Max Levitas | >Re-PHOTO

Battle of Cable St – 75 Years On

Battle of Cable St: On Sunday 2 October 2011 well over a thousand trade unionists and anti-fascists celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street when Mosley’s fascists were prevented from marching into London’s largely Jewish East End.

Since 2011 we have seen other celebrations of this famous event and the people of the East End have also come together to stop other racist organisations marching into the East End, notably the EDL.

In 1936 Oswald Mosley led the ‘British Union of Fascists’, an organisation modelled on Mussolilni’s Italian fascist paramilitary groups on a march designed to intimidate the large Jewish community in the East End.

Although various groups tried to get the march banned the Home Secretary sided with the fascists insisting their democratic right to march had to be upheld by the police. The fascists were also supported by the right wing press, particularly the Daily Mail, while more liberal newspapers urged people to stay away from the counter demonstration.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews had condemned the march as anti-Semitic, and they had advised people to stay away from the march as did the Labour Party. The opposition to Mosley was led by local members of the Communist Party of Great Britain including Phil Piratin who nine ears later became Communist MP for Mile End. They eventually persuaded the party to back the counter-demonstration.

Somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000 people turned out to stop the fascists. Many were Jewish, and many were members or supporters of the Communist Party but the call brought out many others from the East End, including “Irish Catholics, Jews, Orthodox Jews, dockers and Somali seamen” in a huge mobilisation across the community.

There are three routes leading into the East End from the City of London where Mosely and people gathered at key points on them, particularly at Aldgate, where most of the fighting between police and protesters took place, particularly around Gardiner’s Corner – where a ten years ago Class War carried out their long series of Poor Doors protests against social apartheid in housing.

Police decided to try and force a way through at Cable Street a little to the south and tried to force a way through the crowds and remove the barricades they had set up.

According to Wikipedia, police managed to take and dismantle the first barrier but the anti-fascists set up another a few yards down the road.

“The police attempts to take and remove the barricades were resisted in hand-to-hand fighting and also by missiles, including rubbish, rotten vegetables and the contents of chamber pots thrown at the police by women in houses along the street … children’s marbles were also used to counter charges by mounted police.”

Eventually the police gave up and told Mosley to march with his followers back to the West End, where they held a rally in Hyde Park rather than those they had intended in Limehouse, Bow, Bethnal Green and Hoxton.

Seventy five years after the battle the crowd was rather smaller, but the well over a thousand who met at Aldgate included several veterans of the 1936 battle, among them 96 year old Max Levitas who led the march and spoke at the rally. He was also there and spoke at the 80th anniversary event in 2016.

The oldest person on the march was 106 year old lifelong political activist and suffragette Hetty Bower who had also been at the 1936 demonstration and was later one of the founder members of CND. I photographed her on several occasions at CND and other protests, the last at the Hiroshima Day commemoration in 2013 where she spoke briefly, a few months before her death.

*Beattie Orwell, 94, was another of the veterans of 1936*

You can read more about the Cable Street 75 event on My London Diary, where there are also many more pictures.
Battle of Cable St – 75 Years

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Cable Street, Fish Island & Hackney Wick

On Sunday 2 October 2011 a march and rally celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Cable St, when when Mosley’s fascists were prevented from marching into London’s largely Jewish East End.

Over a thousand trade unionists and anti-fascists came to march along Cable St remembering the day, including the then TUC Deputy General Secretary Frances O’Grady, and the marchers were led by Max Levitas who had been at the battle in 1936, then aged 21, and remained active as an anti-fascist until his death in 2018, including serving for a total of 15 years as a Communist coucillor in Stepney.

At the rally close to the fine Cable Street mural we were reminded that official bodies including the Board of Deputies of British Jews had advised people to stay away from Mosley’s march and that the local opposition was organised largely by the Communist Party of Great Britain, led by Phil Piratin, who nine ears later became Communist MP for Mile End. As well as large number of local people, both Jews and others, thousands of others opposed to fascism flocked in to defend the area.

