Contact: contact@communitysolidaritystrouddistrict.org
Community Solidarity Stroud District will hold a Public Meeting this Wednesday 4th October from 7.30-9.30pm at The Trinity Rooms on the subject of “Conspiracy Theories, the Far Right and The Light” paper.
The meeting follows the “Racism isn’t funny” open letter and protest by Community Solidarity Stroud District (CSSD) held in opposition to a recent “comedy show” by Katie Hopkins, in which they highlighted the controversial figure’s history of association with far-right organisations. CSSD has previously challenged the content of “The Light” a free paper handed out in Stroud High St and elsewhere around the country. The group formed in January 2022 when it highlighted an article defending someone convicted of “inciting racial hatred” for violent threats towards Jewish people on Holocaust Memorial Day that year. It has since written about and handed out leaflets challenging what they see as homophobia and transphobia, climate denial, anti-women attitudes, and the promotion of the far-right in the paper.
Denise Needleman from Community Solidarity Stroud District said: “At our public meeting we will be exploring the rise of the far right globally, in Europe, and in England. Here in Stroud we’ve been exposing and challenging the promotion of far-right organisations and ideas – including antisemitism, homophobia and transphobia, and anti-women attitudes in “The Light” for over 18 months now. The consistent denial of climate change and attacks on climate justice activists in the paper are also of concern to us. We look forward to discussing how we can tackle these issues in our community.”
The main speaker at the event, alongside members of CSSD, will be David Renton, a barrister and antifascist writer. David has written several books on the far right, including “Fascism: History and Theory” published in 2020, “Horatio Bottomley and the Far Right Before Fascism” published in 2022, and “The New Authoritarians: Convergence on the Right” published in 2019. Renton received a PhD for his thesis on fascism and anti-fascism in Britain after the second world war.
The meeting is to be held on the anniversary on the Battle of Cable Street – when British Jews, Irish workers, trade unionists and left wing groups formed an anti-fascist counter-demonstration to a march by Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists in 1936 through the East End of London – which had a large Jewish population at the time.
More details are available on the Community Solidarity Stroud District website.
Community Solidarity Stroud District 