Detail from Cable Street Mural
I have made a point of annually remembering that on this day 4th October, 1936, the histotric Battle of Cable Street when Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists attempted to march through the predominately Jewish section of East London, their goal was to intimidate the local Jewish population and promote their racist and fascist ideology. Instead thousands of local people organised by trade unionists and community groups put up barricades and turned out in large numbers to stop the march.
This became known as the “Battle of Cable Street”. in which the people of the East End inflicted a massive defeat on Mosley’s British Union of Fascists that must never be forgotten.
During this time Britain was facing very serious economic problems, with a climate of mass unemployment and economic depression, and far right forces were intent on using this in order to exploit division and stir up hate. Oswald Mosley, a former member of Parliament known for his public speaking skills, founded the BUF in 1932, and within two years membership had grown to 50,000. Mosley's fascists held vile anti-semitic views and tried to blame Jews for the cause of the country's problems. Throughout the mid 1930s, the BUF moved closer towards Hitler’s form of fascism with Mosley himself saying that “fascism can and will win in Britain”.
The British fascists took on a more vehemently anti-Semitic stance, describing Jews as “rats and vermin from whitechapel” and tried to blame Jews for the cause of the country's problems. Mosley’s blackshirts had been harassing the sizeable Jewish population in the East End all through the 1930s. By 1936 anti-semitic assaults by fascists were growing and windows of Jewish-owned businesses were routinely smashed. Hurrah for the Blackshirts!’
The notorious Daily Mail headline is just one chilling indication of the very real threat Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists posed in the mid 1930s.
As the fascist movement developed, so too did opposition to it. Led by Communists, socialists and trade unionists the anti-fascist movement grew, supported also by Liberals and some anti-fascist Tories.
However, those who interrupted fascist meetings found themselves dealing with unprecedented violence from Blackshirt thugs.
The notorious Olympia meeting of 7 June 1934 came to symbolise Blackshirt thuggery. After the Daily Worker posted the location of the West London meeting, a number of anti-fascists attended, intending to disrupt the meeting.
Hecklers were beaten by gangs of Blackshirts armed with knuckledusters and other weapons and thrown into the street. The BUF was roundly condemned by the mainstream and the violence of the meeting effectively ended Mosley’s pretence of respectability.
Whilst the first Jews came to Britain following the Norman Conquest of 1066, the Jewish community of London’s East End mainly comprised of families that had arrived between 1881 and 1914.
Many of these families settled in England after fleeing antisemitism and murderous pogroms in Russia, Poland and many other Eastern European countries. They followed previous waves of immigration that had brought Huguenots, Irish and other smaller groups into the area.
By the 1930s some 183,000 Jews lived in London, the majority in the East End due to cheaper rents. Stepney was home to some 60,000 Jews and the heart of Jewish East London.
With its reputation in tatters following Olympia and increasingly under the influence of Hitler, BUF leaders sought to exploit the reservoir of antisemitism in the East End in order to save the party.
By 1936 the BUF was pouring most of its resources into holding meetings in the East End and distributing crude antisemitica. Mob orators such as Mick Clarke and Owen Burke sought to whip up violence on street corners night after night.
As this approach gradually gained support in poor neighbouring areas such as Bethnal Green, Mosley announced he would celebrate the fourth birthday of the BUF by staging a provocative march through Stepney, the heart of the Jewish East End, on 4 October, 1936, following months of BUF meetings and leafleting in the area designed to intimidate Jewish people and break up the East End’s community solidarity.
The British fascists' parade aimed to emulate Mussolini's fascist march in Rome in 1922 and that of the Nazi brownshirts in Germany, as a symbol for them of fascism's seizure of power in the United Kingdom.
Political leaders in the East End then petitioned the Home Secretary Sir John Simon to ban the march; however, their request was denied. On 2nd October, the Jewish People’s Council presented a second petition with 100,000 signatures to request that the march be banned on the grounds that the “avowed object of the Fascist movement in Great Britain is the incitement of malice and hatred against sections of the population.”
