\n<\/p>\n
\u201cT<\/span>he East End of London is the far right\u2019s prime target \u2013 the essence of everything they don\u2019t like. They feel if they can march through our borough with impunity, they can go anywhere. For them, it\u2019s like Wembley (stadium), it\u2019s the ultimate goal,\u201d said Glyn Robbins, co-founder of United East End, an anti-far right coalition of community organisations.<\/p>\n In the East End, the historically working-class neighbourhoods in the shadow of the City of London, there\u2019s a feeling that history is repeating itself. It was 89 years ago this month that local people, many of them British Jews, drove out Oswald Mosley\u2019s Blackshirt militia from Whitechapel in the East End, in what has become known as the Battle of Cable Street.<\/p>\n In the decades since, the National Front, the BNP and the English Defence League have all tried to carve out a foothold in the East End. In 2025, communities are fighting back against the hard right yet again.<\/p>\n <\/span>The Brick Lane curry festival in September to celebrate East London\u2019s history of migration.<\/span> Photograph: Kois Miah\/Tower Hamlets Council<\/p>\n This week, rather than attempting to escort protesters, as they had in Mosley\u2019s day, London\u2019s police stopped the hard right UK Independence Party (Ukip) from staging a \u201ccrusade on Whitechapel\u201d in the borough of Tower Hamlets, where 40% of the population is Muslim and 14% were born in the EU. The Metropolitan police said the ban was to prevent \u201cserious disorder.\u201d<\/p>\n It comes weeks after Tower Hamlets council passed a motion that said flags were \u201cimportant emblems of patriotism and pride\u201d, but condemned \u201coutside far-right agitators \u2026 attempting to import division into our borough,\u201d particularly on the Isle of Dogs, where the far-right BNP won a council seat back in 1993.<\/p>\n Furious far-right influencer Tommy Robinson tweeted the photographs of nine British Muslim councillors to his 1.7 million followers, saying: \u201cHere\u2019s a list of the names and faces of Tower Hamlets council for some perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n The government\u2019s decision to place asylum seekers at Britannia International Hotel in Canary Wharf, Tower Hamlets has attracted intense anti-migrant protest since the summer, including from a group called the Pink Ladies who say they are concerned about safety.<\/p>\n While this weekend\u2019s Ukip march has been stopped, counter-protesters still plan to gather in Whitechapel on Saturday. Dave Rosenberg, who has run walking tours through the East End since 2007, including on local anti-fascist history, will be among them.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we owe it to our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents to continue that struggle in the East End,\u201d said Rosenberg, 67.<\/p>\n <\/span>Dave Rosenberg.<\/span> Photograph: Martin Godwin\/The Guardian<\/p>\n For Rosenberg, the ban on the march was a \u201cdouble-edged sword\u201d \u2013 \u201ca relief to the most targeted communities\u201d, but also \u201cgiving wider and wider powers to police to say who can demonstrate and where\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a very direct parallel with the 1930s,\u201d he said. In 1936, the Public Order Act was introduced to inhibit Mosley\u2019s British Union of Fascists. Mosley\u2019s wasn\u2019t the first anti-immigrant movement to target the area \u2013 back in 1901, the British Brothers\u2019 League (BBL) launched itself with a 1,000-strong rally in the East End, with the slogan \u201cEngland for the English\u201d and targeting Russian and Polish Jewish migrants.<\/p>\n <\/span>A pedestrian crossing near the Britannia International Hotel in Canary Wharf.<\/span> Photograph: Isabel Infantes\/Reuters<\/p>\n For Rosenberg, the repeated battle against the far right in the East End reflects two different visions of working-class life \u2013 one diverse, the other homogenous.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s this sense that those organisations have had, from BBL to Ukip today, that this is \u2018our territory\u2019\u2026 and people are invaders and encroaching in our territory,\u201d Rosenberg said.<\/p>\n Last week, Safia Jama, the 47-year-old CEO of the charity Women\u2019s Inclusive Team, was chairing a Stand Up to Racism meeting when it was disrupted by rightwing protesters.<\/p>\n <\/span>Safia Jama.<\/span> Photograph: Martin Godwin\/The Guardian<\/p>\n \u201cI did not feel safe. I never ran out of somewhere so quickly,\u201d she said. When she was a young girl, her father was attacked in Tower Hamlets and left disabled as a result.<\/p>\n The community has seen \u201chuge achievements\u201d since: Brick Lane and Spitalfields have experienced profound regeneration \u2013 and gentrification \u2013 and Canary Wharf is a leading financial centre.