Skip to main content
200 years of the state fighting protest
KEITH FLETT: from Peterloo 1819 to Extinction Rebellion 2019 protests have gone beyond the authorities' comprehension

ON the face of it there may not seem to be much to link the protest for the vote that became the Peterloo Massacre on Monday August 16 1819 and the Extinction Rebellion (XR) protests in central London during the first half of October 2019.

Yet both were seeking to change the world, peacefully, to exercise what might be called people power to promote reform.

The Metropolitan Police, while no doubt engaging in over-robust and possibly illegal policing tactics, didn’t kill anyone, unlike the yeomanry in Manchester two hundred years ago.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
‘ILLEGAL TRADITION’: An engraving entitled ‘The Leader of the Luddites’, 1812
Features / 20 November 2025
20 November 2025

Inspired by a hit TV show, KEITH FLETT takes a look at the murky history of undercover class war

PROTEST PIONEERS: The assault of the Chartists on the Westgate Hotel, where some of their comrades were held prisoner, Newport, 1839
Features / 24 October 2025
24 October 2025

It’s not just the Starmer regime: the workers of Britain have always faced legal affronts on their right to assemble and dissent, and the Labour Party especially has meddled with our freedoms from its earliest days, writes KEITH FLETT

A ballot box arriving during the count for the Blackpool South by-election at Blackpool Sports Centre, Blackpool, May 2, 2024
Features / 11 September 2025
11 September 2025

Who you ask and how you ask matter, as does why you are asking — the history of opinion polls shows they are as much about creating opinions as they are about recording them, writes socialist historian KEITH FLETT

Police officers watch as people take part in a national march for Palestine on Whitehall in central London, January 18, 2025
Features / 10 July 2025
10 July 2025

The government cracking down on something it can’t comprehend and doesn’t want to engage with is a repeating pattern of history, says KEITH FLETT