Apsana Begum MP: speeches

Speeches

• 14 Sept 2026 · Battle of Cable Street: 90th anniversary · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to lead this Adjournment debate. Let me say at the start that another colleague wants to speak, and I will take two very short interventions from Members I have had conversations with before the debate. Next month, on 4 October, thousands of people from east London will be marking the 90th anniversary of what is commonly known as the battle of Cable Street, when the Jewish community and allies stood together to march off Oswald Mosley and his blackshirts. The victory is held up today as a high water mark for so many causes, including anti-fascism, grassroots Jewish activism and cross-community solidarity. It echoes from 1936 to the present in so many ways. Antisemitism and hate crimes are again on the rise in Britain. Just last week, a man was charged after making a Nazi salute outside a synagogue. Of course, we must never forget the victims of the recent antisemitic attacks in north London—including the stabbings in Golders Green earlier this year—and the abhorrent Heaton Park terrorist attack a year ago, which took the lives of Melvin Cravitz and Adrian Daulby. We are also seeing the return of far-right and racist agitators who seek, much like Mosely, to exploit the struggles of working-class people in this country and sow hatred, intolerance and division. In the UK, migrants and asylum seekers are a sharp target. The anti-migrant pogroms in Belfast were just one among many chilling incidents of racist violence in recent months.