Fascism and racism in Brighton: The Battle of The Level
By Mike Ashworth | May 11, 2009
It’s interesting to observe how, over the years, fascism and racism in Brighton has been brushed under the carpet.
A couple of months ago I was told of a battle that occurred in the late 40’s down on “The Level”. It’s a bit of Brighton history that you wont find out much about at all.
Sometime in June 1948, Oswald Mosley’s The British Union of Fascists attempted to march through Brighton.
They’d only got a few yards when they were set upon and roundly beaten by an organisation of Jewish ex-servicemen and other anti-fascists (The 43 Group). It is alleged that the token number of police sent to guard the march conveniently turned a blind eye.
The British Union of Fascists gave up in Brighton after that.
A search of the internet revealed very little however the book listed below which contains further information is stocked at Brighton Library (you have to specifically ask them to get it out of storage for some reason).
This book, “The 43 Group: Untold Story of Their Fight Against Fascism” has a full account of that day and also includes photos of the battle that took place on the level.
Interestingly, a recently published book,Brighton crime and vice 1800 - 2000, by Doulgas D’enno has no section at all on racism / fascism, then again he conveniently missed the fact that we have a top crime author called Peter James who writes about Brighton.
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