On Sunday 4th October 1936, 75 years ago today, the British Fascist Union, led by Oswald Mosley, tried to march through the East End of London, highly populated by the Jewish community. Mosley wanted to march thousands of his Blackshirts through the East End bringing a message of a ” Greater Britain “. Little did Mosley and his ” Troops ” realise the inhabitants of the community were not going to let this scum walk through their streets, 300,000 people congregated to stop this, Anti Fascists mixed with local Jews and Irish, Anarchists, Communists and Socialists all made up the numbers, opposing Mosley. 7000 police officers and the whole mounted section for London were sent to attempt to control the situation and let Mosley and his men march.
The demonstrators were well organised with printed leaflets distributed before the march, so before the march barricades were erected in the streets of the proposed march route to prevent the blackshirts marching. As the police tried to clear the route the were met by resistance from the protestors, sticks, rocks and anything else that could be used as a weapon were used, rotten vegetables, rubbish and chamber pots were emptied on the heads of the police as they moved along the streets ahead of the marchers. Mosley was asked to postpone the march as the riot ensued, he agreed and the fascists were led away to Hyde Park, the riot between the police and the anti fascists raged on and 150 protestors were arrested and 100 or so were injured.
A plaque has bee placed on one of the buildings in Dock Street commemorating the event.
A mural was painted on the side of a building in Cable Street in the ’80’s depicting scenes from the riot.
The reason I have commented on this is for once it fills you with some sort of hope that for 75 years the British public have had the sense to see that fascism is wrong and were and still are not going to put up with them marching on our streets. The British Fascist Union, National Front, BNP, and the new English Defence League, are nothing but bigoted, narrow minded scum, who don’t deserve to walk the earth let alone have a voice, anyone who picks on a person due to their race, creed or colour or sexual preference are no more than cowardly bullies, inadequate pieces of filth who blame their own shortcomings on anyone but themselves.
Fascism has no place in the 21st Century and the more we stamp on these bullies to eradicate this political ideology once and for all, the world will be a better place
Alan Louttit 