The socialist legacy of the Battle of Cable Street

It is important for socialists today to understand how antisemitism and fascism were defeated in East London in 1936, writes APSANA BEGUM MP

Middle East / 25 September 2026 Israeli right votes to bar Arab and leftist parties from elections 25 September 2026 An attack on parties and lawmakers before elections represents an open appeal to a racist and fascist agenda argues the left. AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports

The suppression of the Stitch Their Names Together project in Leeds, in the wake of memorials around 9/11 begs the question – whose names matter, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

MARK SEDDON follows in the historic tracks of William Cobbett with his own rural ride through the Herefordshire countryside

Zack Polanski is taking on Labour’s Sagal Abdi-Wali in a contest shaped by Gaza, housing and the fallout from Keir Starmer’s collapse. ANDREW MURRAY reports

Long-term resistance to the US attacks on Venezuela must begin by protecting the people’s lives and not squandering them in a senseless sacrifice, argues JOSE A AMESTY RIVERA

IN just a week’s time, on October 4, thousands of people in East London will commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street, when the Jewish community and allies stood together to march off Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts.

This commemoration takes place every five years, and this year it will start at 12 noon with a procession from Tower Hamlets Town Hall to the Cable Street Mural.

I believe that we, as socialists, trade unionists, and anti-racists, can still look to the events of that day for how we can overcome struggles of the present.

The truth is, 90 years on we are once again seeing the rise of antisemitism in Britain, with synagogues being attacked, and violent hate crimes committed against Jewish communities, particularly those in north London and Manchester. The anniversary of last year’s Heaton Park terror attack, which took the lives of Adrian Daulby and Melvin Cravitz, will be marked on the same weekend as Cable Street’s 90th anniversary.

Across Europe, far-right parties are gaining ground in elections, while at home we are confronting an electoral force alongside a racist, thuggish street movement that targets refugees and minority communities.

So, what can be learned from the historic and monumental events of 1936?

We ought to remember that East London at the time was home to an estimated 100,000 Jews, the majority of whom lived in Whitechapel, Aldgate and surrounding areas. 

It was an area with deep-seated deprivation — which Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists (BUF) attempted to exploit to recruit working-class members. 

Their supporters were reported to regularly attack and harass Jews in the East End, accusing them of stealing “English jobs.”

Mosley’s plan was to march through the East End to address the four large BUF branches there. On October 4, 4,000 fascists descended upon East London — protected by 7,000 police. 

Many of them on horseback, police attempted to clear the Blackshirts’ route into the East End — first at Aldgate, then Whitechapel, and then finally at Cable Street.

The police chose to protect the self-declared fascists as they incited racial hatred. 

They cracked anti-fascists’ skulls with their truncheons and charged them with horses, but they were repelled time and again. Forced to withdraw at Cable Street, they eventually instructed Mosley to retreat west.

And, we should remember, all of this came after the then-home secretary rejected a 100,000 strong petition from Eastenders calling on him to ban the march. On the day, his police arrested just six fascists, compared with almost 80 anti-fascists, who they accused of being the ones instigating the violence!

Grassroots rebellionOthers, including the Labour Party leadership, urged members to stay away from Cable Street that day. Thankfully their members at the grassroots defied orders and continued to organise and mobilise.

As the daughter of migrants who moved to East London, I feel it’s all too important to consider how community solidarity and resistance continued in the aftermath.

The anti-fascists of 1936 built on the battle to form a confident, united mass movement. Campaigning hard ahead of local elections the following year, they managed to keep Mosley’s fascists out of local seats. 

Initiatives such as the Stepney Tenant’s Defence League were pivotal in uniting the Irish and Jewish communities which Mosley had attempted to divide.

Jews stood with Irish Catholics and vice versa, against evictions and exploitation by landlords.

They made clear that their struggle was a class struggle, and this cut away at the remaining support for the BUF’s antisemitic politics in East London.

I also reflect on the fact that many of those present at the Battle of Cable Street recalled witnessing Orthodox Jews, Irish dockers, Somali seamen and more, standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the face of rising fascism. They knew well that an injury to one, was an injury to all.

This should serve as an enduring inspiration. As the historian, educator and author David Rosenberg reminds us, the anti-fascists at the Battle of Cable Street did not have a blueprint but left us one, with their sheer courage. Community solidarity and collective action have guided anti-racist struggles in London’s East End ever since.

East London’s Bangladeshi community, its youth movements, socialist and trade unionist allies, mobilised in response to the racially motivated murder of a 24-year-old textile worker, Altab Ali, in 1978. 

In the 1990s, a coalition of women and people from working-class backgrounds drove the BNP out of Tower Hamlets.

In more recent years, the English Defence League has been marched off Whitechapel, while Ukip and their attempt to launch a “crusade” into East London targeting our community and mosques were driven away last October, and pushed off again in January. 

Generation after generation of Eastenders have had to confront attempts to divide our neighbours, to target, attack and intimidate us, or to spread fear in our communities. Later that year, in 1936, the government passed the country’s first Public Order Act — barring the wearing of political uniforms and requiring police consent for marches to go ahead, despite having consented to Mosley’s march in the first place.

The passage of that act has been built upon in recent years with successive government’s policing and anti-protest measures. The powers created under these laws, which are positioned as necessary to protect our communities, are often being used to censor and repress, to increase surveillance on minority communities and to clamp down on anti-racist, climate, and global solidarity protests. We must remember that the Battle of Cable Street, which is now seen as a milestone of social progress, was only deemed “civil” in retrospect.

When hotels have been targeted by arson attacks, when pogroms are happening this year in Belfast and elsewhere, and in recent weeks far-right groups have mobilised to harass and intimidate refugees and the RNLI, we must look to each other for protection. As in 1936, we know that cross-community solidarity is vital and invaluable.

We must come together as socialists, anti-fascists, as Jews, as Muslims, as people of all faiths and none, to reaffirm that racist politics are to be rejected entirely. To say that migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers all deserve dignity, safety and belonging.

So next month, on the October 4, join us in East London to stand together at Cable Street once again to mark the history, legacy, and values of all those brave people who stood together, 90 years ago and say, as they did then: No Pasarán! They Shall Not Pass!

Apsana Begum is the Labour MP for Poplar and Limehouse.

Policing / 7 September 2026 Far right Patriot Platform block migrants in Portsmouth, no arrests made 7 September 2026 Anti-fascist victory / 4 August 2026 Battle of Cable Street committee call for mass turnout for 90th anniversary 4 August 2026 Features / 23 May 2026 Building a new Cable Street generation 23 May 2026 Through marches, music, schools and political debate, campaigners in Tower Hamlets are using the 90th anniversary of Cable Street to inspire resistance to modern racism. GLYN ROBBINS explains

Anti-Racism / 23 October 2025 Tenconi’s Ukip is not welcome in Whitechapel 23 October 2025 Once again Tower Hamlets is being targeted by anti-Islam campaigners, this time a revamped and radicalised version of Ukip — the far-right event is now banned by the police, but we’ll be assembling this Saturday to make sure they stay away, says JAYDEE SEAFORTH