ABSTRACT
The Non-Stop Picket had a distinct geography. The Picket occupied a certain (shifting) space in Trafalgar Square as the main site for City Group's anti-apartheid protests. This chapter considers the levels of commitment that activists invested in the Non-Stop Picket, as well as some of the ways this was celebrated, including through an annual calendar of special events. In response to the potential danger of neo-fascist attack, each year, on Remembrance Sunday, large numbers of City Group supporters and other anti-fascists would mobilise, gathering on the picket to defend it against potential attack. In parallel to these mobilisations, activists from the Non-Stop Picket would often patrol the area with Anti-Fascist Action to identify and head off groups of fascists heading towards the Picket. These anti-fascist mobilisations to defend the Non-Stop Picket once again highlight the ways in which, for City Group members, the politics of anti-apartheid solidarity activism could never be separated from anti-racist and anti-fascist work in Britain.
