The turnout at the "Unite the Kingdom" march last weekend, called by Tommy Robinson (and paid for by the world's richest man), was larger than anyone expected - maybe as many as 200,000.

    It seems its organisers managed to mobilise usually passive right-leaning non-voters as well as the ever-growing number of disillusioned Tory-voters, now looking to Reform. But it was obvious that the core of the far-right was also there - those who play on their victim-hood - the self-pity of being "got at" by the police (2-tier policing), poor them! - and those who claim to be "more" oppressed even, than the most oppressed members of our class...

    As for the other main cry from these tearful self-pitiers (mostly) youngish men, that the refugee boats should be stopped, one can only agree, but not for the same reason! How can it be possible in the year 2025, that there should be a constant flotilla of precarious, crowded rubber dinghies coming across the Channel every day?

    And of course the answer is clear: to stop the crossings, the Home Office would have had to offer asylum to those who ask for it and lay on ferries and all the other necessities... The government would have had to change its laws and outlook, embracing this changed and shrunken world where indeed, national borders can no longer be respected.

    Instead, and thanks to its anti-working class policies its attacks on pensioners and cuts to welfare, it has mobilised usually passive right-wingers and non-voters of all classes into taking on a "political identity" as Flag of St George- and Union Jack-wavers...

    This flag-waving is nothing new. It's been a phenomenon in politics whenever there's a recession. Offer patriotic symbols and talk of outside threats, and maybe people will refrain from overthrowing the rotten system which is the cause of the problem, but which provides politicians et al, with their livelihoods...

    They and their media accomplices have consciously laid immigrants and asylum-seekers open to the scape-goating which we see today. And at the same time, they laid open the way for populists like Farage, whose real aim is to whip workers into line so that they'll accept even worse conditions - even worse austerity - in the name of "Britishness" and for the sake of the "flag"!

    Anyway, for most workers it's perfectly obvious who the real enemy is and it's certainly not Afghan, Eritrean or Sudanese asylum seekers. In fact they will be our allies in the inevitable class battles to come against the bosses and their state, whichever government, whether right, left or centre, is in power.