Despite these efforts, the British government allowed the march to proceed as planned and assigned 7,000 members of the police force to accompany it. But the East End was having none of it. Jewish communists persuaded their comrades that this must be fought. The Irish dockers who lived among Jews in this deprived area, were willing to help. Fascists were no friend to the Irish immigrants,
They were not welcomed and were met by protestors, waving banners with slogans such as 'They shall not Pass'( no pasaron, echoing the International Brigade’s famous republican slogan against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War. ) , 'No Nazis here' and 'East End Unite.' A huge force had assembled prepared to defend their streets and neighbourhoods and their right to live in them.
Even though uniformed policemen on horseback were employed to allow Mosley's march to pass through, anti-fascists blocked the route by barricading the street with rows of domestic furniture and the police were attacked with eggs, rotten fruit and the contents of peoples chamber pots. Local kids rolled marbles under police horses hooves.
Eventually, after more than 12 hours of nonstop riots, the antifascists succeeded in preventing the Nazi parade through the neighborhood; the British führer Oswald Mosley, who was parading in a convertible like Hitler through central London, was warned by the police that he had to end the Nazi parade because they could not protect him from the antifascists and the police ordered the fascists to disperse, .
The pitched battle was such that they had to set up a medical aid station to treat the wounded from the fight; about 150 demonstrators were arrested, the vast majority antifascists, and 175 people were injured, including women and children, due to the British police's repression in Cable Street and its surroundings, in their fanaticism to protect the Nazis' parade.
Cable Street is now rightly remembered because it saw thousands of people, from many walks of life, women, children, local jews, Irish groups, communists, socialists, anarchists standing firm as one in an incredible display of unity who worked together to prevent Mosley's fascists from marching through a Jewish area in London.
Remembering too the support of the Jewish community in the dock strikes of 1912, Irish dockers stood in solidarity with Jews against the fascists, ripping up paving stones with pickaxes handles to add to the barricades. Together, they won a famous victory and put the skids under Britain’s first fascist mass movement. The fascists did not get to march and they did not pass, and were left in humiliation so today we look back on this living history in celebration and pride.
Two days after the battle, Mosely was in Berlin to marry Diana Mitford. She was one of the celebrity Mitford sisters: six aristocratic socialites who made headlines for their controversial political views, including Diana’s overt fascism. She and Mosley were wed in the home of Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, no less, with Adolf Hitler as the couple’s guest of honour.
Then, in early 1937, the Public Order Act came into force. Among its stipulations was the prohibition of political uniforms, such as the black shirts worn by the BUF. British fascists had been humiliated by the battle of Cable Street, although the BUF membership actually rose slightly in the weeks afterwards, and despite continued provocations and canvassing their political fortunes waned.
But when the threat of conflict with Nazi Germany became more likely, and then inevitable, the BUF were done. Following the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, the Blackshirts were seen as a potential ‘fifth column’ aiding the Nazis from within Britain.
By July 1940, the BUF was declared unlawful and banned. Mosley advocated for peace terms with the Third Reich. This went nowhere, and barely two weeks after Winston Churchill became prime minister in May 1940, Mosley was interned under Defence Regulation 18B. This authorised the British government to detain those suspected of undermining the nation’s war effort without trial.
Hundreds of fascists met the same fate as Mosley, among them his wife Diana, a fanatical supporter of the Nazis. She was incarcerated 11 weeks after giving birth to their second son, Max, and the couple spent much of the war behind bars at Holloway Prison.
After the war, Mosley attempted to revive his political career and the fascist cause through the Union Movement, which replaced a need of country-based nationalism with a European nationalism. Mosley’s new party remained extremely antisemitic, denying the atrocities of the Holocaust, but it was unsuccessful. He eventually resettled outside Paris and died in 1980, aged 84.
The anti-fascist message taken up by tens of thousands of people against Mosley and his Blackshirts stands as a significant moment in the history of Britain between the two world wars. It continues to serve as a touchstone for all those united in the struggle against racism to this day.
