The Modern British History Podcast

8. Rock Against Racism - with Dr Ieuan Franklin

• Harry White • Season 1 • Episode 11

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I'm very grateful to Ieuan Franklin - lecturer in History and Politics at Bournemouth University - for joining me on this one. In this episode, we talk about the Rock Against Racism movement of the late 1970s. 

  • What was the National Front and why did its followers join it?
  • How did Rock Against Racism get started and challenge the National Front's rhetoric of intolerance and exclusion? 
  • And finally, what have been the enduring legacies of the movement?

We discuss all this and more (whilst also dropping in some late 70s punk and reggae music recommendations to add to your playlist!)

Suggestions for further watching and reading:

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Modern British Political History podcast. So I'm joined by Yian Franklin, who's lecturer in history and politics at Bournemouth University. We're gonna talk about rock against racism. I think there'll be a lot to say with this one, and possibly a bit similar to the one I did with our intern. I think there's gonna be a balance between talking about the history and the politics, but we can also weave in some interesting cultural references. I imagine with this one, yian, before we make a bit of a start, do you just wanna talk maybe a little bit about your research and what you do before we kick off?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thanks very much, harry. I am a researcher and lecturer at Bournemouth University and basically my research interests, particularly like in recent years, are to do with sort of youth culture and social movements. This is a great example of that, because it's where those two things come together.

Speaker 1:

Fantastic, I'm really pleased to have you on and thanks for making the time. So, to kick things off, we've got two main parts to this subject and there's the less pleasant part to talk about at the start, which is about the context in which rock against racism arise and what it was standing against. So could we kick off with some of that? And my first question was gonna be I wrote this down and wrote down what was the national front, and then I wasn't quite sure if it was a was or if there still is an is to it. So could you talk to us a little bit about what the national front was or is and maybe weave a bit of that in as to whether it is still something that's present or if it's very much in the past tense?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's probably safer to say was. But we can talk later about how individuals and maybe factions within the national front have entered into other tendencies and other parties and so on. But the national front itself was a far right fascist party founded in 1967, but it had its roots in an earlier period. Really, its first leader, ak Chesterton, had been an editor of Blackshirt, which was the journal of Oswald Mosley's group, the British Union of Fascists, and basically it sort of formed from a merger of these different groups which had been struggling for impact since that time, since the 30s. So you had the British National Party, the Racial Preservation Society and the League of Empire Loyalists, and it was subsequently. Other groups entered into the national front, such as the more explicitly neo-Nazi Greater Britain movement whose leadership came to dominate the national front.

Speaker 1:

And was it mainly a street movement? So I think people might be more familiar with more recent far right groups like the EDL, which primarily is more of a street populist movement doing rallies, that kind of thing. Or was it more of an actual parliamentary movement, maybe something more like the BMP or somewhere in the middle of those two?

Speaker 2:

It was sort of both really, and I think it's important to say this in that period in the late 60s, that although it had these roots in the 30s, in that period of real political polarization with the rise of Nazism and so on, it came out of nowhere in a way, or at least it appeared to be something new, and in the climate of the time where fears about immigration were being stoked up, there was people across a political spectrum, I think it's safe to say were taken in by the national front, so it's not just purely right wing. One example is the support for Enoch Powell. To some extent there was support amongst trade unionists as well as the national front. It took a while, I think, for people to get to grips with what it was and in terms of going for electioneering and so on, it had some early successes in the 70s and I think it certainly had that street element to it of course, but it managed to gain some momentum through by participating in local elections.

Speaker 1:

It was interesting the point as well about some trade unionists being members, because it reminded me a little bit of a conversation I had with Chris Kirkland where we were talking about that perception that trade unions and trade unionists are always going to be on the left and culturally on the left, but actually that's not necessarily always the case.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean just to mention I was thinking specifically of like when Enoch Powell gave the famous Rivers of Blood speech. There was a march in support of what Powell had said by dock workers in London, not suggesting that they were all members of the national front, but they were a constituency which the national front could try and attract.

