The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 9th October 2026
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 9th October 2026
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
London comrades joined thousands of anti-fascists marching through London on Sunday to commemorate the Battle of Cable Street that stopped Mosley’s Blackshirts in 1936. Demonstrators rallied outside the 18th-century façade of the old London Hospital, now part of the new Tower Hamlets Town Hall, for a march to Cable Street to honour those who battled with the police to force Sir Oswald Mosley to call off his fascist march through what was then a predominantly Jewish part of London’s East End. On that day, thousands of working people, led by the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and the Independent Labour Party (ILP), rose early from their beds to occupy four key places along the route of a planned march by Mosley and his British Union of Fascists, in order to block its path. Throughout the day they stood firm, despite mounted police baton charges and numerous arrests.
By noon, Gardiner’s Corner was impassable due to the number of anti-fascist demonstrators. Police tried to clear a route through Leman Street – but this was blocked by a tram, deliberately abandoned by its driver.
Police tried to reroute the march through Cable Street. Anti-fascist demonstrators, the vast majority local residents, blocked Cable Street with barricades in three different places. Police fought their way through one barricade, only to be confronted by the second. Eventually the police gave up and ordered Mosley to abandon his march. They escorted him to the Embankment where his followers dispersed.
This was a humiliating defeat for Mosley and it eventually led to a cutting off of vital funds from his main financial backer, the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. The Battle of Cable Street marked a significant turning point in the struggle to prevent fascism becoming a truly mass movement in Britain, as it had done in some other European countries.
Many of the protesters carried banners bearing the slogan “They shall not pass” or “No pasarán”, the watchword of the Spanish communists during the fight against Franco’s fascist legions in the 1930s.
In 2026, the politics of di vision and hate is on the march again. Lessons and inspiration from the past help us in the fight for a fair society in the future.
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn who now leads the Independent Alliance bloc in the House of Commons said he was “proud to join today’s huge march celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street. On this day in 1936, thousands stood alongside the East-end Jewish community to defeat Mosley’s fascists. Their bravery is an eternal reminder: never give in to the far-right.”
Rajan Uddin Jalal, a leading figure in the Bangladesh Youth Movement’s fight against racism in the 1980s and ‘90s, said: “The racists are active again. There is a new form of racism now, there is a new form of fascism which includes Islamophobia. We are here today to campaign against racism, fascism and division within our communities. We want peace for all people, we want to live peacefully, in harmony, in our multicultural communities.”
And Lutfur Rahman, the mayor of Tower Hamlets and leader of the local Aspire party that runs the borough, said the anniversary was an opportunity to remember those who opposed fascism in the 1930s. “Our forefathers said: ‘No, you’re not coming here. You shall not pass.’ And we say that again now: the fascists, the far-right, will never run riot in Tower Hamlets!”
Unite the union, one of the sponsors of the event, has published a book to mark the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street. Working with trade unionists, artists, poets and singers, the book, Cable Street 1936–2026: Not Then Not Now, brings together trade unionists, historians, artists, poets and singers to reflect on the Battle of Cable Street, the fight against fascism elsewhere in the country, and the struggles in the decades since. An A4 gatefold softback with holographic foil to the cover it includes a special Battle of Cable Street 90th anniversary A2 poster by Cold War Steve and copies are available on the Unite national website for £19.36.