An estimated 1-300,000 people gathered at all the roads leading into the East End, determined to stop the march on October 4th by 3,000 uniformed fascists. The fascists waited outside the Royal Mint while 7,000 Metropolitan Police, including their entire mounted section and an autogiro (a primitive form of helicopter with an unpowered rotor) overhead, attempted to clear a route for them.

When the anti-fascists heard the police were trying to force a route along Cable Street, Irish dockers, Jewish tailors and other anti-fascists built three barricades across the street with thousands arriving to stop the police clearing the street. Eventually Mosley abandoned the march and took his supporters back towards Hyde Park.

There were around 175 people injured, men, women and police and around 150 arrests. Most were charged with obstructing the police and received fines, typically of £5, but some thought to be ringleaders were sentenced to three months hard labour.

The event raised public awareness of the British Union of Fascists and led to the passage of the 1936 Public Order Act which prohibited the wearing of political uniforms in public except for ceremonial occasions, outlawed paramilitary organisations, banned offensive weapons at public meetings and gave power to the police to impose conditions on marches and arrest unruly counter-demonstrators. It also allowed the Home Secretary to ban protests in a area where serious disorder was likely and made it an offence to use “insulting words likely to cause a breach of the peace” in public speeches.

Mosley continued to have many supporters in the East End after the battle, and Bethnal Green was one of his strongholds. There were gangs of fascist youths in Mile End who assaulted Jews on the street and smashed the windows of Jewish homes and shops.

Levitas was not the only veteran of the 1936 battle at the event, and there were other veteran antifacists taking part too. The oldest was was 106 year old Hetty Bower, still looking extremely well, and walking with the aid of a stick. Rather younger at 94, Beattie Orwell was still looking very sprightly and had been at the battle at the age of 19.

There were also banners from the Spanish Civil War which was also taking place 75 years ago, as well as those from many trade unions and political groups including those representing the newer communities of the area, with local activists reminding those present of the continuing need to fight against fascism and racism, and in particular the need to oppose the English Defence League, who just a few weeks earlier had attempted to march into Tower Hamlets but had been stopped by a popular mobilisation.

A short distance away in Grace Alley Wilton’s Music Hall, the oldest surviving Grand Music Hall in the world, was hosting a four day programme of events commemorating Cable St with various performances, book launches, exhibitions and stalls, street theatre and music along the alley outside.

Battle of Cable St – 75 Years.

Fish Island, Olympic Views & Hackney Wick

I left Cable Street and took a bus to Bethnal Green, then walked along the Roman Road and and on across the motorway to Fish Island, on my way to visit the gallery space on the top floor of Forman’s, salmon smokers and one of the few local businesses that seems to have done well out of the Olympics.

*Footbridge across the Hertford Union Canal to Hackney Wick*

They had been moved from a factory more or less where the Olympic Stadium was being built to new modern premises on the opposite bank of the Lea navigation, designed and painted salmon pink to look like a lump of salmon and appropriately in the area known from its street names as Fish Island. As well as the smoking plant it also houses a restaurant and a large art space, with views over the Olympic site both from the front of the gallery and the adjoining roof terrace.

After viewing the exhibition and taking some photographs there I walked from Fish Island over the footbridge to Hackney Wick, visiting a lively street market there and then walking along the Lea Navigation towpath to the Westway and back into Hackney Wick for a bus back though the City and on the Waterloo.

More pictures at Fish Island, Olympic Views & Hackney Wick.

2015 March for Homes – Shoreditch to City Hall

2015 March for Homes – Shoreditch to City Hall. A year before the march Against the Housing and Planning Bill featured in yesterday’s post there was another march about housing at the end of January, the March For Homes.

