On this day, 15 June 1974, Kevin Gately, a twenty-year-old Warwick University student, was killed during a demonstration against the fascist National Front in Red Lion Square, London.
The NF had planned a meeting in Conway Hall with the title “Stop immigration – start repatriation”. There was a large counter-demonstration, as well as a smaller contingent of anti-fascists who blocked the doors of the hall in an attempt to prevent the meeting from taken place.
Anti-racist protesters were then attacked by police, including the notoriously violent Special Patrol Group. After 15 minutes of clashes Gately, a mathematics student of Irish descent, was found prone on the ground and taken to hospital. Police claimed that he had no physical injuries, but an inquest determined his death was caused by a cerebral haemorrhage following a blow to the head from a blunt instrument. Fellow protesters accused the police of murder, and several newspapers alleged that his death was most likely the result of a blow from a baton wielded by mounted police.
An official enquiry into Gately’s death by Lord Scarman completely exonerated police and instead primarily blamed the deaths on a left-wing organisation, the International Marxist Group, which led the blockade of Conway Hall. The attempted blockade was also condemned by the Communist Party of Great Britain, which criticised the “adventurist tactics of a minority”.
In the wake of the death, the first on a protest in mainland Britain since 1919, support for militant antifascism group. https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1451438438374635/?type=3
