The Times They Are A-Changin’: Have we Returned to the 1920s?  

 

 

“I know politics bore you
But I feel like a hypocrite talking to you
And your racist friend” 

 

In “Force is the Word”, I talked about how the Middle East had taken over from the Balkans as the “powder keg” that is largely driving geopolitical instability. 

 

In the late 19th early 20th century, antisemitism was rife in Russia and Eastern Europe, creating an influx of refugees to western Europe and the US 

The post-WW1 Treaty of Versailles led to the redrawing of borders in Eastern Europe and parts of Asia, as a US-led peace championed self-determination for countries and peoples, post the demise of both the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, and Tsarist Russia. 

The principle of self-determination lead to nationalist and ethnic issues, and the continuation of antisemitism, creating yet more refugees. 

Today, we are seeing similar in the Middle East. In recent years we have seen the collapse of the regimes in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, to this we can add destabilising wars in Lebanon, Gaza, and Yemen. 

This has led to large numbers of refuges seeking sanctuary in EU countries and the UK. Many of these are Muslim, and Islamophobia has replaced antisemitism. 

I have long compared the rise of the right post-the GFC to the politics of the 1930s and this article looks deeper into that statement, with a focus on the UK. 

Post-WW1, our economy experienced a sharp boom-bust cycle, transitioning from post-war demand to a severe, long-term depression, marked by 17% unemployment in the early 1920s. Key factors included high debt, a 75% cut in government spending by 1920, and a detrimental return to the gold standard in 1925 at pre-war levels, which crippled exports.  

After the brief post-war boom, the country fell into recession between 1920-1922, driven by falling demand, inflation, and a 25% drop in output. 

Output was hit by a decline in traditional heavy industries such as coal, steel, and shipbuilding, which particularly impacted Wales and Scotland. 

Monetary policy was driven by combating inflation, with the BoE raising interest rates to 7% in 1920, further reducing investment. 

 

‘I have long compared the rise of the right post-the GFC to the politics of the 1930s and this article looks deeper into that statement, with a focus on the UK ‘

 

Alongside this, in 1925 Churchill decided to reinstate the gold standard at the pre-war rate of $4.86, this overvalued the pound, making British exports too expensive and enforcing deflationary policies. 

One of the key casualties was jobs, with unemployment became a defining, persistent feature of the interwar period.  

One of the unnoticed, but ongoing trends this created was regional inequality. Northern England, Scotland, and South Wales suffered from the decline of heavy industry, whilst the Midlands and South East benefitted from the new, growing sectors such as car manufacturing, electrical goods, and chemicals began. 

Unfortunately, as we left the 1920’s behind us, it didn’t get any better. Whist other nation’s economies were growing, our economic stagnation, which started immediately after WWI, meant that the 1929-32 Great Depression became a continuation of existing malaise. 

In the introduction, I talked about the growing impact of antisemitism in post WW1 Europe, whilst this is usually associated with Weimar Germany and the rise of Naziism, it wasn’t exclusively a German problem. 

Antisemitism in Eastern Europe also intensified, driven by the collapse of empires, territorial disputes, and the rise of nationalist militias. Violent pogroms committed by nationalist militias and regular armies, particularly in Ukraine, resulted in tens of thousands of deaths. This period saw Jews scapegoated for economic instability, communist revolutions, and political upheaval.  

Perhaps driven by the Russian Revolution, there was The “Judeo-Communist” Myth, which, wrongly linked Jews to communism, framing them as existential threats to the newly established independent nation-states in Eastern Europe. 

In these newly established independent nation-states which followed the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and German empires, Jews were often blamed for the economic, social, and political chaos that ensued. 

Allied to this scapegoating of Jews there was an increase in racial and nationalist ideology. This influenced the rise of far-right nationalism in the interwar period, especially in Germany, with Jews depicted as outsiders within new, ethnically defined nation-states.  

 

‘Allied to this scapegoating of Jews there was an increase in racial and nationalist ideology’

 

Britian has always had a Jewish community, however the population quadrupled following the 1881 pogroms in Russia, with 150,000 Jewish refugees arriving, primarily settling in London’s East End. 

The rise of Fascism in the 1930s, and the aftermath of  WW2 saw C.70,000–90,000 Jews flee Nazism to the UK, with many remaining after the war. 

As the Jewish population increased so did antisemitism. There was, however, a shift in emphasis from religious or social prejudice becoming more overtly political, conspiratorial, and racist, influenced by the Russian Revolution and fears of “enemy aliens“.  

The Morning Post published a series of articles, later released as “The Cause of World Unrest” (1920), which promoted the fraudulent “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, which alleged a Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy, blaming Jews for the Russian Revolution and for manipulating WW1. 

