London: working class world city
In the first week of March both the London Evening Standard and the Telegraph ran front page headlines alleging that London is a ‘no go area for Jews’. Both were inspired by hard to far right sources determined to sow division and hate
While cases of anti-Semitic abuse are on the rise in London, as are cases of Islamophobic attacks, the headlines will have come as a surprise to the large and varied Jewish populations of Stamford Hill and Tottenham. I live in the latter area and wandering around as one does earlier the week people were going about their usual business quite unhindered.
The City of Cable St in 1936 that saw off a fascist march aimed at Jews and the Battle of Wood Green in 1977 that did the same 40 years on has a proud record of opposing hatred. That may explain why it has a London Mayor who is a Muslim, who of course is hated by the far right.
The London is anti-Jewish BS is of course aimed at Palestinian protests which invariably feature large Jewish contingents. It’s an inconvenient reality that most media just can’t handle.
It is however all a bit odd given that the same political hard right that is now peddling the London anti-Jewish line has spent the last few years going on about the North London Metropolitan Elite. Code for left-wing Jews and definitely anti-Semitic
David Olusoga wrote (Standard 3rd October 2023) that ‘the centrality of the capital has made it the postal child for resentment at England’s demographic and political power’. While that is undeniably true it’s not the whole picture.
London is also a working class city. It’s here we find of course the HQs of most trade unions and the Labour Party mirroring the power structure of capital. But it’s a city with an organised working class and a labour movement.
As Eric Hobsbawm wrote in his essay on Labour and the Great Cities (New Left Review 1/166) London became and remained a Labour stronghold after 1923 when it elected 20 per cent of the national total of Labour MPs’.
As a labour movement activist and socialist in London for almost 50 years now I’d also note that the London labour movement has echoed that of capital containing people from all over the UK who have come to work in London and indeed people from all over the world who have done likewise and are one of its great strengths.
In London the power of capital is faced by that of organised labour but tempered by the reality that just as the City has areas of great wealth it also has areas of very significant poverty. It’s important to capture all the dimensions here
Dr Keith Flett is a Convenor of the London Socialist Historians Group, born in North London and resident in Tottenham
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