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“Kill the Bill” protesters in London, UK. April 3, 2020. Photo: Ziaur Khan / Shutterstock.com
London 1936. In what we know today as the “Battle of Cable Street,” the Metropolitan Police protected Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists against almost 20,000 anti-fascist protesters, including socialist groups, Irish dockworkers, British Jewry and anarchist and trade unionist groups. That day, 3,000 paramilitary “Blackshirts” marched through a Jewish neighborhood. Mounted police charged at a crowd of peaceful counterprotesters, and many of the arrested reported violent treatment at the hands of the police.
Following the events on Cable Street, the Public Order Act of 1936 forced organizers of large protests to obtain prior police permission and gave the police broad powers to arrest people for “insulting or abusive” speech. The ambiguity of the word “insulting” meant that the Public Order Act could be applied in a range of cases.