Category: anti-fascism
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Media Bits on history of fascism and anti-fascism in australia
Over the holiday break, our book, Histories of Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Australia, was published. Last week there were two bits of media coverage relating to the book. The first was an article in the Sydney Morning Herald by Peter Hartcher on the history of Australian fascism, including a few quotes from me. The second…
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New book on history of fascism and anti-fascism in Australia is now ready for pre-order
This is just a quick announcement that the book that I have co-edited with Jayne Persian and Vashti Jane Fox, Histories of Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Australia, is now available for pre-order. The book is part of Routledge’s Fascism and the Far Right series and will be out in December 2022. If you order at…
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‘Fascists don’t obey debating club rules’: The National Organisation of International Socialist Societies and ‘No Platform’ in the 1970s
While researching my book on the history of ‘no platform’, there were some things that I was unable to touch on in the book and some of the documents that didn’t get included in the final draft relate to the National Organisation of International Socialist Societies, the student organisation of the International Socialists/Socialist Workers Party…
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The Workers Revolutionary Party and the Anti-Nazi League
This was originally posted on my Patreon here. A scan of the pamphlet discussed below can be found here. In mid-1978, the Workers Revolutionary Party published a pamphlet titled The Anti-Nazi League and Fascism, based on articles written for their newspaper, Newsline, by Jack Gale. The WRP, led by Gerry Healy, was an orthodox Trotskyist…
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The BNP and the hijacking of the Free Speech Society at Leeds University
In the House of Commons yesterday, the Tories’ Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill was debated. Labour MP Alex Sobel, who attended Leeds University, told the story of Mark Collett and Chris Beverley, who were BNP members that tried to overturn the ‘no platform’ policy at Leeds in the early 2000s, via the Free Speech…
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Southall 1979 pamphlet
Today is the anniversary of the police riot in Southall on 23 April, 1979 when police attempted to break up a demonstration against the National Front outside Southall Town Hall. There were numerous injuries and over 300 arrests, while one protestor, Blair Peach, was killed. Recently declassified files reveal much more about what happened at…
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Media platforms and social media deplatforming: Some history and context
With the decision by Twitter and Facebook to deplatform Donald Trump and other far right accounts, as well as on-going debate about the reporting on the far right by the media, I thought I’d post this excerpt from book, No Platform: A History of Anti-Fascism, Universities and the Limits of Free Speech. While it is…
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The ‘Battle of Cable Street’ and the Origins of ‘No Platform’
Tomorrow (October 4) is the anniversary of the ‘Battle of Cable Street’. This post, adapted from my book, looks at how this event in 1936 influenced anti-fascists and the student left in the 1970s in their adoption of the ‘no platform’ policy and tactic. ‘No platform’ emerged out of a much longer anti-fascist tradition in…
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The book is out!
I am very excited to announce that my book, No Platform: A History of Anti-Fascism, Universities and the Limits of Free Speech, is out now! You can order the book from here. Until 31 May, the paperback edition is 20% off and the e-book version is 35% off. Review copies can be ordered here. I am…
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Maoists and Eysenck at LSE, May 1973: Disruptive protest and the prelude to ‘no platform’
On 8 May, 1973, the controversial psychologist Hans Eysenck attempted to deliver a lecture at the London School of Economics, but faced heavy protests from students. A group of Maoists stormed the stage and assaulted Eysenck. Alongside a sit-in the following month to protest a lecture by US academic Samuel Huntington at the University of…
New Historical Express 