Life and Times: Stand up to Racism (2025)

The Life and Times column from the April 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Stand up to Racism’ is a South Wales campaign group that organises events and demonstrations against racism. I’m on their mailing list and a recent message told me of a weekend event in Swansea’s Castle Gardens – ‘Love Swansea Hate Racism’. It said: ‘Bring your guitar, beats, banners, brollies, poems, words, friends, and yourself to make our streets buzz with dancing and diversity, not fascist jackboots. Let’s show that hate has no home here!’ I decided to go along and see what was happening.

It wasn’t a good day weather-wise – intermittent rain and a bit of a gale – but still what seemed to me a fairly decent turnout of 100 or so people were gathered in one area of the city centre gardens. A police van was parked nearby and some uniformed officers were hanging about, but it all seemed entirely peaceful. There were plenty of banners and placards if none of the promised poetry or live music. But there were speeches from the platform and from one of them I learned that there was a rival far-right demonstration taking place nearby, which helped to explain the police presence.

A proposal was then made from the platform to march to where the far-right, the so-called ‘Voice of Wales’, were organising their gathering, which they’d called ‘a family fun day’. The idea put forward was not to confront them, but to show them they were outnumbered. And that’s what happened – the demonstration moved out of the gardens, processed along Princes Way and then crossed over one of the city’s main arteries to the Leisure Centre garden, where the Voice of Wales supporters were gathered. The police had accompanied the procession and now made sure that the two groups of demonstrators were kept apart from each other and that the far right could address their own supporters and anyone else who was around and wave their banners. But all this didn’t last long. The Voice of Wales group, who were effectively fewer in number than their opponents and were being drowned out by them, soon decided their ‘family fun day’ was over and packed up, at which the Stand up to Racism people drifted away. And so did I.

What to make of this? Well, I couldn’t but be supportive of the anti-racism demonstrators, for I can only see it as supremely desirable to be accepting of other human beings regardless of their race (in itself a misnomer), background or place of origin. And I can only lament the fact that there are some people who oppose or resent the presence of others in their society on the basis of skin colour, culture or place of birth. As an advocate of a borderless world society, all that makes so little sense to me. However, while being unequivocally opposed to the nationalism, bigotry and manifest racism of the Voice of Wales crowd with their ‘Stop the Boats’ banners and signs, their pictures of Donald Trump displayed on placards and their speakers’ appeals to ‘British values’, I can’t not have some reservations about Stand up to Racism too.

While opposition to racism is to be applauded, unfortunately those who organise such groups tend to use them as a recruiting platform to push a Leninist agenda of the need for a vanguard – themselves – to lead the working class to a society which they may call socialist but in effect would be governed by the vanguard that has ‘led’ it there. No surprise, therefore, that the most stand-out feature of the demonstration in Castle Gardens was an SWP stall, set up in the middle selling its newspapers and other publications and displaying posters with slogans for its latest campaigns. And no surprise either that many of the banners, placards and badges on view said things like ‘Boycott Israel’, ‘Free Palestine’ and ‘Stop the Genocide’ and so were not specifically about racism at all but rather about the current conflict in the Middle East, which organisations like the SWP see as one of their ‘causes’.

But what about racism itself? Well, there’s no doubt that, even within the dog-eat-dog society that is capitalism, there has been a significant improvement in attitudes over the years. In this country, for example, the open, unabated, almost taken-for-granted racism (and sexism) that existed just a few short decades ago is dramatically less in evidence now. Who at that time could in their wildest dreams have imagined that, in the not-too-distant future the leader of one of the two biggest political parties would be a woman of colour. This is not of course to say that racist ideas have stopped having purchase over many people, but there has undeniably been what we can reasonably call progress.

Yet, given the divisive attitudes prompted by the conditions of the society we live in, the scourge of racism will always remain a possibility, a frame of mind that people whose lives feel precarious in one way or another (eg, through poverty, unemployment or job insecurity) may turn to. And indeed they may be encouraged to turn to it by leaders or parties that see it as in their interests to sow division among people who have not developed the consciousness to perceive that they have fundamentally the same interests as their fellow workers. This is currently being illustrated by developments in many parts of the ‘advanced’ world, eg, Germany, Hungary, USA.

So stand up to racism, yes, but we are unlikely to see the end of that scourge unless we stand up to capitalism and establish a socialist world of common ownership, democratic control, production for need not profit and free access to all goods and services. In such a society, racism, or any other form of prejudice or discrimination, will have no ground to take root in and no soil in which to flourish.

