Chesterton had fought for Britain not Germany in 1939-45, and espoused a form of elitist reactionary politics that rejected the street fighting politics of the 1930s. At first, the National Front insisted on in its non-fascist credentials: its founding chairman A. When an aggressive and non-Conservative right emerged, its supporters had to decide where they stood in relation to the memory of the war. The enemy was the conservative older generation (their parents, the despised politicians), the intention to goad them. When the members of this generation explain forty years on why they had worn the swastika they insist that they were not racist they had no greater plan than to provoke. Rock Against Racism grew in 1977 in the context of a music scene where images of fascism were ubiquitous, reflected in the name of bands (Mick Jones’ London SS), in their music (the bleak and repetitive sounds of Joy Division) and most infamously in the decision of numerous punk acts to wear swastikas: Simon Barker, part of the Sex Pistols’ entourage on Bill Grundy’s Today show, Siouxsie Sioux, Soo Cat Woman, Sid Vicious, Jimmy Pursey of Sham 69, Mark E. The same theme of fascist rebirth could also be seen in Ira Levin’s 1976 novel, The Boys from Brazil. In John Gardner’s 1975 novel, The Werewolf Trace, a conspiracy of former Nazis was hiding from capture in England. Cabaret, starring Liza Minnelli, was released in 1972 and The Night Porter in 1974, with both films exploring the sexualised appeal of fascism. The subject of Frederick Forsyth’s 1972 best-selling novel The Odessa File was a conspiracy of former Nazis travelling between Germany and Argentina. Luchino Visconti’s film The Damned about a family of German industrialists who make peace with the Nazis was first shown in the UK in winter 1969-1970. The war was a constant presence on 1970s TV screens in Dad’s Army, Are you Being Served? and Coronation Street, where adversity would be answered with patriotic singsongs and bitter complaints about the young who did not understand what their parents had sacrificed for them.Īs the 1970s wore on, the conservative nostalgia of those who had lived through the 1940s, of the war films, the boys’ comics and the television documentaries seemed to give way to a fascination with the defeated enemy. Even the pacifist Tony Benn had undergone military service as a young RAF Pilot Officer. The previous Prime Minister Edward Heath had witnessed the Nuremberg Trials. The shadow Home Secretary and pioneer of neoliberalism (or, in the contemporary term ‘monetarism’) Keith Joseph had been an artillery captain. During the war, the chair of the Conservative Party Willie Whitelaw had been a Major in a tank brigade. The same was also true in America and throughout Western Europe: in 1945 and for decades afterwards, the war’s victims did not want to discuss the horror they had witnessed while mainstream politics also struggled to explain the enormity of a conflict in which tens of millions had died.īy summer 1976 – when RAR was launched – those barriers had come down and public life in Britain was dominated by a generation of people who repeatedly used the war as a symbol of the greatness that Britain had once enjoyed but since lost. As Tony Kushner has shown, fascism was a greater presence in British life in the 1970s than it had been even in the immediate aftermath of the war. The starting point has to be the context in which the right of the 1970s was able to grow. This piece considers why the demand periodically arises either for a new Anti-Nazi League (ANL), or for a new Rock Against Racism (RAR), and asks: if there were political forces capable of resurrecting RAR, what would such a campaign need to do? In government, ‘the street’ would be a key weapon in the hard left armoury.’ This seemingly well-meaning tweet needs to be seen in that context. ‘McDonnell believes – and says so – that true democracy is on the streets. Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle, complained that McDonell was plotting against parliament. The ANL pioneered highly influential cultural movements like the Rock Against Racism, which attracted tens of thousands of people of all ages to anti-racist festivals and protests.” The response was predictably partisan: the New Socialist was in favour, Dan Hodges against. Citing the success of Tommy Robinson and Boris Johnson’s Islamophobic likening of Muslim women to letterboxes, the shadow chancellor said, "Maybe it’s time for an Anti-Nazi League type cultural and political campaign. In August 2018, Labour’s John McDonnell called on Twitter and then in a press release for the relaunch of the Anti-Nazi League.
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