Significantly, for some people that were involved in the protest, Cable Street was the road to Spain, and many would go on to volunteer as soldiers for the Republicans there. The legend that was Cable Street became the lasting inspiration for the continuing British fight against the fascism that was spreading all across Europe and would eventually engulf the planet in a terrible world war, the event also launched movements for tenant rights, against economic injustice, and in defense of immigrants.
Significantly, for some people that were involved in the protest, Cable Street was the road to Spain, and many would go on to volunteer as soldiers for the Republicans there. The legend that was Cable Street became the lasting inspiration for the continuing British fight against the fascism that was spreading all across Europe and would eventually engulf the planet in a terrible world war, the event also launched movements for tenant rights, against economic injustice, and in defense of immigrants.
The surge in support for Mosley immediately after Cable Street helped convince many, including Communist Party organiser Phil Piratin, that to defeat the BUF they had to tackle the genuine socio-economic grievances exploited by Mosley within the East End rather than simply meet it with physical force.
Working with a network of tenants committees before forming the Stepney Tenants Defence League (STDL), Piratin and colleagues tackled the high rents charged by slum landlords for substandard accommodation. The STDL orchestrated rent strikes aimed at bringing landlords to the negotiating table, winning vital concessions and rent reductions for beleaguered tenants.
Although the STDL was organised by Communists – many of whom were Jewish – they also saved fascist tenants from eviction. The STDL soon extended its work into the heart of the “fascist” East End, particularly areas such as Duckett Street, Stepney. The BUF had done nothing for them.
As a result BUF cards were torn up in disgust. By helping local people overcome their problems and helping them to understand that these were not caused by “Jews” or “immigrants” the STDL proved that it is unity, rather than division, which enables communities to overcome its social deprivation.
The same East End community also rallied around their German neighbours facing reprisals during the second world war and in the 1970s and 1980s they helped defend the local Bangladeshi communities against attacks from the National Front. Today, local communities in the east end organise support for refugees fleeing persecution from all over the world.
Commissioned in 1976 by the Tower Hamlets Arts Project, the artist Dave Binnington drawing inspiration from Spanish muralists and Picasso’s Guernica. Binnington after interviewing many local characters and includong them in the design, started painting a large mural commemorating the battle on the side wall of St George's Town Hall. In 1982, the still uncompleted mural was vandalised with right-wing slogans, after which Binnington abandoned the project in disgust. It was subsequently finished by Paul Butler, Ray Walker and Desmond Rochfort, and officially unveiled in 1983. It has subsequently been vandalised, and repainted, several times.
The mural depicts the events of a very physical confrontation between police and protestors in stunning detail, anti-fascist protestors proudly carrying banners, punches being thrown, a barricade of furniture and an overturned vehicle across Cable Street manned by residents of all ages and ethnic backgrounds, a chamber pot being thrown under the hooves of horses being ridden by baton-wielding police, and fascist with a startling resemblance to Adolf Hitler, looking very alarmed in just his underwear and socks. The mural stands today as a proud powerful symbol of anti-fascism in the East End.
There is much to learn from the Battle of Cable Street about the power that individuals and groups wield in the face of intolerant policies and behaviours when they unite against racism and discrimination. Hopefully by engaging with this history, we can think critically about the choices made by the East End community and its allies in 1936 and then consider choices available to us as agents of change in the face of prejudice and discrimination in our society and communities today.
The Battle of Cable Street is deservedly famous as a crucial moment in the struggle against fascism in Britain. The 90th anniversary today is an opportunity to learn more about the history of that struggle and the wide range of tactics that it used
Cable Street matters because it wasn’t some abstract debate about extremism. It was ordinary people refusing to let fascists intimidate their neighbours.
Today trade unions and community groups will mark the anniversary with a march from Whitechapel to St George’s Gardens. The TUC says the anniversary is not just about heritage, but about organising against racism and the politics of division today.
