A fine old British tradition...
Today's demonstration by anti-fascists at Westminster immediately conjures up images of East London in the 1930s, when Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts were involved in frequent clashes with locals.
Peter Mandelson's grandfather, Herbert Morrison, was at the time a Labour MP and leader of the London County Council. He made this speech at an anti-fascist meeting in Victoria Park in 1936, which has eerie resonance today. He said
that Fascism appeared to triumph in circumstances of economic decay and dissolution on the one hand and weakness in parliamentary and democratic leadership on the other. When chaos and depression obtained in economic and political affairs Fascism got its maximum chance, not upon its merits, but as a last straw for people who could see no hope otherwise.
On the way to the meeting, demonstrators had marched past the local Fascist headquarters in Green Street, where they greeted by shouts of "Heil, Mosley," and "the throwing of bags of flour and soot and a number of eggs from the roof of a house".