On October 4th, 1936, following days of frantic, last-minute organisation, a crowd of over 100,000 protesters congregated in London’s East End. Their single aim was to prevent the passage of 5,000 black-shirted supporters of Sir Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists (BUF), who a week earlier had announced plans to march through the area to mark the fourth anniversary of his party’s formation. Despite the best efforts of the police to clear a path for the procession, the protestors stood resolutely firm. Left with little other choice Mosley conceded defeat and disbanded his followers. Around 80 anti-fascists had been arrested, at least 73 police officers injured – but most importantly, the Fascists did not pass.

The demonstration has come to be seen, particularly on the political left, as the moment London’s working class united en masse to reject fascism’s hateful ideology once and for all: ‘The spectacle of the workers in action gave the Fascists reason to pause’, claimed Ted Grant, a participant in the demonstration and later an influential socialist thinker. ‘It induced widespread despondency and demoralisation in their ranks ... [and] the East End Fascist movement declined.’ Cable Street is still invoked in today’s fight against the extreme right, with the Unite Against Fascism pressure group describing it as a ‘turning point in the struggle against Fascism in Britain’. The battle also holds a proud place in the collective memory of the Anglo-Jewish community, described by one historian as ‘the most remembered day in 20th-century British Jewish history’.

Like Mussolini’s Fascist Party, upon which it was modelled, the BUF had initially paid little attention to what it described as the ‘irrelevant’ Jewish question. Although the movement contained individuals who favoured an antisemitic policy, Mosley’s aim was to create an outwardly reputable political party. As such, he permitted violence only when it...