Howard Moss

Socialism is not a Dream. It can be Reality. It’s up to You . . . (2020)

From the October 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism is the great beacon of hope for humanity. The working class, black and white, have put up with endless injustice in capitalism. Socialism will be a huge relief after the long nightmare of capitalist exploitation, inequality, and poverty in the midst of material prosperity. Socialism is not an end, but a beginning, it is the beginning of the real history of humankind, an awakening to a new age of socialist justice. Socialism means the free development of each man and woman, black and white, as the condition of the free development of all men and women.

The black and white working class cannot walk alone, they are united together as brother and sister. In socialist society all black and white men and women will be able to say they are free at last. The working class need to realise that they create the world’s wealth and that their interests are in common irrespective of race and opposed to the interests of the capitalist class. When the united black and white working class recognise their own immense potential power to transform society, act in conscious unity to solve their problems by abolishing capitalism, then they will be truly in touch with their own emancipation. There is an urgency now to get rid of capitalism and move forwards to a world socialist society through cooperative, revolutionary political action.

Capitalism fosters inequality, prejudice, unfairness, racism, injustice, unemployment, homelessness, police brutality and the criminalisation of our young people. Racism thrives when capitalism is in a slump and adopts austerity. Racism results from the economic anarchy of capitalism, the prejudice diverts the working class from facing the real cause of modern society’s problems which is the existence of capitalism. Capitalism promotes and aggravates conflicts such as racism. The cure for racism is the abolition of capitalism.

Socialism is organised on the basis of human co-operation for the common benefit of all humankind where things will be produced solely to meet human needs. Socialism will mean the greatest flowering of imagination, creativity and achievement in history, it will be a world of abundance and freedom. People will relate to each other as equals, as sisters and brothers. Co-operation will be the norm and an established reality, not an impossible dream.

Socialism will be the end of racism; it will be a world free of social conflict in which human beings live and work in unity without distinction of race.

Editorial: Race and respectability (1988)

Editorial from the June 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard 

One necessary skill of professional politicians is an ability to cloak the prejudices of their potential supporters in respectable language. We know that nobody in the public eye is a racist, and the British reputation for fair play could be further enhanced if more people prefaced their remarks with reassurances like "I detest apartheid as much as the next white Anglo-Saxon but. . ."; “Some of my best friends are Asian shopkeepers but. . . ."; or even “While I don't mind a hint of curry on my Guardian now again . . .".

The rejection of “liberal attitudes" on race by large numbers of workers does not place them automatically in the camp of the mindless bigot, which is why much anti-racist legislation and practice has had minimal effect. Asians with knife scars and families behind boarded council flat windows can testify to the more virulent strains of the disease, but pumping through the bloodstream of society is racism of a much more matter-of-fact, unselfconscious kind. The statement “he's a darkie, but quite pleasant" assumes shared attitudes and feelings and can be made without any awareness that it causes offence: blacks are viewed as one more natural hazard to be avoided, like bronchitis or barking dogs.

Recognition that such ingrained prejudice cannot be washed away by a constant assertion that there is no difference between "them" and "us" — an approach which anyway takes no account of non overt discrimination — has led to a much more sustained assault on the values and assumptions of "white British culture", at least in the field of education. That the consequence may well be a more segregated society, with white parents opting for what they perceive to be in the material interest of their children, should not be a surprise. Tolerance is clearly a skin-deep matter of proximity and numbers, and the symbolic and ill-functioning character of dogmatic anti-racist practice has given sustenance to those who hide their racism behind the banner of "freedom of choice". As with much race relations law, resentment has been stimulated against those who are seen to be positively favoured.

The various racist Immigration Acts passed by Conservative and Labour governments to keep non-whites out of Britain reflected and gave respectability to the view that blacks or Asians are the cause of social problems. The fact that legislation now prohibits discrimination is neither here nor there: property owners no longer publicly state that blacks are not welcome but simply do not accept them; employers are obliged to treat job applicants on their merits and do so with tongues in cheeks. A surface respectability fails miserably to conceal a situation where non-whites are far more likely to be unemployed, far more likely to be in low paid jobs and bound by the frustration their position creates.

The ideas of the racist cannot be legislated away because they arise from and are nurtured by the society in which we live. As every schoolboy knows, Columbus discovered America and Marco Polo was the first to set foot in China; at least, these were the first personages from white western society to do so, which any enlightened schoolgirl knows to be not the same thing. And if the history books tell us that nothing of any consequence occurred before a white man came along, it is not difficult to see why low social status and inferiority remain associated with a black skin.

