How to Stop Facism author to star at launch of Sheffield literary festival which launches today

Paul Mason, author of How to Stop Fascism, will attend the Off The Shelf festival tomorrow at 7.30pm and speak about the threat of fascism in current political and social life.

His book examines modern day fascism which led to incidents such as the attempted insurrection at Capitol Hill in the USA, but also looks to the past for lessons.

Paul told the Telegraph: “The fascist thought structure is working its way into people’s minds where it wasn’t before, so I wanted to write about that and what is the history of this idea. We know where it leads but not a lot of people know where it comes from.

"The book is very much about now and the threats now. But we can learn a lot from about what happened in the past. If you walk into the average secondary school and say ‘who’s heard of Hitler?’, everybody puts their hands up. If you then say ‘how did he come to power?’, everybody puts their hands down.

Paul argues that fascism is not a historical threat but an ongoing one and that it must be met with strong resistance.

He added: “We need to ask now, how do we stop Trump coming back, how do we stop the people around him radicalising and turning to militarised solutions like they did on January 6?”

He decided to write his book after an event in 2019 which highlighted to him how vocal fascist elements were becoming.

He said: “I was at Whitehall in a demonstration against the prorogation of Parliament.

"A few hundred Tony Robinson supporters surrounded us and started shouting at us, which is normal, I’ve been in that situation many times in my political life. But this was the first time they were shouting about me. They were shouting Paul Mason, we’ve researched you. You’re a Marxist and a traitor to our country. So I thought right, I’m going to research you. I’m going to re-examine and rethink everything I think I know about fascism.”

Paul’s event will take place at Firth Hall inside Firth Court, Western Bank. Tickets are £10 with £8 concession. Visit www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk to book.