Remembering Cable Street
Dear Posterity
This Tuesday marks the 75th anniversary of an extremely significant, but largely forgotten incident in British history, an incident which quite possibly altered the direction of the entire twentieth century. The incident was what history recalls as The Battle of Cable Street.
1936 was a year of great uncertainty. The world economy was in the tank, there was political unrest internationally and The Daily Mail was reporting that immigrants were taking English jobs and undermining the English way of life. (Alright, I haven't actually checked on that last point, but the Mail has always been fairly consistent in its editorial policy.) Sound familiar at all?
Enter, stage Far Right, Sir Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists. Now history tends to regard Mosley as a slightly pathetic, almost comic figure, a sort of failed English Hitler-wannabe, but bear in mind Posterity, that but for some shrewd politics and a lot of back-street thuggery, Germans might today have considered Adolf Hitler in the same way, a pathetic, comedic German Mussolini wannabe.
In 1936 Mosley was on the ascendant. Wealthy, very well-connected in the establishment, (and at the time there were many in the upper-classes who would not have been dismayed by a Fascist government,) dashingly handsome and a charismatic demagogue, Mosley was a master of dog-whistle populism.. All he needed was to generate publicity for his movement through a show of strength and they'd be winning seats in Parliament at the next election.
There has always seemed to me to be a lot of passive-agression involved in Fascism and for the most part, Mosley's Blackshirts came from Fascist central-casting. Lower middle-class aspirational types with chips on their shoulders who think they can win favour from their betters by kicking their inferiors and Mosley, the toff baronet played them like Paganini playing a violin and he planned his big Leni Reifenstal event, a march through the East End to show the working class, the Irish and the Jews where England's real strength was. (And please note, posterity, that I am using the words English and British in very carefully thought out ways. The two terms are not interchangeable.)
And so, on Sunday, October 4th, 1936, Mosely and his British Union of Fascists set out in uniform, (yes, you got a free black shirt if you joined,) to march through the East-End carrying the red and black Fascist flag..
The British Council of Jewry advised people to avoid the march. The British Comunist Party went out and started buying 4"by 2's and the Irish community just continued the ongoing discussion about what to do on Sunday afternoon when all the pubs are shut.
The short story is, on that Sunday afternoon seventy-five years ago, the East End of London eloquently made the point that they were not at home to Mr Fascist.
The truth is that most of the violence took place between the protesters and the Old Bill who were assigned to protect the marchers, but the march was turned back and the images of bobbies taking the punches mostly instead of the Blackshirts pretty much ruined Mosley's show of strength and almost immediately afterwards, Westminster passed a bill banning the wearing of political uniforms, robbing Mosley of the vital theatricality he needed to gain momentum. The British Union of Fascists pretty much withered after that.
You might still consider this a minor footnote in history, and I do tend to think that Britain was never likely to elect a Fascist government, but think upon this: Suppose that march gone as planned, (I bet The Daily Mail would have splashed it across the front page as a triumphal English event.) Suppose that in September 1939, there were perhaps ten BUF MPs, would Chamberlain have declared war or would he have sought further negotiations?
Thanks to the East End of London, we'll never know and we can laugh at England's pathetic failed Hitler.
Okay The Men They Couldn't Hang, play us out.
This Tuesday marks the 75th anniversary of an extremely significant, but largely forgotten incident in British history, an incident which quite possibly altered the direction of the entire twentieth century. The incident was what history recalls as The Battle of Cable Street.
1936 was a year of great uncertainty. The world economy was in the tank, there was political unrest internationally and The Daily Mail was reporting that immigrants were taking English jobs and undermining the English way of life. (Alright, I haven't actually checked on that last point, but the Mail has always been fairly consistent in its editorial policy.) Sound familiar at all?
Enter, stage Far Right, Sir Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists. Now history tends to regard Mosley as a slightly pathetic, almost comic figure, a sort of failed English Hitler-wannabe, but bear in mind Posterity, that but for some shrewd politics and a lot of back-street thuggery, Germans might today have considered Adolf Hitler in the same way, a pathetic, comedic German Mussolini wannabe.
In 1936 Mosley was on the ascendant. Wealthy, very well-connected in the establishment, (and at the time there were many in the upper-classes who would not have been dismayed by a Fascist government,) dashingly handsome and a charismatic demagogue, Mosley was a master of dog-whistle populism.. All he needed was to generate publicity for his movement through a show of strength and they'd be winning seats in Parliament at the next election.
There has always seemed to me to be a lot of passive-agression involved in Fascism and for the most part, Mosley's Blackshirts came from Fascist central-casting. Lower middle-class aspirational types with chips on their shoulders who think they can win favour from their betters by kicking their inferiors and Mosley, the toff baronet played them like Paganini playing a violin and he planned his big Leni Reifenstal event, a march through the East End to show the working class, the Irish and the Jews where England's real strength was. (And please note, posterity, that I am using the words English and British in very carefully thought out ways. The two terms are not interchangeable.)
And so, on Sunday, October 4th, 1936, Mosely and his British Union of Fascists set out in uniform, (yes, you got a free black shirt if you joined,) to march through the East-End carrying the red and black Fascist flag..
The British Council of Jewry advised people to avoid the march. The British Comunist Party went out and started buying 4"by 2's and the Irish community just continued the ongoing discussion about what to do on Sunday afternoon when all the pubs are shut.
The short story is, on that Sunday afternoon seventy-five years ago, the East End of London eloquently made the point that they were not at home to Mr Fascist.
The truth is that most of the violence took place between the protesters and the Old Bill who were assigned to protect the marchers, but the march was turned back and the images of bobbies taking the punches mostly instead of the Blackshirts pretty much ruined Mosley's show of strength and almost immediately afterwards, Westminster passed a bill banning the wearing of political uniforms, robbing Mosley of the vital theatricality he needed to gain momentum. The British Union of Fascists pretty much withered after that.
You might still consider this a minor footnote in history, and I do tend to think that Britain was never likely to elect a Fascist government, but think upon this: Suppose that march gone as planned, (I bet The Daily Mail would have splashed it across the front page as a triumphal English event.) Suppose that in September 1939, there were perhaps ten BUF MPs, would Chamberlain have declared war or would he have sought further negotiations?
Thanks to the East End of London, we'll never know and we can laugh at England's pathetic failed Hitler.
Okay The Men They Couldn't Hang, play us out.
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