Devon Labour Briefing - The William of Orange Celebrations 1988

The William of Orange Celebrations 1988

In 1988, the Labour controlled Exeter City Council in collaboration with the William and Mary Tercentenary Trust planned to celebrate the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688 on the grounds that Exeter was the first English city in which William III of England set foot. The National Front, the Orange Order and other right wing groups announced that they too would participate in the celebrations. Devon Labour Briefing opposed the celebrations inside the Labour Party on the grounds that William of Orange was a symbol of Protestant supremacy in Northern Ireland, that the Glorious Revolution did not involve working people and that the celebrations were acting as a magnet for the extreme right. Although Devon Labour Briefing and other left-wingers won the vote in Exeter Labour Party, the City Council persisted. Key invited figures such as the historian Christopher Hill, however, backed out of the celebrations. The events of 1988 saw the launching of Exeter Anti-Fascist Action, affiliated to Anti-Fascist Action nationally and included supporters of Devon Labour Briefing and the Workers Revolutionary Party, as well as other independent socialists and anarchists.