NO MORE wake-up calls are needed. Now is the time for action.

Last weekend once again saw far-right disorder in Glasgow city centre, with smaller mobilisations in Taunton and other towns and cities across Britain.

Previous weeks in Glasgow have seen smaller-scale community and neighbourhood protests and disturbances, purportedly on migrant issues and generally fomented by rumour and social media misinformation.

Targeted disturbances of this type are becoming more and more common across the whole of the country. Facebook and Twitter give succour and a wide audience to these poisonous views, already primed by the monopoly and state media.

Working people in poor communities with genuine anger about living standards and public services, left behind and ignored by the state, are being misled and provoked by veteran fascists and online neonazis.

These individuals call these demonstrations under the misleading banner of “protecting our women and children,” despite the lack of any evidence to support their propaganda about migrant rape gangs and the fact that many of these same fascists have convictions for violence against women and child sex offences.

The response of the left and trade union movement has followed the same pattern for years, reactive counter-protests seeking to outnumber and face down the far right when they seek to publicly mobilise.

This is understandable but it is a tactic that, when deployed alone, is failing.

Far-right views have spread and far-right activists have penetrated deeper over the last decade.

Tommy Robinson’s provocations in London have been the largest far-right mobilisations in generations and the left is no longer always capable of outnumbering the far right.

Despite the usual refrain of police protecting fascists, the reality is that often the left would not be capable of forcing the fascists from the street in a confrontation, as we did at Cable Street.

Fundamentally, counter-protests do little to win over working people who have been misled, in fact they are often more likely to harden their position. Separating misled workers from hardened fascists and lumpen elements was a key objective and target of 1930s anti-fascists.

These are hard truths but ones which the movement must acknowledge and adapt to.

So what is the answer and what should be the response of the left?

There are no short cuts, we must get back to basics and we can again learn lessons from the era of Cable Street.

One of the reasons the far right is able to spread its poison in communities is because the left and trade union movement have in many places retreated from organised work and an organised presence in most working-class communities.

Public work and campaigning used to be a day-in, day-out feature in our neighbourhoods but this has receded in recent decades, restricted to city centres or set piece events and online.

The left is too often in a position of parachuting into communities when confronting far-right disturbances.

We can turn this current failing into a positive opportunity to reinvigorate and expand public work in our communities on the bread-and-butter issues of the cost of living, housing, public services.

Working people will trust the people they see campaigning on their street corners week in week out on the issues that affect them and will be inoculated against far-right poison.

This level of regular and dedicated campaigning can be the bedrock of a united front that can root out the fascists and start winning real change and real victories for working people.

The Morning Star can be a powerful tool in this work and in combatting far right and state and monopoly media propaganda.

There are no shortcuts to the dedicated, diligent and consistent work that is needed — and it is imperative we start now.