Dave Renton

David Renton (born 1972) is a British barrister, historian and author. He was a long-term member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and has written a number of books on fascism and the politics of the left.

Dave Renton
Born1972 (age 47–48)
London, England
NationalityBritish
OccupationBarrister, author, historian
Academic background
EducationEton College
Alma mater
  • St John's College, University of Oxford
  • University of Sheffield
ThesisThe attempted revival of British Fascism: Fascism and Anti-Fascism 1945-51. (1999)
Doctoral advisorColin Holmes & Richard Thurlow
Academic work
DisciplineHistory

Early life and education

Renton was born in London in 1972. His great aunt was Dona Torr the Communist historian. His grandfather was the shoe designer Kurt Geiger. One uncle was an activist in Equity, the actors' trade union, while another was the Conservative MP Tim Renton, Baron Renton of Mount Harry.[1] He was educated at Eton College where he became a member of the Labour Party. He then studied history at St John's College, University of Oxford.[2]

Academic career and writing

Renton received his PhD from the University of Sheffield for a thesis on fascism and anti-fascism.

Renton was an academic historian and sociologist, teaching at universities including Nottingham Trent, Edge Hill, and Rhodes University in South Africa.[3]

His 2000 book Fascism, Anti-Fascism and the 1940s was reviewed.[4][5][6]

Law

Since 2009, Renton has practised as a barrister at Garden Court chambers in London, in employment, housing and family law.[7]

Renton's clients have included the Bank of Ideas and Dave Smith, a construction worker who in 2012 and 2013 sued Carillion (JM) Ltd for blacklisting, in the aftermath of the Consulting Association scandal.[8] It was during Smith's Tribunal hearing that the information first came into the public domain that construction workers had been spied on by the police or security services.[9]

Politics

He joined the Socialist Workers Party in 1991, but resigned in 2013.[10]

In 2012, Renton was one of the organisers of the 2012 Counter Olympics Network protest against the London Olympics and took part in protests highlighting the Olympics' role in the gentrification of East London.[11]

In 2013, Renton was one of the many SWP members to be caught up in the "Comrade Delta" Crisis. Renton supported the female complainants against Martin Smith and became a prominent critic of the SWP leadership, publicly criticising their decisions in a series of posts published on his blog, Lives; Running.[12]

In May 2014, he published a piece in the London Review of Books naming the individual who had been the police's principal suspect for the death of Blair Peach, and setting out deficiencies in the inquest which had prevented the jury from having access to findings of the police investigation in the killing.[13]

Selected publications

1990s
  • Red Shirts and Black: Fascists and Anti-Fascists in Oxford in the 1930s. Ruskin College, Oxford, 1996. ISBN 0900183195
  • Fascism: Theory and practice. Pluto Press, London, 1999. ISBN 978-0-7453-1470-9

2000s
  • Fascism, Anti-Fascism and the 1940s. Palgrave MacMillan, Basingstoke, 2000. ISBN 9780312225018
  • Socialism in Liverpool: Episodes in a History of Working-class Struggle. Hegemon Press, 2000. (Editor) ISBN 9780953809806
  • The Twentieth Century: A Century of Wars and Revolutions?. Rivers Oram Press, 2000. (edited with Keith Flett) ISBN 9781854891266
  • Marx on Globalization. Lawrence and Wishart, London, 2001. (Editor)
  • This Rough Game: Fascism and Anti-fascism. Sutton, 2001. ISBN 9780750925150
  • Classical Marxism: Socialist Theory and the Second International. New Clarion Press, 2002. ISBN 9781873797365
  • The Communist Party of Great Britain Since 1920. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2002. (With James Eaden) ISBN 9780333949689
  • New Approaches to Socialist History. New Clarion Press, 2003. (edited with Keith Flett) ISBN 9781873797426
  • Dissident Marxism: Past Voices for Present Times. Zed Books, London, 2004. ISBN 9781842772928
  • Sidney Pollard: A Life in History. Tauris, London, 2004. ISBN 9781850434535
  • Trotsky. Haus Publishing, London, 2004. ISBN 1904341624
  • British Fascism, the Labour Movement and the State. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2005. ISBN 9781403939166 (Editor and contributor with Nigel Copsey)[14]
  • Colour Blind? Race and Migration in North East England. University of Sunderland Press, Sunderland, 2007. ISBN 9781873757710
  • When we Touched the Sky: The Anti-Nazi League 1977-1981. New Clarion Press, 2006. ISBN 9781873797495
  • CLR James: Cricket's Philosopher King. Haus Publishing, 2007.
  • The Congo: Plunder and Resistance. Zed Books, London, 2007. (With Leo Zeilig and David Seddon) ISBN 9781842774847

2010s
  • Lives; Running. Zero Books, Winchester, 2012. ISBN 9781780992358
  • Struck Out: Why Employment Tribunals Fail Workers and What Can be Done. Pluto Press, London, 2012. ISBN 9780745332567
  • Socialism from Below: Writings from an Unfinished Tradition. Unkant Publishers, 2013. ISBN 9780956817624
  • Never Again: Rock Against Racism and the Anti-Nazi League 1976-1982. Routledge, Abingdon, 2018. ISBN 9781138502703
  • The New Authoritarians: Convergence on the Right. Pluto Press, London, 2019. ISBN 9780745338170

References
  1. Author by Dave Renton, livesrunning.wordpress.com, 2015. Retrieved 24 August 2015.
  2. Biography Archived 6 October 2013 at WebCite by Dave Renton, dkrenton.co.uk, 2013. Retrieved 6 October 2013. Archived here.
  3. 'About the author', David Renton , 'Dissident Marxism'.
  4. Kelly, Sean (Spring 2001) Fascism, Anti-Fascism and the 1940s (review), Labour History Review, page 112.
  5. Coupland, Philip (August 2002) Fascism, Anti-Fascism and the 1940s (review), Canadian Journal of History, page 391.
  6. Cronin, Mike (October 2001) Reviews of Books: Europe: Early Modern and Modern, American Historical Review, page 1459.
  7. David Renton, Garden Court Chambers, April 2013. Retrieved 9 April 2013.
  8. David Renton acting in Employment Appeal Tribunal case on blacklisting Archived 12 October 2013 at WebCite, Garden Court Chambers, October 2013. Retrieved 11 October 2013. Archived here.
  9. Boffey, Daniel (3 March 2012). "Police are linked to blacklist of construction workers". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 7 March 2016.
  10. Dave Renton "To my comrades, of any party or none", livesrunning, 17 December 2013
  11. "Counter Olympics Torch Relay".
  12. Platt, Edward (20 May 2014). "Comrades at War". New Statesman. Archived from the original on 7 December 2019. Retrieved 28 April 2020.
  13. Renton, Dave (2014). "The Killing of Blair Peach". London Review of Books.
  14. Thorpe, Andrew (2007) Review of Nigel Copsey, and David Renton. "British Fascism, the Labour Movement and the State." The English Historical Review. 122.495: 281–283. Print.
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