TODAY some 500,000 members of the National Education Union, PCS, Aslef and UCU will join together on picket lines and protests across the country to demand a decent wage and respect amid the cost-of-living crisis. 

They are also striking to defend education and the other services they provide to the public. 

On the same day we will be supporting the TUC’s demands to defend the right to strike in the face of the government’s latest round of attacks on our ability to organise effective industrial action. 

Every picket line and every protest will show the multicultural nature of our society with workers from different backgrounds and religions uniting to resist the government’s attacks.

But amid today’s action and alongside the government’s attacks on the trade unions we are seeing a systematic attempt to divide and rule our side. 

The ongoing attempts by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Home Secretary Suella Braverman to scapegoat refugees and migrants are at the centre of the government’s agenda. 

Alongside her championing of the “Rwanda Plan” to offshore asylum-seekers Braverman’s rhetoric has become so provocative that Holocaust survivor Joan Salter was forced to confront her to outline how her statements could open the door to the far right. 

The treatment of child asylum-seekers, now disappearing from Home Office care in large numbers — to who knows what fate — has become a national disgrace.

A rag-tag of fascist groups are now targeting hotels where refugees are finding refuge — receiving legitimacy for their actions from our own government. 

Across Europe the huge consequences of this kind of behaviour are being played out with racist and fascist groups entering government and receiving growing electoral support. 

This government has even reneged on the pledges it made in the wake of the Windrush scandal.  

The government clearly believes that we have a “weak flank” and that if it continues with the attacks on refugees, migrants and other communities we might start to blame others — and not the government — for the present economic crisis.

Sunak’s recent election broadcast made a direct link between overcrowded NHS wards and those few people crossing the Channel in small boats — Braverman even described this as an “invasion.” 

But the crisis in our NHS, our schools and other public services isn’t caused by those desperate enough to cross the Channel in the ice cold of winter. 

As the saying goes, our opponents are not those who cross in small boats but those who sail in luxury yachts. While we take action we have to organise to oppose all attempts to divide us. 

On Saturday February 4 I will be speaking at the Fighting for Anti-Racist Workplaces conference organised by the TUC and the campaign group Stand Up To Racism.

The event, at Soas University London, is part of the build-up to the #ResistRacism protests set for Saturday March 18 in London, Glasgow and Cardiff. 

The conference will hear key activists from across the trade union movement debate how we can develop anti-racist work in our unions and workplaces and maximise the turnout from our unions on March 18. 

With this government vilifying trade unions and refugees and migrants in the same breath, it’s time for us to mobilise the anti-racist majority on the streets — we want to see strikers, refugee solidarity and faith campaigners standing together on that day. 

We are facing a massive challenge in the present cost-of-living crisis. We can only meet that challenge if we fight for unity on our side.

Of course we want to win our members better pay and conditions. Of course we want to defend our public services. But we also have to reject attempts to target the most vulnerable sections of our society and oppose any attempt to break our unity.