No more war, no more fascism: the message of Cable Street

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TODAY’S Cable Street demonstration was a powerful reminder that capitalist crisis always produces malign symptoms of decay and disintegration.

Passing through streets which were once thronged with Jewish and Irish migrant workers it today saw Bangladeshi restaurateurs handing out free bottles of water to thirsty marchers.

East London has always been the first place for refugees fleeing persecution or colonial citizens seeking work in the capital of empire.

Within yards of the capital of capitalist financialisation, today’s march brought a message that fascism will never again be allowed to command the streets.

When Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists wanted to march through this working-class area they needed an army of police to force away through. The workers of east London gave a powerful demonstration of class power that saw the police commander tell the aristocratic would-be fuhrer that it was not possible for the coercive apparatus of the state to guarantee passage.

British fascists of this era thought they would inherit state power in the manner that Mussolini in Italy and Hitler in Germany took the helm as a gift from their respective bourgeoisies who feared working-class power as the devil fears virtue.

Today, in our country and mostly in other bourgeois democracies, this is not path even the fearful of bankers and bosses regard as necessary.

At this moment, deep though the crisis of our capitalism is, the threat of revolutionary change that might negate capitalist relations production is not present in their calculations.

But preparations for war are advanced, with suggestions that a war with Russia is contemplated by important sections of the propertied classes.

One consequence of war preparations is inevitably a drive to ramp up arms production. If the profits that accrue from such production are to continue the existing stock must be used up.

We are in a situation where Britain is tied into an EU-brokered agreement to increase “defence” spending by buying US manufactured armaments.

So much for the Chancellor’s “military Keynesian” economics.

It works for Trump. But not for working people here or in the US.

Our problem is that opposition to war inevitably invites repression. The ban on Palestine Action is an early warning that this remains a constant and present danger.

The minor fascist fractions worship war but they, at present, are a problem dealt with by united action.

When the state is mobilised to give them a strategic advantage we are in dangerous territory.

The fight against war, when successful, is always a setback for reaction.

No more war, no more fascism was the slogan of the popular front against fascism. It is the message that rang again in the streets of east London.

The Metropolitan Police are not daft. They know that the Cable Street commemoration was both a recovery of our past and an important statement about the present. When some disruptive elements — ersatz “anti-fascists” — gave notice that they wanted to join the march, the Cable Street commemoration leadership made their opposition to such provocation a “red line.”

The police, disingenuously perhaps, said they would not police ideological disputes.

Our organisers said that unless this matter was resolved the police would have a public order situation to handle.

The march turned left at Aldgate East to traverse the site of the original battle and the threatened provocation did not materialise.

Never underestimate the capacity of the state to anticipate a situation dangerous to the myth of an impartial state standing above conflict.

Cable Street at 90 / 4 October 2026 ‘We must learn the lessons from 1936’ 4 October 2026 Burnham told his government must improve the lives of the working class or risk fuelling a ‘fascist fire’

Cable Street at 90 / 3 October 2026 Patient work on class issues can help turn the tide against the far right 3 October 2026 One of the lessons highlighted by the anti-fascists of the 1930s is that confronting fascism physically and ideologically must go hand in hand with solid alternatives on the social and economic issues that affect its supporters, argues GAWAIN LITTLE

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