Speaker 1:

And does that link to? So I'm thinking about what the big factors are. You said it came out of nowhere, to some extent the national front. What were some of the big factors that caused its rise? And if there's some element of people in trade unions joining, was there some concern about the economy that was feeding into that? Undercutting of wages, loss of jobs Was that part of the cause around its rise?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there was a real increase. It rapidly increased its membership as it got into the 70s. So in 1967, when it formed it initially had, it gained a membership of 4,000. By 1972, it was, I think, 17,500. And I think it's important to remember that this was a period when you had that era of full employment and sort of post-war affluence. It was giving way. It was giving way to sort of recession, unemployment, industrial militancy and in the 70s there was a sort of global economic downturn and I suspect you've talked about this with some of your other guests in terms of the economic climate and the UK being particularly exposed to it, having particular problems of inflation and stagnation. So, like the stagflation I mean the phrase used you had 1 million unemployed around this sort of time when the National Front was sort of really gearing up with their membership.

Speaker 1:

That leads me to thinking about was there a geographical logic to where the National Front were particularly successful? So was it more post-industrial cities and towns, or was it more rural? Or was it more rural? Where was the success mostly found?

Speaker 2:

I think it's fair to say that one thing that was consistent in there fairly consistent they had a presence was in the East End of London and we can maybe talk about some of the factors there. They had particularly a sort of electoral success in one election I think it was 1974, local elections in Leicester. They gained 16% of their vote. I think it was, and which was probably the highest level of success that they had. They had some sort of success in the odd by election and they tried to attract support in the north of England. I think the logic might guide you to think that in places that were suffering from deindustrialisation there was this big support. It wasn't necessarily the case, I think. As they declined, certainly their success in the provinces was very limited and they were sort of retreated really to the East End of London in terms of election hearing.

Speaker 1:

I was to talk and I'm interested in why the East End of London, do you think?

Speaker 2:

There's a lot of potential factors.

Speaker 2:

There's an interesting piece just thinking of the studies of youth culture.

Speaker 2:

There's an interesting piece by a guy called Phil Cohen writing around this sort of time, actually mid-70s, about the rise of the skinheads in the East End of London.

Speaker 2:

He theorised that there were various factors to do with the huge changes basically taking place in this period, a period of huge transformation and dislocation for traditional working class communities.

Speaker 2:

For example, things like the new housing breaking up the existing pattern of settlement in working class communities, the rise of the service industry and so on, taking jobs away from the community. You might go out to work in a factory forwards or whatever it might be, rather than staying in your community and so on. There was also immigration and this, according to Phil Cohen, this led to the skinhead subculture becoming quite tribal and reasserting the particularly territorial aspects of working class community, as it were the emphasis on the local shop, the local football pitch, the local pub and so on, asserting your territory as a gang and that sort of thing as a response to the sort of dislocating changes. I think obviously he wasn't writing about the National Front and not all skinheads were members of the National Front, but I think some of that sort of sociological analysis, if you like, might give you some part of the picture anyway, why the National Front managed to have some sort of success in recruiting in the East End of London.

Speaker 1:

It's interesting about not all skinheads being on the far right. It brings to mind a film. This is England to me, to sort of go into the cultural aspect now, I know Shane Meadows said that part of this ethos of the film is that, yes, there is that problem with the far right, but he was really troubled by it as someone who was a skinhead, I think himself, but didn't go down, and many skinheads went down a very different route, much more inclusive?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely, and the same thing is true of punk, that it was people who were involved in rock against racism said this sort of thing. That punk was very ambivalent as a phenomenon. It could have gone in any direction, and that's an interesting aspect of it, I think.

Speaker 1:

