Thread

Today is the anniversary of ‘The Battle of Stockton’, and if you’ll indulge me I’ll explain what that was and why it’s important we remember and learn from it.

Some of you might know the date 4th October 1936 and ‘The Battle of Cable Street’ as being a major anti fascist action where thousands of ordinary working people flooded the streets to block a march by Oswald Mosley and his fascists.

Whilst this is rightly famous it was by no means the first time this kind of direct resistance to the British Union of Fascists had been carried out. Three years earlier 200-300 fascist descended on the small industrial Teesside town of Stockton in the North East of England

The plan was to emulate the Nazis and their growth through grass roots agitating in areas that had suffered great economic hardships. This was to be a show of force march and rally designed to attract more people to their cause. The fascists bused in from all over the North

Delightfully, the people of Stockton weren’t in the mood for right wing wazzocks wandering about their town and a ‘welcoming committee’ of 2000-3000 was organised to greet the Blackshirts. After heckling the fascists as they gathered things quickly descended into street fighting

Reports claim that weapons included pick handles (ah industrial towns and their heavy tools), rocks and razor blades.

The anti fascists ( #antifa) beat the BUF back to their buses. A hiding they didn’t learn from leading to another massive humiliation 3years later on Cable Street

One thing worth noting in all this is the tactics the fascists used. They purposefully preyed on vulnerable people who had been on the rough end of economic hardship. I was made keenly aware of this whilst doing some background research for a project I’ll be doing in Shoreditch

I kept finding references in newspapers from the 30s to people being arrested for anti Semitic actions. Given the fact I had always associated the area with Cable street and mass resistance I found this fascinating

Then I discovered that the branch headquarters for the BUF was right in the heart of the streets I’d been looking at

Fascism acts like a cancer- once it’s in a community if it goes untreated it festers and spreads and kills everything good and beautiful.

I think this is important to remember because- well here is a picture of Oswald Mosley and here is his flag flying in Trafalgar Sq last week

Just a quick aside- the Shoreditch headquarters building was flattened in the war by a V1 rocket- make of that what you will

It’s up to everyone to be vigilant and push back on these hate filled predators. How you do that is down to you, I just wanted to show you what worked in the past. Also as an archaeologist I’m always willing to take a lead from the good Dr J

To end on high here is a link to the excellent @theyoungunstrio song The Battle of Stockton

And just because it’s a banger here is @theyoungunstrio Cable Street as well

For more information follow @BOScampaign