These antisemitic attitudes became integrated into mainstream discourse, often masked by “polite” conversation or in literary works by figures such as Virginia Woolf. This “civil” antisemitism included the stigmatization of Jewish people in political, academic, and social circles. 

The 1920s and 30s saw a marked increase in activity of far-right, antisemitic groups, with mainstream literature blaming Jews for the war and Bolshevism, and violence in areas like London’s East End.  

The groups included “The Britons,” formed in 1919, who campaigned for the mass deportation of British Jews to Palestine. By the 1930s, Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists targeted Jews in London’s East End, vandalizing homes, businesses, and synagogues, culminating in The Battle of Cable Street in 1936, where C.100,000 residents, including Jews, communists, and socialists, successfully blocked the fascists at Cable Street. 

The passing of the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act 1919, enabled the government to maintain strict controls on immigration. The government was, in-part influenced by anti-Jewish sentiment and the perception of immigrants as “undesirable” or “alien“. 

‘The government was, in-part influenced by anti-Jewish sentiment and the perception of immigrants as “undesirable” or “alien“‘

 

In 1924, the PM, Stanley Baldwin, sought to appease right-wingers by appointing Sir William Joynson-Hicks, who had “established himself as an unapologetic antisemite”,  as home secretary. Joynson-Hicks “raised the bare” for immigrants to achieve “naturalisation” (equivalent to indefinite leave to remain) “from five to 10 years, and to 15 years for Russians”. “Russians” tended to mean Jewish refugees, fleeing pogroms and other oppressions. 

His actions were designed to make it as difficult as possible for refugees to settle here. As the historian David Cesarani noted, the home secretary “issued instructions to immigration officers to increase their vigilance and never to give the benefit of the doubt to an alien attempting to enter the country”. He visited the ports “to examine the tighter procedures and encourage officials to greater zeal”. His actions, whilst aimed at Jewish immigrants have distinct parallels with the action of our current home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, although her victims are primarily Muslim. 

Turning the media in the 1920s-30s, the right-wing press led by the Times, the Daily Mail, the Express, the National Review and the Morning Post, were happy to encourage a paranoia about a “flood” of “aliens” and “undesirables” entering the country. Jews, who were accused of “tribalism”, of refusing to “assimilate”, of being “un-English” and unpatriotic and of “leeching” off the state. The Imperial Fascist League issued stickers with the slogan: “Britons! Do not allow Jews to tamper with white girls.” Jewish immigrants were blamed for the housing shortage and unemployment. 

Joynson-Hicks spoke disparagingly of Jews, who, he claimed, “put their Jewish or foreign nationality before their English nationality” and believed that left-wingers “would like to see England flooded with the whole of the alien refuse from every country in the world.” 

Turning to the present day, there are distinct economic parallels between post-WW1 UK and that of the country post-GFC. As a result, it shouldn’t be a surprise to find we have arrived at a similar destination. 

The UK of the 2000s hasn’t, at least not yet, had a global war to contend with, instead we have experienced  three deep, systemic shocks; the GFC, the Covid pandemic, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Post the GFC, UK GDP growth slowed from an annual average of 3.0% between 1993 and 2007 to 1.5% between 2009 and 2023.  

there are distinct economic parallels between post-WW1 UK and that of the country post-GFC

 

In March 2009, the BoE cut interest rates to a then-historic low of 0.5% and began quantitative easing (QE) to boost lending and shore up the economy.  

In 2011, household, financial, and business debts stood at 420% of GDP, we were the world’s most indebted country. The Conservative government of 2010 imposed rigid austerity aimed at reducing the budget deficit  leading to six-figure public sector job losses, while the private sector enjoyed strong jobs growth. 

Labour productivity growth slowed from an annual average of 1.9% between 1993 and 2008 to 0.4% between 2008 and 2023, the lowest levels since the 1820s, with any growth attributed to a fall in working hours. Output per hour worked was 18% below the average for the rest of the G7. Real wage growth was the worst since the 1860s, and the Governor of the Bank of England described it as a lost decade. Wages fell by 10% in real terms in the eight years to 2016, whilst they grew across the OECD by an average of 6.7%. 

Homes become progressively less affordable, a problem exacerbated by QE, without which house prices would have fallen by 22%, according to the BoE’s own analysis.  

Following the success of Vote Leave in the 2016 EU referendum, the BoE cut interest rates to a new historic low of 0.25% for just over a year, and increased the amount of QE since the start of the GFC to £435bn.  

