Dave Renton

Dave Renton

David (Dave) Renton, (born December 1972),^[1] is a historian, barrister, and former political activist in the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).^[2]

Early life and education

Renton was born in London in 1972. His great aunt was the Communist historian Dona Torr. Renton was educated at Eton College where his contemporaries included Mark Pilkington and the future Tory MP Rory Stewart, who was then (like Renton) a member of the Labour Party. At Eton, Renton met Raphael Samuel, of the History Workshop. He then studied history at Oxford under the labour historian Ross McKibbin.^[3]

For many years, Renton was an academic historian and sociologist, teaching at universities including Nottingham Trent, Edge Hill, Sunderland University, and Rhodes and Johannesburg Universities in South Africa.

Renton was also a county-standard middle-distance runner. He is a follower of Liverpool football club.

Historical writing

Renton first short book, based on his undergraduate dissertation, was a pamphlet history of anti-fascism in 1930s Oxford. This was followed by a PhD at the University of Sheffield on fascism and anti-fascism in 1940s Britain. Renton studied here under Professor Colin Holmes and Dr Richard Thurlow.

Renton's book Fascism, theory and practice criticised the "new consensus" theory of fascism associated with Roger Griffin and others, in which fascism is understood as a form of palingenetic ultranationalism. Renton's approach was to analyse fascism as a specific form of reactionary mass politics. In contrast to Griffin, Renton placed greater emphasis on what he portrayed as a key contradiction between the popular support many fascist parties have enjoyed, and their ideology, which he characterised as radically inegalitarian and anti-democratic. Fascism, in Renton's argument, was always a tentative politics, capable of rapid growth but also (if opposed) organisational lethargy or even collapse.

In When we touched the Sky, Renton considered the part played by British anti-fascists in the Anti-Nazi League in bringing about the defeat of the National Front.

Renton has also written histories of the British Communist Party, and biographies of Leon Trotsky and C. L. R. James

Law

Since 2009, Renton has practised as a barrister at Garden Court chambers in London, in employment, housing and family law.^[4]

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.^[5]

Renton is the author of the employment law blog Struck Out, which accompanies a book of the same name.

Political activism

Renton has been active in left-wing campaigns in London, Liverpool, Sheffield and Sunderland, including the campaign in support of the murdered Oxford refugee Said Guleid Ahmed, and campaigns to welcome asylum seekers to Britain.^{[citation needed]}

In 2003-2006, when Renton worked full-time as a national official of the lecturers' union Natfhe (now the University and College Union), he was a member of the national steering committee of Unite Against Fascism.

He is a member of the London Socialist Historians Group and the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers.

Books

• Fascism: theory and practice 1999, Pluto Press. ISBN 978-0-7453-1470-9
• Fascism, Anti-Fascism and the 1940s 2000
• The Twentieth Century 2000 (with Keith Flett)
• This Rough Game 2001
• Marx on Globalization 2001
• The Communist Party since 1920 2002 (With James Eaden)
• Classical Marxism 2002
• New Approaches to Socialist History 2003 (with Keith Flett)
• Dissident Marxism 2004
• Trotsky 2004
• Sidney Pollard: a Life in History 2004
• British Fascism, the Labour Movement and the State 2004 (With Nigel Copsey)
• The Congo 2006 (With Leo Zeilig and David Seddon)
• When we touched the Sky: the ANL 1977-1981 2006
• CLR James: Cricket's Philosopher King. 2007 Haus Publishing
• Colour Blind? Race and Migration in North East England 2008
• Struck Out 2012
• Lives; Running 2012

References and sources

References

Sources

• Dave Renton, 'The Tories, Eton and the private schools'
• Dave Renton, 'Economic globalisation versus social justice? Rosa Luxemburg and the 'frontier of control
• Dave Renton, 'The Poetics of Propaganda: David Widgery'

External links

• Struck Out - David Renton's employment law blog
• Lives Running A blog by Renton