Outside Shoreditch Church

The event called by Defend Council Housing, South London People’s Assembly and Unite Housing Workers Branch involved two separate marches, one coming from Shoreditch in north-east London and the other from the Elephant & Castle in south London converging on London’s City Hall close to Tower Bridge for a final rally.

Max Levitas, a 100 year old communist veteran of Cable St

I couldn’t be in two places at once and chose to go to Shoreditch, partly because I knew people from several groups I had photographed at a number of housing struggles would be marching from there. The event was certainly enlivened by the arrival of activists who had marched from Bethnal Green, including supporters of Class War, Focus E15 and other groups.

Many couldn’t get into the churchyard

The Shoreditch Rally was held in a crowded area in Shoreditch churchyard at the front of St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch, the ancient parish church of Shoreditch, and I took the opportunity to go inside and have a look at the church before the rally. The list of speakers there showed the wide range of community support for fairer housing policies, including more social housing desperately needed in London and included Jasmine Stone of Focus E15, Lindsey Garratt from New Era, Paul Turp, vicar of St Leonards, Nick from Action East End, Paul Heron of the Haldane Society of Socialist Laywyers, Max Levitas, a 100 year old communist veteran of Cable St, a speaker from the ‘Fred and John Towers’ in Leytonstone and Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman.

Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman

Tower Hamlets benefits from having been formed from some of the London Metropolitan Boroughs with the best records of social housing – such as Poplar, where in the 1920s councillors went to jail to retain more money for one of London’s poorest areas. Unfortunately Rahman, the borough’s first directly elected mayor was removed from office in April 2015 after he was found personally guilty of electoral fraud in his 2014 re-election. Many of the other charges made against him in the media were dismissed by police after investigation.

It was raining slightly as over a thousand marchers set off for City Hall behind the March For Homes banner.

As the march came to the junction with Aldgate High St, Class War split off for a short protest at One Commercial St, where they had held a lengthy series of weekly ‘Poor Doors’ protests against separate entrances for residents owning or leasing at market rates and the smaller section of social housing tenants who had to enter through a door down a side alley. Class War had suspended their 20 weeks of protest for talks with a new owner of the building a month or so earlier, but these had broken down without a satisfactory resolution and the protests there restarted the following week.

As the march approached the Tower of London it was met and joined by Russell Brand riding a bicycle,

and on Tower Bridge, Class War came up to lead the march.

I rushed ahead to meet the South London march as it turned into Tooley Street for the last few yards of its march.

The rally in front of City Hall was large, cold and wet. By now the rain was making it difficult to take photographs, with drops falling on the front of my lenses as I tried to take pictures, and my lenses beginning to steam up inside. But I persisted and did the best I could, though the rain-bedraggled speakers in particular were not looking their best.

The rally was still continuing when some of the activists, including Class War and the street band Rhythms of Revolution decided they needed to do something a little more than standing in the rain listening to speeches. They moved onto Tooley Street and blocked the road. More police arrived and blocked the road even more effectively as the activists moved eastwards to protest at One Tower Bridge, a new development mainly for the over-rich next to Tower Bridge and then left for a long walk to the occupied Aylesbury Estate. But I decided it was time to go home.

More on My London Diary:
March for Homes: After the Rally
March for Homes: City Hall Rally
March for Homes: Poor Doors
March for Homes: Shoreditch to City Hall
March for Homes: Shoreditch Rally

October 8th 2006

Back in October 2006, October 8th saw the celebration of the 70th Anniversary of the Battle of Cable St. The battle took place on Sunday 4th October 1936, but the celebrations now take place on the nearest Sunday – which was the 8th. You can see my pictures of the 85th anniversary this year on Facebook.

Some of those taking part dressed in clothes of the 1930s and others carried the letters
T H E Y S H A L L N O T P A S S
though it wasn’t easy to photograph the whole message with them all facing the right way.

Several who took part in the event had been there and played a part in the events in 1936, including Beattie Orwell and Max Levitas (in the group below next to Dan Jones, one of the organisers of the event.)