One of the few growth areas in this period has been poverty, which rose significantly under the Tory governments of 2010-24, driven by their welfare reforms, wage stagnation, and cost-of-living increases. Child poverty increased by roughly 700,000–730,000 children, reaching 4.3 million (30-31% of all children) by 2022/23. Notably, 71% of these children live in working households. 

As with the 1920s-30s the bleak economic backdrop has been accompanied by an increase in popularity for far-right politicians. 

 

‘As with the 1920s-30s the bleak economic backdrop has been accompanied by an increase in popularity for far-right politicians‘

 

The increasingly unsettled geopolitical outlook, especially in the Middle East has led to an influx of refugees seeking to escape prejudice, discrimination and war. These refugees are predominantly Muslim. 

They are the Jews of the 2020s; they are now the ones accused of tribalism, not assimilating, of hostility to “British values” and of “tampering with white girls”. They are blamed for the housing shortage and unemployment and for “leeching” off the state. There are claims that they seeking to create an Islamic world order in the form of a “global caliphate”.  We are told that they cannot be truly English or truly British. Former Tory home secretary and now Reform MP, Suella Braverman proposed definition of Englishness is, “rooted in ancestry, heritage, and, yes, ethnicity” with “generational ties to English soil”. 

There is still a proliferation of right-wing media happy to support this narrative with the Telegraph, Mail and Express still leading the change. But, as the media has expanded, they are supported by other outlets such as GB News and the social media site X.  

There is an eerie and familiar look and feel to all of this. What is playing out today is little different to what played out 100-yrs ago, a fact endorse by the current home secretary take a leaf our of Joynson-Hicks playbook. 

 

‘The antisemitism of the 1020s-30s ended very badly, let us hope the Islamophobia of today plays out better’ 

 

Her plans include ending permanent refugee status and removing government support from asylum seekers who are deemed not to need it or who break the law. 

She also has a pilot project to pay 150 families whose asylum claims have been rejected up to £40,000 each to voluntarily leave the country, or face forcible removal at the hands of law enforcement officials. Those families have been contacted and have seven days to decide whether to accept or refuse the offer. 

Mahmood proposals could raise the qualification period for immigrants to achieve indefinite leave to remain in the UK from five years to 10 years, and up to 20 for refugees. She also proposes a wider assault on asylum seekers, denying them permanent refugee status even if their claims are successful. 

The US / Israeli war with Iran will likely end badly. The real casualties will be the refugees who are the inevitable result of war. Many of these will be Muslim, looking for a safe home but finding only prejudice and bigotry. 

The antisemitism of the 1020s-30s ended very badly, let us hope the Islamophobia of today plays out better.  

 

 

“You close your mind to things you don’t like
You turn away from what you don’t wanna hear” 

 

 

 

As regular readers will know, I have long talked about our return to the politics of the 1930s. This piece examines this in more detail, comparing the economic situation of the two eras with post-GFC Britain, and then considering how the Jews were scapegoated then, whereas today it is the Muslims.

Common to both eras is the opportunism of right-wing politicians. Actually, I’m tired of pretending, they were and are now fascists. In both eras they created prejudice and hate, giving those disadvantaged by economic distress someone to blame while they used that sentiment as a springboard to power.

Then, the main instigators were Mussolini in Italy and Hitler in Germany. Today, the leader is a Trump-led US.

Back then, whilst we had our own British Union of Fascists, the public was sufficiently enlightened and they died a quick death. The press, who had fawned over them, saw them for what they were: swaggering bullies.

Today, I fear that our media won’t be so enlightened. Our own fascists, Reform, and a Tory party bereft of talent, are still falling over themselves to be supportive of, and joining-in with an illegal war that we need have no part in. Farage, the Reform leader is a typical throwback to the swaggering 1930’s bullies. Like them he talks big but has no substance, whilst Badenoch, the Tory leader is just hot air who proves the old saying: empty vessels make the most noise.

In the US, Trump has got himself all riled-up about our lack of engagement in his foolish, illegal war with Iran. His attitude sums up everything that is, and has been, wrong with the so-called special alliance.

It was never an alliance, at best it was an uneven relationship with the US using us when and how it suited them. Since becoming president for a second time, Trump has clearly shown his contempt for us, and continues to make it abundantly clear that everything is on his terms.

Like any bully, when defied he hits out at anything and everyone.

Lyrically we explore anti-fascism, opening with “Your Racist Friend” by They Might Be Giants, and ending with “Racist, Sexist Boy” by The Linda Lindas.

Perhaps there are still some small mercies we can enjoy!

 

@coldwarsteve

 

 

 

Philip Gilbert is a city-based corporate financier, and former investment banker.

Philip is a great believer in meritocracy, and in the belief that if you want something enough you can make it happen. These beliefs were formed in his formative years, of the late 1970s and 80s

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