Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
CHARLES WEGG-PROSSER, a law graduate and product of Downside Independent Catholic School, enthusiastically joined the British Union of Fascists (BUF) in 1934, taking at face value Oswald Mosley’s propagandist arguments about how he would build “A Greater Britain.”
Wegg-Prosser believed that the fascist movement was a radical force for social progress and national unity.
At one time he was director of its large Shoreditch branch and later stood as a BUF candidate in the 1937 local election in another of its strongholds, Limehouse.
As antisemitism grows, the labour movement must recommit to defence of minorities while navigating the complexities of Gaza and global politics, argues NICK WRIGHT
Bezalel Smotrich’s measures to extend Israeli property law into the West Bank are a continuation of a decades-long project to dispossess Palestinians and preclude statehood, argues HUGH LANNING
FRANCIS BECKETT introduces his new play that aims to give its audience a taste of what a far-right triumph would be
Listening to our own communities and organising within them holds the key to stopping the advance of Reform UK and other far-right initiatives, posits TONY CONWAY


