Between the wars, political extremism was on the rise. During Edinburgh's 1936 local government elections, John Cormack's Protestant Action - violently anti-Catholic - received almost a third of the total vote. John Cormack, Protestant Action, Edinburgh 1930s Voter turnout at the last UK General Election was 65%. For a number of reasons, 35% of the voting population opted-out of the democratic process. Democracy is easily taken for granted as the enormity of the sacrifices made to obtain it fade into history. But such incredible levels of apathy have less to do with any disillusionment with democracy than disenchantment with modern politics. What would Kier Hardie make of expenses-fiddlers, spin doctors and sound-bites? Kier who? Look him up – somewhere below Neil Hamilton, former Tory MP and husband of Christine (third place I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, 2002). The clenched fist in Edinburgh In political terms, the clenched fist has traditionally been the symbol of the firebrand left. In a few weatherworn neuks and crannies in Edinburgh you can see fists stencilled into walls, examples of politicized graffiti dating from the 1930’s. This was a period of often violent social turmoil throughout Western Europe, when mass withdrawal from democracy had catastrophic consequences. But these defiant proto-memes were not the street brand of New Labour’s long-extinct revolutionary socialist ancestors. These were no hands of brotherhood. They represented hate. This was a period of often violent social turmoil throughout Western Europe, when mass withdrawal from democracy had catastrophic consequences. The ink hieroglyphics translated as ‘No Popery’. At a time when Spain, Hungary, Italy and Germany had all experienced right versus left struggles resulting in democracy being snuffed out, Scotland’s working class were engaged in one of their perennial national pastimes: sectarian in-fighting. Mosley visits the Usher Hall Even in the supposedly progressive 21st century, sectarianism remains a politically charged issue. Its various guises were altogether more abhorrent 70 years ago. Like countries across Europe, from France to the Balkans, many Britons harboured extreme right-wing sympathies. The British Union of Fascists (BUF), predecessors of the National Front, British Movement, English Defence League, Britain First, and sundry fellow travellers over subsequent decades, were founded by Sir Oswald Mosley in 1932. An aristocrat and ex-cavalry officer, Mosley had briefly dabbled with socialism, serving in the Labour government of 1929-31. Becoming disillusioned by mainstream politics and admiring Hitler and Mussolini's populist revolutions in Germany and Italy, he set up the BUF (with financial support from Berlin and Rome), aping the faux military uniforms sported by their German and Italian counterparts. Mosley travelled to Edinburgh’s Usher Hall on 1 June 1934 to whip up xenophobia amongst disillusioned Scottish democrats. But the handful of his followers who turned up faced a two-pronged battle against opponents in Lothian Road. Leftist protestors arrived en masse, intent on disrupting the far-right rally. Also mobbing up in Edinburgh's city centre, intent on going toe-to-toe with blackshirts and anti-fascists, were thousands of equally hostile supporters of Protestant Action. The latter had no time for some tinpot English aristocrat aping Hitler's oratory about the world’s evils emanated from Jews. John Cormack, who had founded his own populist political faction, Protestant Action in 1933, had already outlined that culprits’ identity. A fundamentalist Baptist preacher, Cormack shared fascism's venomous desire to divide and rule the proletariat. Eschewing the antisemitism of Hitler and Mussolini, his sights were fixed on a much larger group to scapegoat, the demographic accounting for 10% of the Scottish population. Roman Catholics. Just as poisonous Nazi propaganda sought to blame Germany's Jews for losing the Great War and plunging the country into economic turmoil, Cormack whipped up hostility towards the city's Catholic community, particularly the Irish, Italian and Eastern European immigrants he could blame for stealing jobs and housing from native Presbyterians. Protestant Action had already garnered headlines for stoning buses taking Catholics to an ecumenical event in Morningside. Cormack had a knack for distilling sweeping statements and one-dimensional dogma into slogans and soundbites, borrowing the overacted theatrical oratory of the other dictators hellbent on destroying parliamentary democracy. Hitler and Mussolini, and by extension, Mosley, would have been ideal role models had Cormack not been so immersed in another, wholly unique conspiracy theory, one that pitted him against mainland Europe's fascist figureheads. Protestant Action firmly believed the far-right in Germany, Italy, and Spain to be in cahoots with the Vatican. Mosley's blackshirts attracted limited support on both sides of the border. By 1936, Protestant Action’s most successful year, the British economy was being increasingly geared towards rearmament. European fascism was on the rise, particularly in the wake of Franco’s anti-democracy rebellion during the Spanish Civil War, which the German and Italian war machines had used as a testing ground. When war erupted in 1939, Mosley was interned as a potential collaborator. Social divisions dissolved in the face of the terrifying newsreels depicting Hitler’s Blitzkrieg, a vision of total war where individual Protestant/Catholic rivalries were instantly consigned to the funeral pyres beneath the Stukas and Panzers.
 Emblem of the Young Communist League I remember the Usher Hall riot being described by Blanche, an older cousin of my mum. In her younger days, Blanche had been a member of the Young Communist League, a youth organisation formed in 1921 (which still exists today.) In the 1930s, tens of thousands of their members ventured to Spain, joining the British Battalion of the International Brigades and taking up arms against the fascist uprising. Blanche also remembered an acquaintance who was a Protestant Action sympathiser; she had a habit of clenching her fist in salute and declaring, "No Popery!" Moseley may have died in 1980, Cormack in 1978; ultra-nationalism and sectarianism remain potent as ever. |
MARK FLEMING EDINBURGH | SCOTLAND
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