Justice Minister Sarah Sackman has called for a renewed politics of solidarity as Britain marks 90 years since communities in London’s East End stood together against Oswald Mosley’s fascist Blackshirts.
The Labour MP for Finchley and Golders Green said the lessons of the Battle of Cable Street remain highly relevant at a time when extremist and sectarian forces are again trying to divide communities.
In October 1936, Jewish residents, Irish dockers, trade unionists and other local communities joined together to prevent Mosley and his supporters from marching through the East End.
Sackman said their resistance represented a form of Britishness in which people from very different backgrounds defended one another’s right to belong.
Writing on the anniversary, she argued that Britain now needs what she described as a “progressive patriotism” capable of standing up to both far-right and Islamist extremism without demonising entire communities.
Progressive patriotism
Sackman drew on her own family history, including Jewish grandparents who lived in London and a Spanish grandmother who experienced the Spanish civil war.
She also pointed to examples of solidarity in her own constituency.
After the Somali Bravanese community centre in Barnet was burned down in 2013, Finchley Reform Synagogue opened its doors to members of the Muslim community.
Years later, members of the Somali Bravanese community supported the synagogue following an attempted arson attack.
Neighbours standing together
Sackman said such acts demonstrate that communities do not have to share the same religion, culture or history to defend one another.
Her intervention comes amid heightened concern about antisemitism, anti-Muslim hatred and the growth of extremist politics.
As Minister of State for Courts and Legal Services, Sackman argued that government must respond firmly to violent threats while also resisting attempts to turn security concerns into wider hostility towards entire groups.
She said patriotism cannot simply be defined by what Britain opposes and must instead offer a positive account of the country people want to build.
That means, in her view, defending security and the rule of law while promoting fairness, tolerance and a shared national identity strong enough to accommodate difference.
Sackman linked that message to Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s call at Labour conference for a country built around “solidarity, not separation”.
Ninety years after Cable Street, her argument is that its central lesson remains unchanged: extremist movements are strongest when communities are divided, and weakest when neighbours choose to stand together.