So to bridge to use the musical term, the thing we've talked about and the thing we're about to talk about, what is the relationship between music and politics? Up to this point, or immediately preceding this point, where you have rock against racism, was that link quite strong already? Were there other kind of places, festivals, where that was being made? It would just be good to get a bit of the context, I think.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's always been interesting links between music and politics. But I think, to give you a sense of the 1970s, there was this feeling that rock music was becoming a bit corporate. You had, you know, these huge, huge stars who were thought by some in the younger generation, particularly those who formed punk bands and so on, to be Celos, egotistical yeah, absolutely Celos and egoists and so on. And I think there was felt there was a sort of strong feeling of need to return to the roots of what made rock music and rock music exciting. And you know, you can hear a reflection of that in some of the punk lyrics as well, like the clash London call is saying Phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust and the sense. Basically, that sort of youth culture had sort of lost its way a little bit and it was no longer sort of like exciting or rebellious. In some ways it become a little bit too big. And then the music industry had sucked it up. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I do. I feel that almost goes in waves, doesn't it? That you have a spiky, more political wave of the culture which then gets picked up, doesn't it? And the likes of Adam Curtis, the documentary makers, is always, I think, good on this kind of thing. That then gets corporatized, gets sucked in, becomes just about merchandise, it becomes about the name on the t-shirt, but the kind of political content has been watered down.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think that's the sort of backdrop against which you know the famous story about the founding of rock against racism is basically Eric Clapton did this gig in Birmingham at the Birmingham Moody and in August 1976 it was Eric Clapton was and is known for like his drawing on blues music, obviously, and Robert Johnson, howling Wolfe and John Lee Hookvern on these people. And you know he stopped this gig in Birmingham to advise his fans to vote for, you know, powell and stop Britain becoming a black colony. And he went on this bit of a rant and this provoked a reaction and this photographer called Red Saunders decided to write all the music papers by. The interesting thing about this country is that at the time there was loads of music weeklies who were interested in the relationship between music and politics, actually increasingly than the period. So you had.

Speaker 2:

He wrote to an enemy and you musical Express, that is, sounds melody maker, also to socialist worker, and had this letter published in September 76, where he he said Come on, eric, own up, half your music is black. He said You're rock music's biggest colonists. You're a good musician, but where would you be without blues and R&B? And it ended the letter by saying we want to organize a rank and file movement against the racist poison in music. We urge support for rock against racism. And so this. I think this was like there had been other pop stars who'd who'd said certain things that really riled some people in terms of. I think Rod Stewart had also come out and support me, not Powell. David Bowie had made some very silly and inadvised comments about.

Speaker 1:

Just the whole seeing Hitler as an icon or words.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly, and I think you know, I think he later sort of Apologize for it and I think it was some degree under influence of drugs probably. But when Eric Clapton sort of came out with this, I think it was the last story, and so when Red Saunders had this letter published and said write to us at PO Box, etc. There was a big response. I think there was like about 600 replies in the fortnight following the publication. So it like a huge response really to this letter. And that's sort of where it all started. It started as a really a very small thing and just snowballed.

Speaker 1:

And who? What would be the sort of typical person that might be writing those letters? I suppose would it be music fans who were more on the on the left? Did it go wider than that? What kind of people would be writing in and starting that movement?

Speaker 2:

It certainly went wider than just the left I'd say it was.

Speaker 2:

There were variety of people from all across the country, right and this wasn't just people writing in from London but from everywhere the provinces, wales, scotland, etc. And they I think the people were fed up with with the National Front trying to exploit the issue of immigration, trying to stoke fear basically, and they hated to see racist attitudes in music, and so I think people were sort of writing in on that basis, rather than it certainly wasn't the case that it was sort of activists only writing in. It was a huge cross-section really.

Speaker 1:

OK, then take us on to how it came about, what actually happened next, who organised it and what actually happened with the concert.

Speaker 2:

It's interesting to think about. What did they expect to achieve? I think it wasn't this sort of extremely well organised thing. It wasn't this thing. We're going to form a committee and we're going to meet on such.

Speaker 1:

It's our 5 point plan.

Speaker 2:

Yes, exactly it was our 5 point plan. It wasn't that at all. It was just this casual thing of they are right to us if you feel the same. But having received all these replies, it's like it gave Roger Huddle, red Saunders and the people who formed Rock Against Racism this real jot, this feeling like, yeah, there's all these people out there who think the same thing, and so I think one of the things that's crucial is that they start this fanzine called Temporary Hoarding.

Speaker 2:

It's good title, I think, because it's sort of, if we think about it from today's perspective, there was no social media and so often, you know, to find out about gigs or about political meetings or so on, it would be posters that had been fly posted everywhere, and so Temporary Hoarding refers to that, and the first issue had a sort of manifesto, a brief manifesto on the cover, which said we want rebel music, street music, music that breaks down people's fear of one another crisis music, music that knows who the real enemy is Rock Against Racism. And basically Temporary Hoarding carried sort of practical guidance, encouraged people to set up Rock Against Racism groups in their own town. So Guides for Local Organisers had concert reviews, listings, interviews, letters, reportage on stuff that was happening and political articles to sort of educate people about the issues. When someone would write in from somewhere I don't know, like Barry St Edmunds or wherever it might be right, or Bog Neregis. They would write in say I'm interested in this, I want to get involved in Rock Against Racism.

