London Socialist Historians Group
Media Release
28th February
Contact Dr Keith Flett @kmflett
Historians say Home Secretary’s demand that Gaza protests stop has echoes of Peterloo
The London Socialist Historians Group, which organises the socialist history seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, has said that a call by Home Secretary James Cleverley in the Times (28th February) for Gaza protests to stop has authoritarian overtones which echo the period after Peterloo in 1819.
The Peterloo Massacre on 16th August 1819 in Manchester saw troops on horseback attack a peaceful crowd protesting for the vote. Tens were killed and hundreds injured.
In the wake of Peterloo came the Six Acts which restricted the right of public meetings and protests.
The historians say that the Government of the day simply could not understand what was one of the first modern mass protests and could only think of dispersing it and then trying to ban any repetition
Gaza protests have taken place across the UK since October 2023 but the London ones have been especially large with many hundreds of thousands attending. They have been peaceful with few arrests given the size.
James Cleverley says the point has been made but he has clearly not heard it, as the focus has been on an immediate ceasefire in Gaza which the UK has persistently failed to vote for at the UN
London Socialist Historians Convenor Dr Keith Flett said, in a democratic society it is not up to the Home Secretary to call a halt to peaceful protests because, just as 200 years ago at Peterloo, he simply cant understand them.
Flett continued, the Six Acts in 1819 did not of course stop protest but led to a period before the 1832 Reform Act when many historians think Britain came close to revolution
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