90 years on from Cable Street, the fight against the far right continues

Across East London and beyond, the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street was marked with events and celebrations. In the run up the day the TUC held a packed seminar that focused on the lessons of 1936 for our current fight against the forces of the far right, including a panel with colleagues from French, Spanish and Italian union confederations.  

On Sunday 4 October, 90 years to the day, thousands of people from the local community, trade unions, political parties and campaign groups came together for a loud, vibrant and family friendly march from Tower Hamlets Town Hall to a rally just off Cable Street. There was a very long thread of trade union and trades council banners held high with pride. People united by the call to defeat antisemitism, Islamophobia and all forms of racism.  

It was my privilege to speak at the rally with a message of support and solidarity from the TUC. Here are my six takeaways from the day. 

1. It isn’t just our turn, it is our responsibility 

I come from a political family. I grew up hearing the stories of Cable Street and I am fortunate to have meet some of those who had been there on the front-line in 1936.  

Fighting the far-right is in the DNA of many of us on the march.  

On my dad’s side, in South Africa, my grandma went to prison multiple times in the 1950s during the defiance campaigns against the quasi-fascist Apartheid regime. 

On my mum’s side my grandad worked on refining the design of the Spitfires and Hurricanes that helped give the RAF the edge in the Battle of Britain, much of which was fought out in the skies above Cable Street just 4 years later.   

And my late father-in-law fought with the free Polish forces in North Africa, before becoming a pilot in one of the Polish RAF squadrons.  

But 90 years is a long time, and the generation who were there have now passed. And so it falls to us to make sure that the generations coming after us know about the history of past struggles, in our city, so they can use the lessons in the campaigns we still have to fight.  

2. Vigilance and the fight we must keep winning 

Fascism and far-right ideologies are ideas and we know we can’t kill an idea, but we can organise against those who seek to peddle and profit from those ideas of hate. We must never let our guard down. This is an organising war that we must win again and again. 

We are right to celebrate the victory at the Battle of Cable Street as inspiring, the day the fascists were stopped from marching through our streets. But they didn’t go away, they were still organising in the East End after Cable Street up to and even after the out break of the war. The fight against fascism was a continuum, not a moment. 

And although the fascists didn’t win on the streets of London they did succeed in taking power in Germany, in Italy, in Spain and across much of Europe, despite hard fought resistance leading appalling suffering and millions of deaths. 

In Britain, since WW2, we’ve seen threat of the National Front in the 1970s, the British National Party in the 1990s, and the English Defence League rupturing communities. Each in turn was seen off. 

But today we have new threats on the far right, with new tactics and vast resources. 

So, we must win yet again, responding to the new threats with agility and solidarity. 

3. Big wins are built on the sound foundations of millions of conversations in which trust has to earned 

Defeating the far-right and fascism is only possible if we build broad coalitions, if we take united action and we put in the hard yards in our communities and workplaces. 

That tens of thousands of people turned up at Cable Street and organised to defend their streets wasn’t a fleeting moment.  

The community in and around Cable Street in 1936 had forged their links, their awareness, their trust-relationships, in struggle, over the preceding decades. 

People of different faiths, and none, uniting in the fight for better housing and fairer rents, opposing evictions, fighting for better working conditions and pay.  

Jewish trade unionists who supported the families of the dockers taking action in the strikes earlier in the century received support back from their fellow trade unionists when the Mosley’s Blackshirts threatened their streets. 

A strong working class community standing together when their neighbours and friends were threatened.  

4. We must offer hope and a road map of how to win change 

We need to show people that there are solutions to the acute problems that working people and their families face. We must offer real change and deliver it through collective action. Delivering material wins for working people and their families, and offering a clear vision for a better future for all, will puncture the hate politics of Farage, Musk and Yaxley-Lennon.  

5. The power of rock-solid values and broad coalitions 

We know that within the trade union movement some of our members are being drawn in by messages of hate and division. Our values and principles are strong, but that is not enough. We know that we must listen, talk, educate, persuade and organise. We must win in workplaces and in our own back yard. This is why we launched our Unity Works campaign.

We need stronger unions, stronger union organisation in workplaces, stronger communities with trade unionism at their heart and stronger anti-racism coalitions. The organising work being built around the Together Alliance is an inspiring example of this in action.

Across Europe we watch the far-right make gains, and then be pushed back in some countries. We must stay in dialogue with unions internationally, support analyse and learn. 

6. Only action can defeat far-right populism and fascism again  

History tragically shows that doing nothing because the far-right is not yet attacking you leads to catastrophe.  

Similarly, being right, being principled, but sitting in an armchair doesn’t work either. 

Principled campaigns, committing resources to organising, education, relationship building, broad coalitions, building trust and a million conversations. 

A legacy of the Cable Street Alliance that organised the events 4 October 2026 is a stronger community that is better able to organise against the far-right each and every day in the future, whether online, in workplaces or on the streets. 

Whereever we live we should take pride and strength from our community, stand united, and ensure that ‘they shall not pass’ is a call to action, and never just a slogan.