Evan Smith - No Platform

This book is the first to outline the history of the tactic of no platforming at British universities since the 1970s, looking at more than four decades of student protest against racist and fascist figures on campus.

The tactic of no platforming has been used at British universities and colleges since the National Union of Students adopted the policy in the mid-1970s. The author traces the origins of the tactic from the militant anti-fascism of the 1930s1940s and looks at how it has developed since the 1970s, being applied to various targets over the last 40 years, including sexists, homophobes, right-wing politicians and Islamic fundamentalists. This book provides a historical intervention in the current debates over the alleged free speech crisis perceived to be plaguing universities in Britain, as well as North America and Australasia.

No Platform: A History of Anti-Fascism, Universities and the Limits of Free Speech is for academics and students, as well as the general reader, interested in modern British history, politics and higher education. Readers interested in contemporary debates over freedom of speech and academic freedom will also have much to discover in this book.

Evan Smith is a research fellow in history at the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Flinders University in South Australia. He has published widely on the history of political extremism, social movements, national security and borders in Britain, Australia and South Africa. He is the author of British Communism and the Politics of Race (2018) and co-editor (with Jon Piccini and Matthew Worley) of The Far Left in Australia since 1945 (Routledge, 2018).

ROUTLEDGE STUDIES IN FASCISM AND THE FAR RIGHT

Series editors Nigel Copsey, Teesside University, UK and Graham Macklin, Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX), University of Oslo, Norway.

This new book series focuses upon fascist, far right and right-wing politics primarily within a historical context but also drawing on insights from other disciplinary perspectives. Its scope also includes radical-right populism, cultural manifestations of the far right and points of convergence and exchange with the mainstream and traditional right.

Titles include:

A Fascist Decade of War

19351945 in International Perspective

Edited by Marco Maria Aterrano and Karine Varley

No Platform

A History of Anti-Fascism, Universities and the Limits of Free Speech

Evan Smith

Reflections on the Extreme Right in Western Europe, 19902008

Christopher T. Husbands

American Antifa

The Tactics, Culture, and Practice of Militant Antifascism

Stanislav Vysotsky

Hitler Redux

The Incredible History of Hitlers So-Called Table Talks

Mikael Nilsson

Researching the Far Right

Theory, Method and Practice

Edited by Stephen D. Ashe, Joel Busher, Graham Macklin and Aaron Winter

For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Studies-in-Fascism-and-the-Far-Right/book-series/FFR

First published 2020

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2020 Evan Smith

The right of Evan Smith to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Smith, Evan, 1981- author.

Title: No platform : a history of anti-fascism, universities and the limits of free speech / Evan Smith.

Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2020. | Series: Fascism and the far right | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019058304 | ISBN 9781138591677 (hardback) | ISBN 9781138591684 (paperback) | ISBN 9780429455131 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Academic freedom--Great Britain. | Freedom of speech--Great Britain. | College students--Political activity--Great Britain. | Student movements--Great Britain. | Anti-fascist movements--Great Britain. | Education, Higher--Political aspects--Great Britain.

Classification: LCC LC72.5.G7 S65 2020 | DDC 371.1/04--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019058304

ISBN: 978-1-138-59167-7 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-59168-4 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-0-429-45513-1 (ebk)

This book started as a series of blogposts outlining the original no platform policy of the National Union of Students as the controversy surrounding Germaine Greer at Cardiff University broke. As the debate over no platform has intensified in Britain and elsewhere in the English-speaking world, these blogposts transformed into a book length project. Over the last half decade, the growth of the far right has made this book, unfortunately, timelier than when I started writing about this topic. The purpose of this book, therefore, is to be a historical intervention in the debate over no platform and help us understand why the tactic has been used by students, as well as other activists, since the 1970s.

I am grateful to Craig Fowlie, Becky McPhee and Jessica Holmes from Routledge, as well as Nigel Copsey and Graham Macklin from the Fascism and the Far Right series, who all had confidence in this book and encouraged me from the first day to explore this history.

Writing a book on British history while living in Australia is difficult and this has meant I have depended on numerous people, archives and libraries to obtain the necessary primary source material. The research for and the writing of this book has also been completed while in various states of precarious and fixed-term employment, which has only been overcome with the support from the people listed below. I thank them all greatly for their help.

I would like to thank Mike Day from the NUS Archives, Anna Towlson from Archives and Special Collections at LSE, Daniel Jones from the Searchlight Archives at the University of Northampton, Jenny Childs from the Cadbury Research Library at the University of Birmingham, Helen Ward and Simon Dixon from Special Collections at the University of Leicester, Helen Burton from Special Collections at Keele University, Katrina Legg, Emily Hewitt and Susan Thomas from the Richard Burton Archives at Swansea University, Nigel Cochrane from Library Services at the University of Essex, Robert Winckworth from the College Archive at University College London, Angela Mandrioli from Special Collections at the University of Exeter, Julie Parry from Special Collections at the University of Bradford, Angela Heard-Shaw at the Hull History Centre, Kylie Jarrett from Special Collections at Flinders University, Anabel Farrell from the Conservative Party Archives and Angie Goodgame at the Bodleian Libraries (University of Oxford), Elizabeth Morrison from the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick, Lisa Tallis and Mark Barrett from Special Collections at Cardiff University, Justine Mann from the University of East Anglia Archives, Karen Anderson from Special Collections at the University of Bristol, Karl Magee from the University of Stirling Archives, Erich Kesse from the Archives and Special Collections at SOAS, James Peters from the University Archives Centre at the University of Manchester, Jade Leonard and Lesley Ruthven from the Special Collections and Archives at Goldsmiths, Lara Nelson and Emily Rawlings from the Archives and Special Collections at the University of Southampton, and Elspeth Healey and Kathy Lafferty from the Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas.