Immigration, ethnic tension and the BUF

What the specification asks for

“Reasons for, and impact of, immigration and ethnic tensions, including the BUF.” — examined through causation and consequence. Incandio is aligned to specification 4HI1; it is not published by, endorsed by or affiliated with Pearson.

1 · Understand it

Britain's minority communities between the wars

The interwar minority population was small and concentrated. Jewish communities, substantially the descendants of migration from the Russian empire between 1881 and 1914, were established in the East End of London, Manchester and Leeds, and were joined during the 1930s by refugees from Nazi Germany and Austria — around seventy thousand by 1939, admitted under restrictive conditions including the guarantee of maintenance and, for the Kindertransport, the admission of children without their parents.

Black and Asian communities remained centred on the ports. The 1925 Special Restriction Order required coloured alien seamen to register with the police, and in practice many British subjects from the Caribbean, West Africa and Aden were registered as aliens because they could not produce documentary proof of nationality — a bureaucratic requirement with the effect of removing rights from people who possessed them.

Discrimination in employment, housing and licensed premises was lawful throughout, since there was no statute against it. The colour bar operated by custom and was enforced by refusal rather than by law, which is exactly why the Constantine case in 1944 turned on a contract rather than on discrimination.

The BUF and Cable Street

Oswald Mosley founded the British Union of Fascists in 1932 after leaving the Labour government and then his own New Party. It grew rapidly, claiming tens of thousands of members, with support from sections of the press until violence at its Olympia rally in June 1934 cost it much respectable backing. From 1934 its propaganda became explicitly antisemitic and it concentrated on the East End.

On 4 October 1936 the BUF planned a march through Jewish districts of the East End. The Home Secretary declined to ban it and around six thousand police were deployed to protect it. A counter-demonstration of very large size — estimates run from tens of thousands to over a hundred thousand — barricaded Cable Street, fought the police attempting to clear a route, and the march was abandoned.

The Public Order Act followed within weeks, in force from January 1937. It banned political uniforms, prohibited quasi-military organisations, and gave chief officers of police power to impose conditions on marches and to seek bans on processions. It removed the BUF's most effective instrument, and it did so by statute after a street had made the situation ungovernable.

The pattern the option is about

Cable Street is the first clear instance of the sequence that recurs throughout this option: an organised action outside Parliament creates a situation the government must respond to, and the response is legislation.

It should be described precisely rather than romantically. The counter-demonstrators did not defeat fascism; the BUF continued and Mosley was interned in 1940 under wartime powers. What the day did was make a permitted march impossible to hold, which converted a public order problem into a legislative one, and the Act that followed applied to everybody rather than to the BUF alone.

The comparison with Jarrow, eight days earlier, is the sharpest thing available on this key topic. A dignified petition achieved nothing; a barricade produced a statute within weeks. Whether that comparison licenses a general conclusion about how change happens in Britain is exactly the kind of judgement the sixteen-mark question rewards, and both answers can be argued.

2 · Learn it — the notes

The dates that earn marks

1932

Mosley founds the British Union of Fascists. Why this date: It establishes an organised movement whose later antisemitic turn produced the East End confrontations.

June 1934

Violence at the BUF's Olympia rally costs it much respectable support. Why this date: It shows the movement's methods damaging it before any legislation was passed.

4 October 1936

The Battle of Cable Street: a permitted BUF march is abandoned after mass counter-demonstration. Why this date: It converted a public order problem into a legislative one within weeks.

1936–37

The Public Order Act bans political uniforms and gives police power over processions. Why this date: A street action produced a statute, which is the causal pattern the whole option turns on.

The figures, and how far to trust them

• Around 70,000 — Refugees from Nazi Germany and Austria admitted to Britain by 1939. (Figures vary by category and admission was conditional, frequently on a guarantee of maintenance.)
• About 6,000 police, and counter-demonstrators in the tens of thousands — The forces present at Cable Street on 4 October 1936. (Crowd estimates for the day range very widely and none is a count.)
• Eight days — The interval between the Jarrow marchers reaching London and Cable Street.

The people to place

• Oswald Mosley — Founder and leader of the British Union of Fascists; interned in 1940.
• John Simon — Home Secretary who declined to ban the October 1936 march and introduced the Public Order Bill afterwards.

How historians disagree

Attributed interpretations, never voiced — the AO4 seam.

• The 'street produced the statute' reading: The Public Order Act followed Cable Street within weeks, so direct action created a situation the government had to legislate about, and that sequence is the model for the whole option. Contested by The reading that the government had been considering public order legislation before October 1936 and that the BUF's own violence at Olympia had already cost it support, so Cable Street accelerated a process rather than creating one..

What students say — and what is actually the case

Not this: Cable Street defeated British fascism.

This: The BUF continued and Mosley was interned in 1940 under wartime powers. What the day did was make a permitted march impossible, which produced the Public Order Act.

Not this: Racial discrimination was illegal in interwar Britain.

This: There was no statute against it until 1965. The colour bar in employment, housing and licensed premises operated lawfully by refusal.

Two things students merge

Blurred: The march and the Act.

The distinction: The counter-demonstration stopped one march; the Public Order Act gave police standing powers over all processions. The second is the durable consequence and it applied to everybody.

Blurred: Aliens and British subjects.

The distinction: The 1925 order required proof of nationality that many British subjects from the colonies could not supply, so people with British status were registered as aliens. The distinction is legal and its failure is the point.

What a Grade 9 answer holds here

A Grade 9 answer puts Jarrow and Cable Street in the same paragraph. A petition carried three hundred miles was received and ignored; a barricade eight days later produced an Act of Parliament within three months — and whether that licenses a general conclusion about how Britain changes is the argument, not the observation.

3 · How it is examined

This strand is genuinely set through: Paper 2 Section B (a) (6 marks — “Explain TWO ways in which … was different from ….”); Paper 2 Section B (b) (8 marks — “Explain TWO causes of ….”); Paper 2 Section B (c)(i) or (c)(ii) (16 marks — “How significant was … in …, in the years …? / How far were … responsible for …, in the years …? You may use the following in your answer: • [prompt] • [prompt]. You must also use information of your own.”).

What earns marks: Cable Street set beside Jarrow eight days earlier. Two protests, opposite methods, opposite outcomes, in the same fortnight.

4 · Prove it — the questions

Answered inside Incandio, where a marker checks what a correct answer must contain and tells you which half was missing. The marking stays in the app; the questions are here.

1. Explain TWO ways in which the response to Cable Street was different from the response to the Jarrow Crusade. [6 marks · Paper 2 Section B (a)]
2. Explain TWO causes of the growth of the British Union of Fascists. [8 marks · Paper 2 Section B (b)]
3. Explain TWO causes of the Public Order Act of 1936. [8 marks · Paper 2 Section B (b)]
4. How significant was the British Union of Fascists in Britain, in the years 1914–2010? [16 marks · Paper 2 Section B (c)(i) or (c)(ii)]
5. How far did direct action produce change in Britain, in the years 1914–2010? [16 marks · Paper 2 Section B (c)(i) or (c)(ii)]

Carry on through the option

• Previous lesson: Class and disability in Depression: eugenics and Jarrow
• Next lesson: The Second World War: national service, aliens, the colour bar and Constantine
• Key topic 2 · The impact of Depression and war, 1928–45 · Diversity, rights and equality in Britain, 1914–2010 · the option's timeline · Incandio History
• The other key topics of Diversity: The fight for recognition, 1914–1928 · Consequences of war and the end of empire, 1944–62 · Changes in civil rights, c1962–1986 · Changes in opportunity and culture, 1986–2010