Speaker 2:

And then they basically received they'd received flyers, stickers in the post and so on and a letter saying there isn't a Rock Against Racism group in Bog Neregis. You are now the convener of it. So it was like it was this thing that sort of grew around the country on a very uneven basis but it did snowball. At the time. There was the punk movement, was like a huge thing happening, which Rock Against Racism obviously sort of built on and there was a certain amount of cross-fertilization really between punk and reggae and you'd had like recognition of that in. Like, in Bog, mali had this song, punky Reggae Party, which sort of references this.

Speaker 1:

Give us a flavour, I guess, of some of the bands or groups.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so like the the clash were probably the most famous, certainly the most famous sort of political punk group, and they introduced some sort of reggae and dub elements into their sound. At the time you had fantastic sort of reggae bands as well Like so one example the play some of the Rockets Racism gigs was Misty and Roots. There was also Steel Pulse from Birmingham, a really fantastic sort of reggae group. At the tail end of the 70s you had the two tone music, two tone movement, in which was basically like you had a lot of great bands that were a mix of black and white multi-racial groups. You had like the specials, the selector, the English beat and other bands like the famous, like Madness, who didn't have, who weren't mixed but had this influence with Scar and Rocksteady and so on. So I think the one thing to sort of emphasise about Rock against Racism was from the start they wanted to put on gigs that had a mix of black and white groups.

Speaker 1:

It's on to two tone. Is the name coming from both? There's a musical element and also the idea of different races coming together. Exactly, that's right.

Speaker 2:

And you know it comes out with the youth culture. The two tone thing wasn't like a political movement, like Rock against Racism was in some ways, but it was like it was implicitly political and just by sheer dint of the fact that you had these mixed groups and you know the specials, some of their songs were carrying messages about what's happening at the time, like Ghost Town talking about sort of poverty and the inner cities talking about what Coventry was like and so on.

Speaker 1:

These groups then. Was it a case of them needing much persuading to get them to play in these concerts, or it sounds like a lot of them were already quite engaged. And I guess, linked to that, were these groups already feeling like they were on the front line, I suppose, of some of that conflict, I guess, between the far right and I'm just wondering how much, I guess, were they politicised already, or was it kind of that they were sort of their political consciousness was built up.

Speaker 2:

I think the Tom Robinson band is an interesting example of Tom Robinson was writing songs that were capturing what was happening at that time and he was a great sort of figurehead in Rock against Racism and really real figure trying to unite everyone behind this thing, which was, you know, the message was black and white unite. Yeah, you had like bands that were more political, like the Clash, singing about job opportunities you know, the ones that never knock and career opportunities.

Speaker 2:

I think Rock against Racism sort of yeah it's sort of built upon that but really sort of galvanised it. So there was, as I say, like punk could have gone either way. Really, there was a sort of flirting with Nazi iconography, such as Swastika's, because punk was a movement that set out to shock you, to have this shock value, to be controversial, and there was this sort of nihilist aspect of it.

Speaker 1:

And I guess an emphasis sometimes on confrontation and violence that could be co-opted, I suppose, by elements of the right, could be seen in extreme form, could echo fascism, couldn't it?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and there was.

Speaker 2:

This was all in the context of.

Speaker 2:

There was this sort of battle for the soul of the working class in a way because Matt Worley talks talked about this one time, so I'll give a lecture that when he used to go to football matches when he was a young guy in the 70s and in the way in the, the National Front would try and recruit him on the way out, like the Socialist Worker Party would try and recruit him, and it felt him like it was going back to. It was almost like the 30s in terms of that political polymerisation. So like you had in terms of a punk, yeah, you had this sort of flirting with this sort of Nazi iconography and the skinheads, the sort of skinhead subculture growing towards football hooliganism and towards the National Front basically trying to recruit increasingly amongst some skinheads, punks, the football fans and so on. In some ways I think Rock N' Racism was like an intervention within that. What was actually like a very explosive situation and some gigs was put on with the sole purpose of confronting this sort of physical threat posed by the National Front British movement.

Speaker 1:

Take us through a little bit. What would actually happen at some of these gigs, what they would look like? Obviously you'd have bands playing, I'm sure, but maybe some of the other elements were their speeches were there, I don't know discussion groups that came out of it, the other things like that. What would happen at these concerts?

