South Yorkshire Together for Love, Hope and Unity

by Ci Davis

On Saturday, 28th March, a half-million-strong gathering turned the tide against the politics of division and fear that have become normalised over the last decade.  A greater warmth than that of the spring sunshine was felt.  It was an energy transmitted by people who knew that in coming together to confront racist rhetoric and even violence, that the momentum for those ideas was being undermined in a very powerful way.

When Tommy Robinson gathered a crowd of 100,000 people onto the streets of London in September 2025, many people were rightly fearful of the future and for community cohesion.  Fear has been exacerbated by mainstream attacks on civil liberties, migrant rights, and welfare provision.  

In South Yorkshire, there have been three significant far-right gatherings in the last two years.  One of these led to the attempted arson of a hotel where migrants were being housed as their asylum applications were being investigated.  That was a wake-up call for many people, including the trade union movement as well as many local charities that support migrant and other marginalised communities in South Yorkshire.

The trade-union movement responded by recognising that it was not enough to have banners on demonstrations, but rather there was a need to build an anti-racist movement within workplaces and connected to local communities.  The Together Alliance was formed as a broad alliance of trade unions, political parties, NGOs, civil society institutions, faith leaders, celebrities, businesspeople and everyday folk.  The purpose was to come together for a day in love, hope and unity, to offer a very different vision of a society that rejects division, violence, and scapegoating.

As dawn broke on Saturday morning, people from across South Yorkshire gathered to board coaches and travel down to London for the biggest anti-racist march to take to the streets in decades.  By mid-day half a million people from across the country congregated in Hyde Park waiting to a march to Whitehall.   

I travelled down on a coach from Barnsley and Rotherham with my partner.  When we stopped at Tibshelf Services, we were joined by four coaches from Sheffield, along with others from across the North.  The coaches were organised by the Sheffield Trades Council and four trade unions, the City of Sanctuary, Stand up to Racism, and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign; and the National Education Union had even booked a train carriage!   We knew then that the day was going to be big and that love was definitely going to be stronger than hate.

When we arrived, we found a crowd that was diverse and which comprised the very young to the very old.  People of all nationalities, faiths, and political allegiances (or none).  Or we just came as ourselves, with our friends, communities and families.  Members of the Woodcraft Folk sat on a large yellow parachute having a picnic while waiting for the crowd to start moving.  DJs had solar-powered rigs keeping spirits lively with dance vibes.  Samba bands beat out a pulse to provide the march with rhythm.  And scattered throughout the crowd were banners welcoming diversity, migration, and the skills that people from across the world have brought to our economy; notably, the 20.4% of NHS staff who come from overseas.

It took almost 3 hours for the back of the march to set off, by which time the front had reached Whitehall and were listening to speeches from celebrities, politicians and religious leaders.  What was clear from nearly all of the speeches was the recognition that it is years of austerity and wealth inequality, which has been getting steadily worse, that needs to be addressed.  It is obvious why people who are turning to the far-right are doing so, but they are scapegoating the victims and allowing the perpetrators to continue to damage the fabric of society.

Whilst migrants are being blamed for the hardship so many people are experiencing, the reality is that it is the accumulation of wealth by a very small minority that is the cause.  Two recent reports have shown that the wealthiest 0.001% control three times more wealth than half of humanity combined and that billionaire wealth is increasing three times faster than average.  

Therefore, the largest cheers were for the many calls for a wealth tax on the multi-millionaires and billionaires in order to put money back in the pockets of ordinary people, who are forced into choosing between heating and eating, and into funding our deteriorating public services. 

The day had shown that there is a way forward through collectively coming together and refusing to be scared, refusing to scapegoat refugees, and refusing to ignore the real cause of the discontent that people feel.  Now the task is to use that energy to rebuild our communities together.  There are things that we can all do, such as registering to vote and using our vote for positive change.  

Throughout history, ordinary people have known that unity is strength and have felt the damaging consequences of allowing divide and rule to go unchecked.  There will be differences of opinion over how to respond to the problems that we face, but everyone on the march realised that the only way to address them is by facing them together. 

 

References

Boffey, D., & reporter, D. B. C. (2025, September 16). How huge London far-right march lifted the lid on a toxic transatlantic soup. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/sep/16/far-right-march-london-transatlantic

Gregory, A., & editor, A. G. H. (2024, February 12). Record one in five NHS staff in England are non-UK nationals, figures show. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/12/record-one-in-five-nhs-staff-in-england-are-non-uk-nationals-figures-show

Oxfam. (2026). Resisting the Rule of the Rich. Oxfam.

Vinter, R., & correspondent, R. V. N. of E. (2026, March 28). Thousands march against far right in London in biggest ever multicultural protest. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/mar/28/london-far-right-march-biggest-ever-multicultural-protest

WIL. (2025). World Inequality Report 2026 Executive Summary. World Inequality Lab.