Mark Perryman revisits 1936 when anti-fascism was the cause home and abroad

‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts!’  The notorious Daily Mail headline is just one chilling indication of the very real threat Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists posed in the mid 1930s. Inspired by the successful rise to power of Mussolini in Italy and Hitler in Germany, Mosley sought to galvanise support via a combination of naked anti-Semitism and brute force. By 1936 he was attracting both well-heeled establishment support and thousands to his rallies where any protests would be dealt with violently and without scarcely any intervention by the police. Continue reading →