David Renton (born 1972) is a British barrister,historian,and socialist. Renton has represented clients in a number of high-profile cases,especially concerning trade union rights and the protection of free speech,and is frequently quoted on these topics in the British media.
Renton was born in London in 1972. His great aunt was the Communist historian,Dona Torr. 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 all-boys private boarding school Eton College where he became a member of the Labour Party. He then studied history at St John's College,University of Oxford.[2]
His PhD was turned into a book Fascism,Anti-Fascism and the 1940s,and is an account of the interactions between Oswald Mosley's Union Movement,its opponents in the 43 Group,and the police and courts.[5][6][7] The historians Peter Davies and Derek Lynch described Renton as a "modern neo-Marxist historian whose Fascism:Theory and Practice is a useful guide to leftist interpretations of fascism."[8]Never Again,his history of Rock Against Racism and the Anti-Nazi League,has been reviewed in The Spectator,[9]The Herald[10] and The Quietus.[11]
Law
Since 2009,Renton has practised as a barrister at Garden Court Chambers in London,in employment and housing law.[12]
Renton's clients have included the Bank of Ideas[13] 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.[14] Renton represented Smith at the Employment Tribunal,Employment Appeal Tribunal,Court of Appeal and European Court of Human Rights. 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.[15]
In 2021,Renton represented Stan Keable of Labour Against the Witchhunt,at the Employment Appeal Tribunal,which held that Keable was unfairly dismissed for events occurring at the "Enough is Enough" protests against Jeremy Corbyn. The EAT upheld an order that Keable should be reinstated.[16] In 2024,during protests against the genocide in Gaza,he represented the University of Birmingham student Mariyah Ali and other occupiers in contesting the university's right to expel the encampment.[17]
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.[21]
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.[22]
Selected publications
1990s
Red Shirts and Black:Fascists and Anti-Fascists in Oxford in the 1930s. Ruskin College,Oxford,1996. ISBN0-900183-19-5
British Fascism, the Labour Movement and the State. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2005. ISBN978-1-4039-3916-6 (Editor and contributor with Nigel Copsey)[23]
Colour Blind? Race and Migration in North East England. University of Sunderland Press, Sunderland, 2007. ISBN978-1-873757-71-0
When we Touched the Sky: The Anti-Nazi League 1977-1981. New Clarion Press, 2006. ISBN978-1-873797-49-5
CLR James: Cricket's Philosopher King. Haus Publishing, 2007.
↑ 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.
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