foyer is general secretary of the Scottish TUC.