Historically, the doctrines of white supremacy and anti-semitism originated as weapons to defend pre-capitalist systems of exploitation, and it has been one of the tasks of capitalism to break down all social divisions except that between the wealthy and the propertyless. This, however, it can never succeed in doing, since of necessity individual worker is set against individual worker in the struggle for a living and many forms of hatred and prejudice flourish as a result. If racial equality were somehow achieved, we could still not have an integrated, harmonious society because capitalism demands constant selection and exclusion and therefore creates the insecurity on which racism breeds.

Those who benefit from divisions within society do not have to compete for third-rate education and housing: there are no racist attacks at Charterhouse or riots in Belgravia. The civilised setting of the gentleman's club is also more conducive to an evenhanded treatment of racial matters — white semi-detached proles are held in only marginally less contempt than their darker-skinned counterparts and the "them" and "us" of racist mythology are translated into real, class terms.

Letter: Let's Unite against Racialism (1968)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Let's Unite against Racialism

Dear Comrades,

Since Enoch Powell’s race-hate speech, the Wolverhampton branches of the YCL have led in the formation of the Wolverhampton Front Against Racialism. We have taken as the symbol of the six-pointed Yellow Star, known in Hitler-occupied Europe as the ’Badge of Shame’.

These badges have been distributed to demonstrators at protest marches, and to other opponents of racialism and fascism, along with an explanatory leaflet.

Our idea is to unite all anti-racialist, anti-fascist forces in common action. So we call upon readers of the Socialist Standard to take the initiative in their localities in the formation of similar fronts. Make your own badge, do your own leaflets, lead and fight.

It is vital that a stand be made — Powell has not learned to keep his mouth shut yet — we must shut him up for good. It is above all vital that this campaign be national, uniting all progressive forces.

R. M. Bashforth

Organiser, Wolverhampton, Y.C.L.

Reply: 

It is a pleasant change to get a letter opposing racialism. Nevertheless, although the Socialist Party of Great Britain is of course opposed to racialism, we cannot agree to join any united Front Against Racialism, as proposed by the Wolverhampton YCL branches.

Many times before have we been invited to join with others to oppose, for instance, the Tories, fascism, some war or nuclear weapons. We have always turned these invitations down, not because we are not against the Tories, fascism, wars and nuclear (and other) weapons, but because we do not think that this is the way to oppose them. To unite with non-socialist organisations is a dangerous policy for a Socialist party. It would be a hindrance to what should be the basic aim of such a party: to agitate, educate and organise for Socialism. At present most people are opposed to Socialism. They are prepared to put up with capitalism and much of what goes with it. It is only because most people are patriotic (think they have a country) and are ready to trust leaders that they do listen to appeals for national unity, strong leadership, wars and armed forces. What is needed is not mere anti-racialist propaganda, but basic Socialist education: the statement in clear and unequivocal terms of the case for a socialist world community.

Since Socialists appeal to workers to unite, irrespective of nationality or colour or race (so-called), to the extent that we are successful racialist and nationalist ideas are defeated. As part of a general Socialist education campaign anti-racialism is much more effective. In our socialist activity we warn workers of the dangers of supporting leader-based, nationalist parties like the Tories, Labour, Liberals, fascists and, yes, the Communists. Were we to unite with (nationalist) non-socialists our case would be weakened. One moment we would be urging workers to oppose Labour, Liberals, the Communists and the churches; the next we would be working with them! We would appear as unprincipled hypocrites. Our task is to spread socialist ideas as, in the end, only a working class, imbued with socialist ideas, is a sure guarantee that they will not listen to racialists like Powell and Mosley and nationalists like Wilson, Heath, Thorpe and Gollan.

While they may mean, well, we cannot agree with the Wolverhampton YCL’s suggestion on Powell that "we must shut him up for good”. We have no wish to shut anyone up, not even Colin Jordan. We are more concerned with persuading the tens of thousands of workers who support Powell not to take any notice of what he says. Shutting up Powell would achieve nothing. It would rather (like Heath’s sacking him from the Tory Shadow Cabinet) earn him undeserved public sympathy. Powell’s views are obnoxious and he does use lies and half-truths (but don’t they all?), but he should still be allowed to speak. As Socialists we are quite opposed to all restrictions on the free expression of ideas. In 1941, when the government banned the Daily Worker (for calling, among other things, for peace with Hitler) we protested. It is worth recalling what the Socialist Standard of February 1941 had to say:

    “The SPGB has its own, quite different, point of view. True to our basic principle we do not support suppression of opinion, however false we believe that opinion to be . . . The SPGB is opposed to suppression of opinion. In our view the way to counter any kind of propaganda, and in the long run the only way, is to meet it in the open in unfettered discussion. We are entitled to add that we practise what we preach and have always thrown open our platform to our opponents.”

We stand by this today, and would urge those who want to shut people up to think where this might end. After Powell, who?

Editorial Committee