Skip to main content
The ‘Battle of Bexley Square’ 90 years ago has stark resonance today
REBECCA LONG BAILEY looks back to 1931 and a protest of the unemployed at Salford Town Hall. Today’s struggles can draw inspiration and strength from them and their legacy
Battle of Bexley Square

ON OCTOBER 1 1931, in an era of mass unemployment and poverty, 10,000 unemployed men and women marched to Salford Town Hall at Bexley Square and were met with awful police violence. 

They were trying to highlight the desperate situations they found themselves in and to hand in a petition protesting against means-tested benefits and unemployment.  

The famous Salfordian author Walter Greenwood was there, and in his novel Love on the Dole he said: “Mounted police appeared at the trot, and, on a sudden, a swarm of plain-clothes men descended from nowhere and began to snatch the placards from the hands of the demonstrators, flinging the posters to the ground and trampling them underfoot … truncheons descending on heads with sickening thuds; men going down and being dragged off, unceremoniously, to the cells.”

Morning Star call for advertising
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
LET HISTORY INSPIRE US: Suffragettes are paraded through the
International Women's Day 2025 / 8 March 2025
8 March 2025
Despite progress made on the shoulders of radical women from the past, the gendered impact of austerity and the cost-of-living crisis requires bold action from Labour to address inequality, says REBECCA LONG-BAILEY MP
billboard
Durham Miners' Gala / 13 July 2024
13 July 2024
As she returns to Westminster, REBECCA LONG BAILEY MP calls on the new government to scrap the two-child benefit cap immediately to ease families’ financial strain that she sees in Salford
The battle against climate change needs proper joined-up pol
Features / 30 September 2023
30 September 2023
The Prime Minster’s net zero U-turn makes no long-term economic sense and will leave working people and the poorest in our society counting the cost, says REBECCA LONG BAILEY MP
Danger sign
Features / 27 April 2022
27 April 2022
For decades many on the right of the political spectrum in Britain have strategically described health and safety as pointless red tape, leaving workers to suffer illness, injury and even death, warns REBECCA LONG BAILEY MP