Ninety years on, the lessons of the antifascist battle of Cable Street have never felt more relevant. remembered as a crucial moment in the struggle against fascism in Britain. Lessons and inspiration from the past help us in the fight for a fair society. Cable Street matters because it wasn’t some abstract debate about extremism. It was ordinary people refusing to let fascists intimidate their neighbours.
In 2026, the politics of division, anti-semitism, racism and intolerance and hate is on the march again. As far right and fascist groups try to grow again. We have to organise to stop them.
Their political vision is impossible to implement without violence and they know this. These are people who are calling for the forced deportation of millions of people who were born here in the UK.
A violent act that would tear families apart, and destroy the very social fabric of some communities that have lived in the UK for generations.
They view “freedom of speech” as a tool to bolster their platform, yet they “dox” and ruin the lives of those who speak against their violent agenda. They view many of our countrymen as less human than they are because they are a different shade to they.
If you think that by simply ignoring their dangerous, dystopian, violent policy plans and vision of the future then you are either one of them - a fascist yourself - or someone who has an extremely poor understanding of who these people are and what they will do to the people around you. Should they be left to spread their cancerous views unopposed, I dont think so.
Reflecting on the conditions that facilitated the rise of fascism in the 1920s and 1930s in his 1945 book, The Open Society and Its Enemies Karl Popper argued that if a society is tolerant without limits, its ability to remain tolerant will eventually be seized and destroyed by the intolerant and to keep a tolerant society safe, that society must keep the right to not tolerate intolerant ideas.
These words are as relevant as ever. There is no reason why we should tolerate the intolerant. The Battle of cable street saw our communities stand together and in one voice said no to this. We need to remember and recommit to these principles as standard.
Today and tomorrow we must still rally around the cry of No Pasaran - They shall not pass. They didn’t pass in 1936. They will not pass in 2026.
W.H. Davies ( 3/7/1871 - 26/9/40 ) The Battle for Cable Street.
You ask me how I got like this, Sir
Well, I don't care to say
But I will tell you a little story
Of when I was in a big fray.
I'm not very well in my old age
And as I sits drinking my broth
My mind goes back to 1936
That Sunday,Otober the fourth.
I was walking down Bethnal Green Road, Sir
just walking about at my ease
When the strains of a famous old song, Sir
Came floating to me on the breeze.
I stoppe, I looked and listened
Now where have I heard that old song?
Then I dashed to the Salmon and Ball, Sir
I know I wouldn't go wrong.
It was the Intenationale they were singing
They were singing it with a defiant blast
And holding up a big banner
With these words: " THEY SHALL NOT PASS"
And we then marched on to the East End
They were five thousand of us , I am sure
And when we got to the Aldgate
We were met by three hundred thousand more.
'Red Front! Red Front! these workers cried
It was a sight I wouldn't have missed
To see these thousands of defiant workers
Holding up their Mighty Clenched Fist.
The police said 'Now move along please,
This is all we ask'
But we said 'No, not for those blackshirts
Those rotters THEY SHALL NOT PASS'
We then marched on to Stepney Green Sir
You could see that this fight was no sham
For there were thousands of and thousands of workers
Marching from Limehouse,Poplar, Stratford and East Ham.
You could see that Mosely wouldn't get through Sir
That our slogan that day was no boast
And I shouted 'Hip Hip hurrah'
And I saw our flag being tied to a lamp post
the children shouted from the windows "O, golly"
For Mosley, no one seemed sorry
But someone had the goodness
To lend us their two ton lorry
We got it over on its side Sir
It wasn't much of a strain
But the police kept knocking our barricade down
So we built the damn thing up again.
The police said we worked mighty fast
As with a hanky their faces they mopped
So we got out our big red banner
And stuck it right on the top.
The police then charged with their truncheons
They charged us, the working class
But they couldn't pinch our red banner
With these words THEY SHALL NOT PASS
I wish you had been there to see it
You would have said it was a ruddy fine feat
How we kept that old Red Flag flying
On those barricades of Cable Street.
