David Renton

197 Followers
67 Following
121 Posts
Barrister (Garden Court) #ukemplaw #housinglaw. Historian and writer. Professor of Practice SOAS. Most recent book, on Horatio Bottomley, now out with Routledge. After that? Books coming on freedom of expression, the anti-fascist novel, forgiveness...
#Writerlivesrunning.wordpress.com/
#Lawyerhttps://twitter.com/dkrenton
#Activisthttps://twitter.com/Livesrunning

"...Telling the story of the Anti-Nazi League without giving equal weight to Rock Against Racism is like telling a version of Romeo and Juliet in which Romeo delivers his lines, while cutting Juliet’s words back to him..."

On a new history of the 70s

https://davidrenton590934.substack.com/p/lets-put-the-politics-back-in

Let’s put the politics back in:

On a new history of the Anti-Nazi League

D K Renton

"...Of all Corbyn’s many controversial friendships, the one which has the potential to cause most damage to his legacy is Karie Murphy..."

Me for The Lead on what's happened since -that- launch

https://national.thelead.uk/p/your-party-future-jeremy-corbyn-zarah-sultana-david-renton

Can Corbyn and Sultana's Your Party move on from its troubled beginnings?

Splits, rows and even legal threats have dogged the first few months of what was supposed to be a new start for the left in Britain. Left-wing veteran David Renton dives into just what went wrong.

The Lead

"‘No Socialist looks on “outrages” as a virtue,’ Eleanor Marx acknowledged. But whatever crime the Fenians had committed, there was ‘a greater criminal’: ‘the English Government’" Me for @revsoc21

https://revsoc21.uk/2025/10/03/thinking-like-an-internationalist/

Thinking like an internationalist

rs21 - revolutionary socialism in the 21st century

Me for @truthout on the Pal Action protests "Those arrested included nurses, Anglican priests. They waited without grumbling in the hot summer sun, ageing limbs made painful by the police’s slow processing of the crowd."

https://truthout.org/articles/uk-gears-up-for-mass-protest-against-banning-of-palestine-action/

UK Gears Up for Mass Protest Against Banning of Palestine Action

More than 1,600 people have already been arrested, and 1,500 more have pledged to risk arrest Saturday in London.

Truthout

Out next May

"Renton rescues ‘forgiveness' from the pulpit and returns it, bloodied but lucid, to history. With a barrister’s intolerance for cant and a socialist’s contempt for vicarious absolution, he shows that forgiveness with justice is radical realpolitik"
—Richard Seymour

https://shorturl.at/WWeS5

Cover reveal:
Comrade Delta The 2013 Crisis in Britain’s Largest Far-Left Party

“An honest, balanced & well-documented account of an appalling episode” Ian Birchall

"An impeccably researched reckoning with the causes of a catastrophic betrayal" Sophie Lewis

Out in July 2026

https://shorturl.at/emntq

Thanks @davoloid - I need to listen to it

How are you supposed to talk down your racist uncle if the only person he’ll listen to it’s the AI on his Android? Or the attention economy which cocoons our enemy – sending their cadres picures of crowds singing Allah is a Pedo?

https://davidrenton590934.substack.com/p/anti-fascism-needs-culture

Anti-fascism needs culture

West Runton punks, 1979 - Syd Shelton

D K Renton

"The worst was four weeks when it spread to my mouth. It was as if some torturer-antagonist was burning my jawbone with an oxyacetaline torch. The hospital recommended I drink salt water. “Just a placebo,” the consultant told me at our next appointment

https://davidrenton590934.substack.com/p/the-end-of-chemo

The End of Chemo

The picture was taken on Friday, it’s the last photograph of me in the chemo ward at UCLH.

D K Renton

A Substack from me, addressing the consequences of the Tommy Robinson movement last weekend. We probably won't see more marches on that scale this year. What will happen, though, is a huge boost of energy for Farage and Reform

https://davidrenton590934.substack.com/p/tommy-robinson-huge-numbers-but-facing