Speaker 2:

Well, but you'd have it's important to say that it wasn't sort of one gig like Live Aid or Live Aid subsequently. It wasn't this one big gig broadcast to the world or anything, it was like a whole series of them. So in 1978 alone Rock N' Racism organised 300 local gigs and five carnivals, including two in London, and that basically they jointly feature black and white acts. You'd have Punk and Reggae and it was not just a sort of concert with some political paper sellers but it was an important sort of. The important social space is really frantic, fascist and it's like a where you had this sort of cultural politics and sort of more militant activism crossing over. The first sort of big concert was in Victoria Park in April 1978 and that was the. There was a demo in Trafalgar Square followed by a march to Victoria Park for this free, open air concert. I can't think of the entire lineup, but it was an interesting one because there was.

Speaker 2:

They decided that Tom Robinson band should headline because Tom Robinson was such a great representative of the movement and it put, like I was saying, person to bring people together and the clash had to go on before him, which they weren't that happy about it. They were used to headlining, but the clash were. They were fine with it there after a while and they went on, with Jimmy Percy from sham 69 joining them for the song White Riot, which you know in in. In a way you might think, oh, what's significant about that? Because that's the sort of thing happens all the time. It wasn't. It was a sort of symbolic thing. It wasn't just, oh, that guy from another punk band joining another punk band for a song, because Jimmy Percy's band Sham 69 had a big skinhead following, a lot whom were subscribing to the politics of National Front. There was the Rock N' Race.

Speaker 2:

Racism was talking to Jimmy Percy, trying to get him to make clear that where he stood, in this right that he was, that he was with the idea Rock N' Race racism, that he was against the National Front, so on. So the not that he made a big speech for anything. He was very reluctant to make any sort of political statement, but he did appear. The very fact of appearing with the clash and doing the song was quite significant.

Speaker 1:

So, almost from what you're saying, is it fair to describe it as almost like a psychological intervention, where you have people that could go either way, maybe feel some sense of exclusion, some sense of anger, and are looking for a cause as people who I assume mainly it was younger people attending on average and could or is it almost they could have gone either way that there's a sense then the cause could have been going to the right or going in a much more inclusive way. It was that. Was it then a kind of psychological intervention almost on that particular type of person?

Speaker 2:

It's interesting. I think there was this. It did happen that anti-fascist activists could get in discussion with people who'd been drawn to the National Front and persuade them that it wasn't the right path. It did happen, but there wasn't. These weren't sort of political rallies or anything.

Speaker 2:

I think sometimes, in terms of one of the reasons why the big carnivals were such a big success, was because there was this huge strength in numbers and display of unity in that sort of utopian sense, whereas, like earlier in the year, before this open air concert, victoria Park, they'd been a gig in, I think it was in central London Polytechnic where they'd, under the banner smash race hate in 78. And they got Cham69 to play rock against racism gig with the reggae outfit Misty and Roots and by all accounts that was a tense occasion and some violence did flare up within the gig. I think it was. Generally it was a success, but there was this, certainly this tension, and it was problematic. It was difficult to organize these things because it wasn't just you put up your flag or your placard and everyone falls in behind you.

Speaker 2:

Because I think some of the problems, like with the second carnival is interesting, which was in Brixton in 24th of September of 1978. So the second carnival that year, as soon as the date was announced by Rock Against Racism and the National Front announced that they were doing a march on the same day through bricklaying, so they chose what was marching through the East End sort of Bangladeshi communities they chosen for that particular reason and this was obviously very difficult for the anti-Nazi League who would, who are organizing the day and so on, and what to do about it. Because in the end they told people basically to stay and enjoy the carnival, but this meant that where the anti-fascists who did go over to bricklaying were outnumbered and were sort of reliant on the police cordon on being protected by the police. So the this is really interesting to me because it's the that you have this in an area where there had been such tensions. Besides, the opposition to the National Front was small compared to like where there was a concert going on elsewhere in London.

