Category: National Front
-
15 June, 1974 – ‘No Platform’ and Red Lion Square
15 June, 1974 saw both an emergency conference held by the National Union of Students on the issue of ‘no platform’ and a counter-demonstration against the National Front in Red Lion Square. The two incidents were a pivotal moment for the emergent anti-fascist movement in Britain. Below is based on a passage from my forthcoming manuscript on…
-
In defence of no platform
Last week I debated Harvard University’s Lawrence Summers on free speech at universities and the tactic of no platform for The Economist. My opening statement was edited for word length, so I am posting the longer version below. The principle of ‘no platform’ is that speakers or organisations that publicly espouse violent, racist or fundamentally…
-
The history of racial violence in Britain: A short reading list
I saw this tweet during the week: Fifteen years ago, I taught a course on collective racial violence in the US. It is the only course I decided to never teach again. #Thread — Walter D. Greason (@WorldProfessor) August 13, 2017 And then tweeted this: Reading this & thinking about what would you include in…
-
New book on British fascism since the 1960s
Just a quick announcement that the Routledge’s series, Studies in Fascism and the Far Right, will be publishing an edited volume by Nigel Copsey and Matthew Worley, Tomorrow Belongs to Us: The UK Far Right since 1967. One of the chapters is by myself on the National Front of Australia and the efforts to build…
-
No Platform documentary on BBC Radio 4 (featuring me!)
Last month I was interviewed about the history of the NUS policy of ‘no platform’ by BBC Radio 4 for a documentary on the subject, hosted by Professor Andrew Hussey from SOAS. It aired on Saturday night in the UK and is now available to listen to on the BBC iplayer. You can find the…
-
The last time the government evoked the ‘British Jobs for British Workers’ slogan
The new Home Secretary Amber Rudd has, in the wake of Brexit, evoked the slogan ‘British jobs for British workers’, which has been used in the past by Gordon Brown in 2007 and by the British National Party and the National Front in the 1980s. While she has been heavily criticized for her statements, this…
-
From Powell to Brexit: My interview with the Weekly Worker on ‘race’, anti-racism and the British left
This week, the CPGB’s Weekly Worker (see here for more info on its background) conducted an interview with me about my forthcoming book, British Communism and the Politics of Race, as well as on my research in general and the anti-racist movement in Britain since the 1960s. You can read the full interview here. It…
-
Theresa May and UKIP: A repeat of Thatcher and the NF in ’79?
While everyone is falling over themselves to make analogies between the Labour Party of the 1980s and that of today under Corbyn (or stressing that it’s not a repeat of that decade), we are also in danger of seeing Theresa May’s time (however long) as Prime Minister through the prism of Margaret Thatcher. In the…
-
New piece at History & Policy: Brexit, imperial nostalgia and the “white man’s world”
This is just a quick note to let people know that the website History & Policy has published a piece by myself and Steven Gray (University of Portsmouth) on Brexit and imperial nostalgia for the ‘white man’s world’ of the former settler colonies. You can read the piece here.
-
Powellism and the advent of the British far right: The Communist Party response
48 years ago this week, Tory Minister Enoch Powell gave his infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, in which he predicted dire consequences for Britain if further immigration from the Commonwealth continued. While criticised by many at the time, Powell’s speech opened up a political space to the right of the Conservative Party, mobilising around the…
New Historical Express 