So this is the end of my story
And I must get back to my broth
But I hope you will never forget Sir
It was Sunday October the fourth.
Video Ghosts of Cable Street, set to the music of Men they couldn't hang
On the fourth of October 1936
I was only a lad of sixteen.
But I stood beside men
Who were threescore and ten
And every age in between.
We were dockers and teachers,
Busmen, engineers,
And those with no jobs to do.
We were women and children
Equal in union — atheists, Christians, and Jews.
And we had so much to lose.
For with Hitler in Germany, Franco in Spain,
We knew what fascism meant.
So when Mosley came trouncing,
Denouncing the Jews,
To the East End of London we went.
For I’d met refugees, who had fled o’er the seas,
Germans, Italians, and Jews.
And I knew their despair
For what they’d seen there
And I couldn’t let them be abused.
We had so much to lose.
I was only a lad of sixteen.
But I stood beside men
Who were threescore and ten
And every age in between.
We were dockers and teachers,
Busmen, engineers,
And those with no jobs to do.
We were women and children
Equal in union — atheists, Christians, and Jews.
And we had so much to lose.
For with Hitler in Germany, Franco in Spain,
We knew what fascism meant.
So when Mosley came trouncing,
Denouncing the Jews,
To the East End of London we went.
For I’d met refugees, who had fled o’er the seas,
Germans, Italians, and Jews.
And I knew their despair
For what they’d seen there
And I couldn’t let them be abused.
We had so much to lose.
Now 3,000 fascists — their uniforms black —
Had set out to march on that day.
And 6,000 policemen
Intended to greet them
By making clear the way.
But we were there ready —
Our nerves they were steady —
One hundred thousand en masse.
And we planted our feet along Cable Street
And we sang: They shall not pass!
We sang: They shall not pass!
Then all us young lads,
We were sent to the side streets
To stop the police breaking through.
And with swift hands we made strong barricades
Out of anything we could use.
And they came to charge us,
But they couldn’t barge us,
With fists, batons, and hooves.
With as good as we got, we withstood the lot,
For we would not be moved.
We would not be moved.
And, yes, there was violence.
And, yes, there was blood.
And I saw things a lad shouldn’t see.
But I’ll not regret the day I stood
And London stood with me.
And when the news spread the day had been won
And Mosley was limping away —
There were shouts, there were cheers,
There were songs, there were tears,
And I hear them all to this day.
And we all swore then we’d stand up again
For as long as our legs could
And that when we were gone,
Our daughters and sons
Would stand where we stood.
Was the first time I’d heard two tiny words
Said by every woman and man.
Now I say them still
And I always will:
¡NO PASARÁN!
Lyrics and music by Sean Conney
Had set out to march on that day.
And 6,000 policemen
Intended to greet them
By making clear the way.
But we were there ready —
Our nerves they were steady —
One hundred thousand en masse.
And we planted our feet along Cable Street
And we sang: They shall not pass!
We sang: They shall not pass!
Then all us young lads,
We were sent to the side streets
To stop the police breaking through.
And with swift hands we made strong barricades
Out of anything we could use.
And they came to charge us,
But they couldn’t barge us,
With fists, batons, and hooves.
With as good as we got, we withstood the lot,
For we would not be moved.
We would not be moved.
And, yes, there was violence.
And, yes, there was blood.
And I saw things a lad shouldn’t see.
But I’ll not regret the day I stood
And London stood with me.
And when the news spread the day had been won
And Mosley was limping away —
There were shouts, there were cheers,
There were songs, there were tears,
And I hear them all to this day.
And we all swore then we’d stand up again
For as long as our legs could
And that when we were gone,
Our daughters and sons
Would stand where we stood.
Was the first time I’d heard two tiny words
Said by every woman and man.
Now I say them still
And I always will:
¡NO PASARÁN!
Lyrics and music by Sean Conney
