Anti-Fascism

Anti-Fascism

Unfortunately, due to his high public profile, Grant received many racist remarks and threats throughout his career. In the late 1980s as right wing groups were appearing on the streets, and an organisation called English Solidarity sent a flurry of messages with racist sentiments aimed at getting rid of “multi-racial” representatives, of which Grant had been identified as one. Grant wrote to Attorney General Sir Patrick Mayhew in June of 1989, to make him aware of this new group and its activities. As Grant outlined in the letter, the group had seemed to target other MPs as well, and this act constituted an offence under the Public Order Act, relating to the usage of threatening words or behaviour. The group, which according to its paraphernalia was based in Acton Vale, West London, doesn’t appear to have been prominent in any way, and one could question whether it constituted a group at all. But these threatening letters are key examples of the presence of racist and Fascist beliefs at the time, and how it affected public figures who were vocally progressive. The Royal Courts of Justice disagreed with Grant on this matter, and ruled that the letters had not breached either the Public Order Act or Malicious Communication Act.

In this same vein, in 1996, it was revealed by the News of the World , that the Ku Klux Klan was attempting to build a membership base in the UK. Horrified by this, Grant urged the Director of Public Prosecutions to intervene and prosecute those involved. He criticised the government for having fostered a political climate which had allowed racism to “flourish”, not least through its discriminatory immigration and asylum legislations.