Hundreds of neo-Nazis, rabid ultra-nationalists, Christian fundamentalists and other racist bigots gathered together on the streets under the banner of “Reclaim Australia” on 4 April. Now they are planning more mobilisations to build support for their violent racist agenda.

A key organiser of the Reclaim Australia protests is Shermon Burgess, known as “the great Aussie patriot”, whose regular YouTube videos illustrate his frothing hatred of Muslims and the “communist menace”.

Burgess was previously a member of the Australian Defence League, an organisation that made headlines in September 2014 when one of its leaders, Ralph Cermina, released a video threatening another Cronulla-style riot. He promised that “mosques and prayer rooms are going to burn”.

Another associate of Burgess, Blair Cottrell, is an unreconstructed Nazi who wants a photo of Hitler in every school and a copy of Mein Kampf given to every Australian student.

At the 4 April rally, Burgess, Cottrell and Cermina stood side by side with other far right figures such as Daniel Nalliah from the Catch the Fire Ministries and the Rise Up Australia Party. Nalliah is hostile to multiculturalism and virulently anti-Muslim. He previously claimed that the Queensland floods of 2011 were God’s retribution for Kevin Rudd’s mildly critical comments on Israel.

While there were differences between the various participants in the 4 April rallies, the feature that binds them together is hatred of Muslims.

This Islamophobia has not emerged from thin air. Anti-Muslim attitudes have been nurtured by the Australian government and its media backers. It is no surprise that more people are prepared to come out onto the streets in racist mobilisations when the Abbott government is loudly promoting police “anti-terror raids” against Muslim communities, raids that are transparently designed to whip up fear and hysteria.

It is no wonder the ranks of the far right Islamophobes grow when major daily papers regularly foreground the “Muslim terror threat”, imply that migrants are disloyal to Australian values and that a hostile Muslim population is growing in the shadows.

The government’s fearmongering is strengthening and emboldening the far right.

This is why it was so positive that in Melbourne there was a sizeable anti-racist mobilisation against the 4 April rally, which confronted the fascists’ attempt to spread hate in the streets. Counter-protests also took place in other cities.

But the fight is far from over. Reclaim Australia has called nationwide mobilisations for 18 and 19 July. There has been a split in its ranks between Burgess (who has created a new group called the United Patriotic Front) and the existing Reclaim Australia group.

The UPF has called a protest in Melbourne on 31 May outside the Richmond Town Hall to take on “Islam in Australia and the aresholes who protect them”. The “arseholes” are “left wing traitors”, in particular the Socialist Party local councillor Stephen Jolly, who they claim is secretly campaigning for the introduction of sharia law!

The UPF sees this protest as a vital building block for larger rallies on 18 and 19 July. Anti-racists need to be out on the streets making it clear that these mobilisations of vile racists will not go unchallenged.

We need to be making it clear that there is a sizeable portion of the Australian population who reject the government’s Islamophobic campaign and everything that comes along with it.