Speaker 2:

So it's what do you do in that situation? And I think there was some criticism of the anti-Nazi League and the SWP that they'd made the wrong call on that one. But I think it's emblematic in some ways of a larger problem which is where you have a broad church or sort of broad front approach, which anti-Nazi League and rock against racism was. This sort of broad front against racism and fascism, the sort of local anti-Nazi League activists, often working alongside anti-fascists, other anti-fascists and with black and Asian communities defending those communities, inevitably found themselves in physical confrontation and that sort of direct action tended to scare off the more moderate elements that made up this broad front.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think that's a trend. I'm sure that you could trace Roy up to today about how I guess how aggressively to confront these things without, without being seen as what's the right word divisive, yeah scare people who are more moderate.

Speaker 2:

I had some very limited experience of this when I, long time ago I don't know if it was like about 2002, 2003, somewhere around there there was a sort of rock against racism had come back in a way and there was this gig in Cardiff.

Speaker 2:

There was a great band, a headlining, called Miss Black America who did this love music, hate racism gig and I was like a man in the sort of love music, hate racism table at this event and I remember some people coming up to me and sort of objecting to like the anti-Nazi League sort of posters and stickers and so on, but in terms of like, using phrases like smash, smash the BNP or you know, smash fascism and in a way, was stamp out the Nazis, whatever it was. And it was a very similar thing, as I understand it in the 70s because, like, in terms of the press response to rock against racism events, they certainly weren't all supportive. Yeah, some were alleging, oh, the anti-, these anti-fascist activists being violent and having provoked violence, and there was also the emphasis on the words on Banner's badges etc being stop, smash, crush, stamp out, which caused some sort of negative publicity.

Speaker 1:

It was there at the argument oh, this is escalating. I guess there's two sides that you could think. You can argue that is escalating language, that's unhelpful. You can say if you're not using, if you're not being direct enough, then you're tacitly complicit with stuff that is despicable and objectionable.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's a difficult one. Yeah, yeah, it is Because.

Speaker 1:

I was going to take us on. So there's, we've talked about, there's this utopian element isn't there to rock against racism and we've talked about. But there's practical, difficult, you know, challenges that you'd expect with implementing that at times, and I wanted them to take us on a little bit towards, I guess, the legacy and the extent to which it matters. It makes a difference, because I'll put the kind of devil's advocate position to you would be this stuff is great in many ways, but it's a flash in the pan, it's a kind of primal scream, to use the language, that then it's lost, everyone goes home, and to what extent is that fair? Or do you feel that there's more substantive gains and legacies to something like rock against racism?

Speaker 2:

I think it had. I think it did have a short-term and long-term impact and it's a really interesting question to think about this. The National Front in the 1979 elections fed quite badly. Their support was like half what it had been, I think, in 1974 at most. I think it was less than half, and they were in as you got to the end of the 70s and into the 80s. They were in a sort of terminal decline really and I don't think that can all be attributed to Rock-Enterysen, but I think it certainly played a part. And I think the other factor that's important to mention is obviously we haven't talked yet about Margaret Thatcher coming to power, and in 1978, she made that speech not a speech, but you know she was interviewed by Will in Action where she'd talked about immigration.

Speaker 1:

Is this the rather swamped by people of another culture.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely, and there was certainly in retrospect that tended to take support away from the National Front because they were campaigning on this issue of immigration and the Conservative Party and Thatcher were lurching to the right on that. Certainly, on that policy, if you think about, like in the 80s, britain was moving in a sort of right-wing direction in some ways, but not in all ways, and I think the issue of immigration policy is extremely topical now and I think back in in some mid to late 70s or whatever, in a way the immigration policy was a lot less hawkish than it is now and I think there was an argument to be made that the Rock-Enterysen and the anti-Nazi League made this intervention which sort of made the political climate a little bit safer for, I think, minorities.

Speaker 1:

It makes sense. We had a conversation, I think in Al-Enterna, where we were talking about the kind of conservatism of the 80s and your point about. On some ways it can be seen as very much on the right in lots of ways, particularly on maybe economics, some would argue. But then there's some areas that maybe it didn't go as far as the rhetoric suggested it was going. But Margaret Thatcher would talk the language of Mary Whitehouse, the very socially conservative campaigner, and maybe would sometimes take steps in that direction but wouldn't always actually go as far in that direction as maybe people thought or the perception was.

Speaker 2:

I think it depends how you look at it really, because the GLC had really important sort of anti-racist initiatives and policies and so on, which is really important to this whole story in a way, and I think that is one thing where you can say that was the right wing intervention was to abolish the GLC which was really in terms of the multi-cultural society that we have today. The GLC was pioneering a lot of that.

