Thanks to Ash Sarkar for her article on mobilising against racism and the far right (This isn’t just a culture war – we need a radical anti-fascist movement right now, 21 August). She is absolutely right that the task is urgent and cannot be postponed.

Those of us who helped to found the Anti-Nazi League and want a stronger movement now additionally agree with her that “pop culture alone won’t save us from racism”. The Anti-Nazi League did make use of carnivals and gigs as one of a range of methods of engaging young people and breaking from some less imaginative campaigns that had previously existed. But the base of the movement was relentless campaigning in communities and workplaces as well as confronting Nazi marches and demonstrating against racism. Housing estates and workplaces were leafleted; teachers, car workers, civil servants, miners, dockers, schoolkids, the LGBT community, skinheads, vegetarians and many more formed their own groups against the Nazis (there was even Skateboarders against the Nazis) taking on the arguments about fascism and racism everywhere. We need a similar combination of political and cultural activity today.

We believe that over the past few years Stand Up to Racism and Unite Against Fascism have begun this process but this clearly needs to be deepened and extended to confront the unprecedented and growing challenge we now face from the far right. So when, as seems very likely in the next few weeks, Tommy Robinson and his European and US backers announce a major event to rally his supporters, Stand Up to Racism will be inviting all organisations and individuals to come together to organise the widest possible support for a united counter-demonstration. We very much hope they will join us at our international conference against the rise of the far right on 20 October in central London. We also welcome Love Music Hate Racism’s exciting plans following in the footsteps of Rock Against Racism, with artists, music labels and managers for major cultural initiatives. As Ash Sarkar rightly says, there is no time to lose to defeat the far right.

Lord (Peter) Hain

Founding member, Anti-Nazi League

Paul Holborow

Founding member, Anti-Nazi League

Weyman Bennett

Co-convenor, Stand Up to Racism

• Chris Hughes’s claim (Letters, 23 August) that imposed postwar Commonwealth immigration and imposed EU free movement immigration are the provocation for racism, takes us back to the numbers game of the 1960s and the argument that it is the presence of foreigners that creates racism. The fact that a Guardian reader felt legitimised to represent such a dangerous argument demonstrates just how much territory has been ceded to Powellite frameworks and how little understanding there is in the UK today of the popular, institutional and structural elements of racism.

Liz Fekete

Director, Institute of Race Relations

• We, the undersigned alumni, fellows and current members of Balliol College, Oxford, note Boris Johnson MP’s recent comments and behaviour – in particular, his inflammatory remarks on the wearing of the burqa and his exchanges with far-right activist and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. We consider this behaviour to be an opportunistic move designed to appeal to the worst elements of nationalist, xenophobic and Islamophobic feeling in this country – at a time when such feeling, thanks at least in part to the leave vote in the EU referendum, for which Mr Johnson himself campaigned – is on the rise.

This behaviour by a senior member of the Conservative party is not only unpalatable to anyone who wishes to live in a tolerant, peaceable society, but also potentially dangerous for the continued functioning of the UK as a liberal democracy and as a welcoming society for people of all creeds and races.

Balliol has a proud tradition of tolerance, political activism, and open debate. The college welcomes students of all races and nations. Mr Johnson’s recent actions are not in accordance with this tradition. Therefore, we wish it to be known that we, as members of Balliol past and present, hereby dissociate ourselves and the proud name of our college from Mr Johnson.

Ruth de Haas (née Connelly), Ben Cooke, Farrah Jarral, Radhika Rathinasabapathy, Sarah Roberts, Claire Ferguson, Fabien Curto Millet, Jenna Frost, Dr Lucy Neville, Amira Tharani, Katy Islip, Emma Eckered, James Pearson, Catherine Sebastian, Mark Thakkar, Rhiannon King, James Gordon Wilson, Rachel Farlie, Adam Killeya, Estelle Torre, William Herbert Newton-Smith, Nancy Mendoza, Sarah Nightingale, Thomas Reuben Sharples, Johannes Haushofer, Thomas Foster, Tabatha Pinto, Thomas Wall, Anthony James Ash, Dylan Behr, James Rollinson, Helena Hawthorn, Aaron Leung, Joshua Cherniss, Michael Spencer, Sudhir Hazareesingh, Edward Swann, Nathaniel Charlton, Duncan Shepherd, Rahul Rao, Clare Butterworth, Tom Davidson, Rachana Ramarao, Adam Turnbull, Michelle Madsen, Sinead King, Emma Whale, Anna Hufton, Alexander Luck, Vidur Bhatia, Gareth Smith, Eilidh Fairfoul, Aisha Simon, Matthew Fuller, Andrew Blades, Hannah Shearer, Jonathan Turnbull, Dr Kylie Murray, Helen Davies, Adrian Kelly, Emily Dixon, Amy Kennedy, Ryan Diamond, Georgia Toynbee, Holly Harrison-Mullane, Ian McFarlane, Timothy Allsop, Calum Jacobs, Asha Banerjee, Dr Louise Whiteley, Helen Turnbull, Will Jones, Rachel Evatt, Adrian Nightingale, Helen Steward, David Vines, Ramanan Navaratnam, Armin Reichold, Lydia Straszim and Felix Heilmann



• As a teenage football fan in the 90s I devoured the C4 show Football Italia. My childhood heroes of Kenny Dalglish and Ian Rush were joined by the likes of Roberto Baggio, Allessandro Del Piero and Francesco Totti... and for a short while Gazza when he gatecrashed the party by joining Lazio.

And so it was, watching Lazio v Napoli in the Stadio Olimpico last Saturday, that my boyhood bubble burst when for the first time I sat in a football crowd where monkey noises were being made at black players. I couldn’t believe it at first but one or two touches later from Napoli’s Koulibaly confirmed it.

Looking around the stands, trying to gauge others’ reactions to the monkey noises (no one was batting an eyelid by the way), it suddenly dawned on me that there were only white faces in the crowd. Rome’s multicultural population was not welcome at this match.

In the same week I fell out of love with Italian football, the UK’s anti-racism campaign Kick It Out was celebrating its 25th anniversary. I hope it doesn’t take Italian football a quarter of a century to clean up its act but I fear change at Lazio isn’t around the corner.

James Hunting

London

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