The UK has entered another period of concerted Strike Action, with further action planned for later in the year also. In a country where Foodbank use is common and where a recent study by the Big Issue claims that it requires a salary of at least £30,500 to ‘participate in society’ and live ‘with dignity’, we have seen a cumulative real wage decline of 15-20% between 2022 and 2024 due to inflation (housing and energy in particular, but also food prices) outpacing wage growth. This is on top of a previous median real wage decline of roughly 3-5% since 2008, or about 20% below the trend line of the 1980-2000s.

In the face of this bleak situation, planned strikes by Gatwick Airport scanner workers, bus workers in England and Wales, and bin collection workers in Wales were called off in August after pay offers were made. But this hasn’t prevented industrial action from erupting elsewhere. London Underground workers embarked on a 5-day period of strike action, joining Houses of Parliament security staff, aircraft fitters and engineers at Airbus, workers at Edinburgh Airport, care workers in Glasgow and Lanarkshire, Factory workers in Cumbria, numerous Scottish Universities and Scottish SPCA workers. Further strike action is scheduled at Liverpool Hope University and the Cross-Country Rail franchise later in September. Added to this, the Universities and Colleges Union have opened discussion over balloting for further strike action.

All of this industrial action comes as the Far Right is making further inroads into political and wider social life in the UK. In August, a ‘Raise the Colours’ campaign, supported by figures such as Tommy Robinson (Stephen Yaxley-Lennon), swept across the country, with British ‘Patriots’ tying English and British (and also in places Welsh, Scottish and Irish) flags to lampposts and painting roundabouts and pedestrian crossings in the colour of the St. George as a gesture to symbolise ‘taking their country back’ from immigrants. In this climate, attacks on racial minorities are on the rise, including a horrific racially-motivated raping of an Indian woman by a gang of white men in the West Midlands.

All of these reactionary developments have led towards a ‘Free Speech Festival’, Unite the Kingdom, organised by Far-Right groups led by Tommy Robinson on Saturday 13^th September, in central London. Police estimate that 100,000 people turned out, in what is the UK’s biggest Far Right demonstration of modern times. Elon Musk addressed the crowd by video-link, evoking the sentiments of many MAGA-types in the US in the wake of the killing of Charlie Kirk:

“My message is to them: if this continues, that violence is going to come to you, you will have no choice. You’re in a fundamental situation here….Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die, that’s the truth, I think.”

Numerous scuffles broke out with police, and some 5,000 counter-demonstrators, who were greatly outnumbered.

In progressive developments, 800,000 people have signed up to the left-wing Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana-led ‘Your Party’ mailing list, which has started to have local meetings in advance of its founding conference. Added to this, The Green Party – which currently has the same number of MPs as Farage’s Reform Party – has elected a ‘left populist’, Zach Polanski, who is seeking to fight back against the anti-immigrant agenda by linking environmental concerns to class, race, and gender issues.