Speaker 1:

I guess you can also talk about Section 28, which was around that time. I was going to ask as well was there a generational impact that rock against racism had? I'm thinking about in the 60s. You had us people grow up with certain values, the counterculture, that movement, and although at the time there weren't always necessarily very tangible political gains, some of the gains are made by those people growing up, aren't they? And then becoming part of institutions, having more social power, being the leaders of business and other organisations, and I was wondering if there's any evidence that rock against racism had some of that kind of delayed impact.

Speaker 2:

Maybe it's an interesting question. I think in some ways the sort of thatch right politics were responding to the sort of permissive society of the 60s and the sort of Victorian moralism of thatcher. I think you talked about that with Alwyn and I think thatcher's success depended on communicating clearly particular narratives about the 60s and 70s and, to put it crudely, that was a narrative of the chaos caused by permissiveness of the 60s whether teenage pregnancies and drug culture, whatever it might be.

Speaker 2:

Going back to your question, you did have an interesting impact in terms of the relationship between music and politics Because you had red wedge in the 80s, which was this more formalised, slightly more sort of professional attempt to connect music politics by having people doing gigs and speaking on behalf of the Labour Party. In that period you met Paul Weller, billy Bragg and so on and in some ways that probably wouldn't have happened without rock against racism.

Speaker 2:

The attempt to sort of campaign on the basis of using popular culture and not just exploiting it but trying to use it to start debates and so on. Yeah, so I think there are different sort of legacies that rock against racism had.

Speaker 1:

Was it at all subsumed into sort of the mainstream or corporatised? Was there any criticism of it on that basis, or to what extent did it maintain its political soul?

Speaker 2:

Not really. Not as far as I'm aware. It stuck to its principles really, but I think there was the attempts to sort of widen it out in terms of links between all sorts of community organisations, trade unions, all the left wing and far left groups, the attempt to sort of create a bigger anti-racist organisations within civil society, if you like. That was very difficult and it didn't really work. I think it's fair to say that there was too much sectarianism, there was divisiveness based on what issues were being concentrated on and so on. So you have the perennial problem of basically sort of left. And it's interesting to mention, just while I think of it as well, that there was one criticism of rock against racism in retrospect. Certainly in retrospect has been that it didn't encourage Asian youth particularly and it didn't feature Asian groups or Bangra groups and that sort of thing.

Speaker 2:

It tended to focus on Afro-Caribbean music and so on, which is interesting, and I think there's a recent documentary called White Riot I think it was 2018, something like that all about rock against racism, which is fantastic, and it does correct that a little bit because there was an Asian punk band who did form in response to rock against racism, and the documentary does focus on them quite a bit. It's interesting to look at that and think, okay, rock against racism didn't have that problem so much, or is it just there was a token Asian group? You know what I'm saying? Is it a means? Yeah, the band is called Alien Culture. Who is this really great Asian punk band inspired basically by rock against racism?

Speaker 1:

To wrap things up, I was going to say, being at the end of the show, of the concert, you usually have to sell a bit of. There's usually a bit of merch that should be sold at the end. So I was wondering in that way, is there any further reading watching or anything that you'd recommend people who are interested in this stuff should look into?

Speaker 2:

The White Riot film is fantastic, which I mentioned, by Rubik Keshav. That's really great and I think by now in recent years there's been like a whole series of books which cover rock against racism, so it's quite a well-documented story now, which is great. One of those that's good is David Renton's book which is called Never Again Rock Against Racism in the Anti-Nazi League. I think that's probably one of the best ones. There's also like a book, reminiscences of Rock Against Racism, where Red Saunders, roger Huddle and others put together. There's a book which came out not too long ago called Walls Come Tumbling Down the Music and Politics of Rock Against Racism, two Tone and Red Wedge. That sort of has a bigger focus on and we've mentioned Two Tone and Red Wedge a little bit that's by Daniel Rachel. That's a really good one.

Speaker 1:

Fantastic. Yeah, we'll try and get links to that in the show notes. Okay, thanks so much then. Yeah, this has been a really interesting one and yeah, thanks so much for coming on. And yeah, I do encourage listeners to have a look into anything we put on the show notes. So, yeah, thanks everyone for listening.

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Harry White

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