There were many reminders too that many who fought the fascists on the streets of London (though most of the actual fighting on that day was with the police) went on to join the International Brigades to fight the fascists in the Spanish Civil War, with banners and a flamenco dancer – and there was more music too, including by a Bangladeshi group and a klezmer band.

More on My London Diary Cable St 70th Anniversary

Human Rights, NHS and Gold Mining

Thursday 5th June 2014 was the day of the AGM of G4S, a company deeply involved in the privatisation of prisons, policing, education and other public services and in human rights abuses both in the UK and in Palestine where it helps to run the Israeli prison system. So unsurprisingly a number of groups had come to protest outside the Excel Centre at Royal Victoria Dock in Newham where the AGM was taking place, and there were also a number of people who had bought shares so they had a right to attend the AGM and also to ask questions, challenging the company’s human rights record.

Among the various groups who had come to protest were the Boycott Israel Network, Boycott Workfare, Campaign to Close Campsfield, Corporate Watch, Friends of Al Aqsa, Inminds.com, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Right to Remain, War on Want, Right to Remain and Global Women’s Strike, though as the protest was on a working day, the numbers representing each group were fairly low.

The protesters sang and handed out leaflets to shareholders attending the meeting, giving details of some of the human rights abuses that G4S has been responsible for or is complicit in. There were also apparently some nasty scenes when shareholders were ejected forcibly from the AGM for insisting on asking awkward questions, but the press was not allowed to photograph inside the venue.

I joined a march in Tower Hamlets, which includes some of the most deprived areas of England, where medical staff and supporters had organised a ‘Nye Bevan’ march to ‘Keep Our NHS Public’, walking around the health practices in the borough. Medical practices were able to give a good level of service in deprived areas by the MPIG, the Minimum practice income guarantee, which was introduced for this purpose in 2004 following negotiations between the government and the BMA to recognise the higher health needs of both some inner city and rural areas. In 2014 the Coalition Government announced this was to be scrapped, with one seventh of it removed each year until 2021.

Many leading politicians (and their family members) have financial interests in healthcare companies, and NHS campaigners see the loss of MPIG as a part of the continuing privatisation by stealth of the NHS. Many GP practices are now run by large healthcare services, who lower costs by providing reduced services and diverting money which should be used for serving the needs of patients into providing profits for shareholders.

As the marchers arrived at each medical practice they were met by health workers and patients who came out to support them. Among those at the health centre on the Whitechapel Road was veteran anti-fascist and former Communist councillor Max Levitas, who had celebrated his 99th birthday 4 days earlier. I left before the march finished and the rally to go to the Colombian embassy.

At the Colombian embassy protesters were condemning the vast La Colosa & Santurbán gold mines which endanger water sources in the high mountain regions and could wreck their fragile ecosystems. The London protests on UN World Environment Day and follow protests and carnivals by thousands of people in Ibague, the closest city to the mines as well as in other cities in Colombia. In Bucaramanga the whole city turned out in protests to stop the Santurbán gold mine owned by Canadian company Greystar Resources, and in 2019 there was a protest by 50,000 against the United Arab Emirates backed Soto Norte gold project which would be the largest underground gold mine in Colombia. Gold mining would releases large quantities of cyanide and arsenic into the water supplies of several million people.

The posters were in Spanish as they were aimed at the embassy staff. The Colombian Embassy is a relatively small section of a building just to the rear of Harrods, which also houses the Ecuadorian Embassy, where while this protest was taking place Julian Assange was still in political asylum in their small part of the building, and regular protests were still taking place calling for his release. Unfortunately he was instead handed over to the UK police and now seems likely to die as a political prisoner either in the UK or, if extradited, in the USA.

Colombian Mines – World Environment Day
Tower Hamlets – Save our Surgeries
G4S AGM Protest Against Human Rights Abuses

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