Attending Unite Against Fascism's (UAF) national conference the first Saturday of March turned out to be an interesting experience. With serious Labour party hacks away in Birmingham for spring conference the 400 or so attendees were assorted other folk. There seemed to be a genuine mix of ages and ethnic groups present but the local situation in London loomed large.

The main message impressed upon us time and time again was the threat, so graphically posed on the cover of the last edition of Progress magazine, of possibly one - and maybe as many as three - BNP assembly representatives being elected this May in the capital. They only missed out by a whisker last time round and with the implosion of UKIP we may not be so lucky this year.

At the opening plenary the point was much made how for ‘Muslim' in racist folklore today we can substitute ‘black and Asian' before or ‘Jews' further back. The TUC's Brendan Barber alluded to the current BNP tendency to wear suits quipping, ‘they may wear Armani but their inspiration is still Mussolini.' MPs Emily Thornberry and Jon Cruddas highlighted the anti-women tendencies of the BNP and Dagenham experience respectively. Warmest response of the morning however was reserved for mayor Ken Livingstone who underlined the solidarity shown by Londoners in the face of the 7/7 attacks whereas in other world cities rioting would have followed.

This is a grim year of anniversaries for the anti-racist struggle. We were reminded in a lively session on organising music and anti-racism that it is 30 years since the 1978 battle of Lewisham stand-off between the then National Front and anti-racist protesters that gave rise to the first Anti-Nazi League carnival of that year in East London's Victoria Park. People with memories stretching further back will note that it was in 1968 that Enoch Powell uttered the shameful ‘rivers of blood' that got him exiled from mainstream politics and sealed his reputation as the nation's best known racist politician.

Regarding more recent history, next month will mark the 15th anniversary of Stephen Lawrence's murder by a racist gang who to this day remain free - despite the best efforts of the unlikely ally of the Daily Mail. I remember marching with thousands of others in autumn 1993 to get the BNP ‘bookshop' in Welling that fronted their operations shut down.

Anti-racism today is just as relevant as in any of these earlier eras. But we need to go further than simply having the ‘right', ie correct, groups on our Facebook profiles and make sure that we keep the pressure on the fascists and drive them from county hall and the town halls in which they have a presence, which the documentation in the accompanying conference pack demonstrated is an alarmingly high number across the country.

In London things start with ensuring that we encourage everyone we know, assuming they are decent democracy supporters, to vote so that a high turnout makes any BNP vote a drop in the ocean. We also need to encourage people to vote for Ken in high numbers so that the nightmare of fascists holding the balance of power in London and waking up in bed with Boris remains just that - a distant and never realised bad dream.