<\/p>\n While 62.7% of all residents in employment are in managerial or professional occupations, the borough has the highest rate of child poverty in the country, with about 27,000 people on the housing list, and about 15,000 people in overcrowded homes. With a median age of 30, it is the youngest borough in England and Wales, as well as one of the UK\u2019s most socially and ethnically diverse areas.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is our home. We\u2019ve made it our home,\u201d Jama said. \u201cWe\u2019ve invested tears, sweat, blood, whatever it might be, we\u2019ve really worked hard to create an environment that is beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n But for months, tensions have been simmering in Tower Hamlets, as rightwingers have made its diversity the centre of a culture war.<\/p>\n <\/span>Anti-fascist protest in Tower Hamlets in August.<\/span> Photograph: Anadolu\/Getty Images<\/p>\n The latest escalation began in February, when Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Lowe tweeted about dual language signs in English and Bengali at Whitechapel tube station.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is London,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThe station name should be in English, and in English only.\u201d Elon Musk replied: \u201cYes\u201d.<\/p>\n By June, Robinson was complaining about bilingual children in Whitechapel, adding \u201ca district once synonymous with Jack the Ripper and the Kray twins and home to the nation\u2019s true cockneys, now this.\u201d<\/p>\n Lutfur Rahman, Tower Hamlets\u2019 British Bengali mayor, described the online attack as \u201cdespicable\u201d. Rahman has defied controversies to lead the borough repeatedly since 2008, with progressive social policies.<\/p>\n All primary and secondary schoolchildren enjoy free school meals, the borough provides university bursaries and the education maintenance allowance for working-class teenagers and is investing, the leadership says, \u00a3700m in council homes, funded by \u201ctaxing wealth, and high business rates for big business\u201d.<\/p>\n Rahman said: \u201cIn the late 1980s and early 90s, parts of the borough were no-go areas for people of colour. Since then successive leaders have invested in the people of the borough \u2013 and it\u2019s worked well for us. We have over 300,000 people, we don\u2019t want anyone to feel left out.<\/p>\n \u201cNow, 90% of our residents say they get one with each other. I grew up in this borough, our white neighbours helped my mother, helped me when my father went to work. My mum couldn\u2019t speak English, it was our neighbours, the community spirit of the East End, that got us through those difficult days in the 70s and 80s.\u201d<\/p>\n In September, the borough hosted a festival to celebrate this legacy, in a direct response to Robinson\u2019s \u201cunite the kingdom\u201d rally in central London. New dual language signs were unveiled on the town hall \u2013 the restored former Royal London hospital \u2013 a snub to Lowe and Musk.<\/p>\n Pearly kings and queens, a steel band, Celtic dancers, klezmer musicians, Bengali, Somali and Chinese acts performed and told stories of the East End through the ages, while a curry festival took place on Brick Lane, events attracting 25,000 people over two days.<\/p>\n \u201cThe truth is, in the midst of all rancour and in the midst of all uncertainty, there is hope,\u201d said Rev James Olanipekun, co-chair of the Tower Hamlets interfaith forum. \u201cWe are united and we are together.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>James Olanipekun.<\/span> Photograph: Martin Godwin\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Living in the borough has not been without incident for Olanipekun. Once, a brick was thrown at his wife\u2019s car. \u201cI didn\u2019t look at it, I said nothing. After all, I was insured,\u201d he said with a laugh.<\/p>\n \u201cRacism has a long history and Tower Hamlets, we\u2019ve had a particular variant of it,\u201d Robbins, a university lecturer who has seen off numerous far-right marches since United East End was created in 2010. \u201c(But) now, what they\u2019re saying is being echoed by the government, or the government in-waiting.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cThe East End of London is the far right\u2019s prime target \u2013 the essence of everything they don\u2019t like. They feel if they can march through our borough with impunity, they can go anywhere. For them, it\u2019s like Wembley (stadium), it\u2019s the ultimate goal,\u201d said Glyn Robbins, co-founder of United East End, an anti-far right<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[898,8305,2171,145,3068,17882],"class_list":{"0":"post-30518","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-east","9":"tag-farright","10":"tag-fight","11":"tag-history","12":"tag-londons","13":"tag-repeating"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}