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Britain's Fascists
Leslie Rübner
[Written in 2011]
The Great War, from August 1914 to November 1918, involved most of the countries of Europe, the United States of America and many other nations throughout the world. The Great War was a violent and destructive war. 65 million men were mobilised and out of this, more than 10 million were killed and more than 20 million wounded. The term ‘The Great War’ went out of use after 1939, when World War II began. The name World War I came in to usage to distinguish between the two wars.
The First World War ended with the defeat of the Central Powers of Germany: Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria. As a result, Hungary was carved up; Austria and Germany were reduced, but they would not accept defeat. Many of their former soldiers believed that they had been cheated out of victory (Hitler later phrased this as “the stab in the back”). As a consequence of this, many of the defeated nations looked for scapegoats. In Germany, some blamed the Kaiser while others blamed the new Weimar Government. They were convinced that suing for peace and accepting the humiliating terms of the Armistice were totally unnecessary, amounting to treason. The most popular theory amongst the former soldiers was that the Jews and Communists had betrayed the Fatherland.
Victors and vanquished alike faced an enormous recovery challenge after four years of financial loss, economic deprivation, and material destruction. Amid this chaotic situation, the Paris Peace Conference opened on 12th January 1919. Meetings were held at various locations in and around Paris up until 20th January 1920, attended by leaders of 32 states, representing about 75% of the World’s population. Five treaties emerged from the Conference, with each treaty named after for a different Paris Suburb: Versailles for Germany, St Germain for Austria, Trianon for Hungary, Neuilly for Bulgaria and Serves for Turkey. The decisions the leaders made would determine the future of Europe, and much of the rest of the world.
The main terms of the Versailles Treaty with Germany were:
The surrender of all German colonies as League of Nations mandates;
The return of Alsace-Lorraine to France;
Cession of Eupen-Malmedy to Belgium, Memel to Lithuania, the Hultschin district to Czechoslovakia;
Poznania, parts of East Prussia and Upper Silesia to Poland;
Danzig to become a free city;
Plebiscites to be held in northern Schleswig to settle the Danish-German frontier;
Occupation and special status for the Saar under French control;
Demilitarisation and a fifteen-year occupation of the Rhineland;
German reparations of £6,600 million;
A ban on the union of Germany and Austria;
An acceptance of Germany's guilt in causing the war;
Provision for the trial of the former Kaiser and other war leaders;
Limitation of Germany's army to 100,000 men with no conscription, no tanks, no heavy artillery, no poison-gas supplies, no aircraft and no airships;
The limitation of the German Navy to vessels under 100,000 tons, with no submarines.
These demands, especially the level of reparations, led to an economic collapse accompanied by hyperinflation in the defeated nations. In Germany, severe unemployment led to starvation.
In the United Kingdom, the returning British soldiers were expecting to return to a “Country fit for Heroes”; instead, they found no jobs, no social security, nothing to live on, and to cap it all, a new class of rich people who had grown wealthy during the War, creating an atmosphere of resentment.
On 29th October 1929, the Wall Street Crash occurred in the New York Stock Market, which precipitated a world-wide collapse of trade and industry, triggering the Great Depression – years of economic slump causing a catastrophic level of unemployment across all the industrialised countries. The onset of the depression in the early 1930s tore the British Parliament apart. The Labour Government, under the leadership of Ramsey MacDonald, which had been in power since 1929, found itself leading a nation in disagreement over recovery measures. Labour advocated extremely leftist policies and high spending, while the Liberal and Conservative Parties were divided within themselves over just what to do. The election of 1931 was a marked success for the Conservatives, who emerged with a vast majority in Parliament. Despite the Party’s protectionist efforts, the depression grew steadily worse. Unemployment benefits were cut in 1931, and adjusted again in 1934. The remainder of the peacetime years was spent dabbling in different potential solutions to the nation's economic problems.
To my mind, these were the right conditions for Fascism in Central and Western Europe. Here in the UK, we also saw the emergence of both extremes of the political spectrum. Some gravitated towards Communism, with its offer of equality and fairness (they really believed this); but many others, swallowing every word a Demagogue had to say, by and large preferred the approach of the right, blaming the foreign minorities, especially Jews, for all the ills of this Country. According to Eugen Weber (born 24th April 1925 in Bucharest, Romania), a prominent historian, Fascism in England “seems almost a contradiction because Great Britain - and especially England - is known as a law-abiding and constitutionally minded country, where violence is out of place, existing institutions are respected, and gradual reform is the rule”. Yet Fascism found fertile ground in England.
The first organised fascists called themselves the “British Fascisti”, formed in 1923 by a Miss Rotha Lintorn-Orman, after Mussolini’s March on Rome. William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw, an Irish-American living in England, the Nazi broadcaster to Britain during the 2nd World War, hanged for his war crimes after the War) and Arnold Leese (an anti-Semite, veterinary surgeon who developed conspiracy theories of Jewish threat to the Empire) were among its members. The British Fascisti were, as the name suggests, a Fascist Organisation, considering themselves as no more than an adult version of the Scouts, who “just happened” to admire Il Duce (Mussolini).
In 1924, some of the British Fascisti, dissatisfied with the “mildness” of the Organisation, broke away to form the National Fascisti. Members dressed in black shirts, mimicking the Italian Fascists, and received some military training. In 1925, after a series of in-fighting, they changed their name to the British National Fascisti, under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel H. Rippon-Seymour.
The Imperial Fascist League, Arnold Leese’s breakaway from the British Fascisti, was formed in 1929. Their Fascist Legions trained for street brawling and, in common with other fascist groups, favoured the use of black shirts. They chose the fasces symbol (consisting of a bundle of birch rods tied together with a red ribbon in the form of a cylinder around an axe). One interpretation of the symbolism suggests that, despite the fragility of each independent single rod, as a bundle they exhibit strength. After Hitler came to power, they embraced Nazism and replaced it with the Swastika superimposed on the Union Jack.
Anti-Semitism was central to the Imperial Fascist League and the party was in contact with Julius Streicher (the prolific publisher of Nazi propaganda and the newspaper, Der Strümer) before the War. The Kingpins of British Fascism were Sir Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists (BUF). Oswald Mosley was born in 1896. He was educated at Winchester and Sandhurst. During the First World War he served on the Western Front with the 16th Lancers. Thereafter, he could be found at the Royal Flying Corps but after a plane crash, he was invalided out of the war in 1916. In the 1918 General Election, he stood as a Conservative at the Harrow Constituency, winning and becoming the youngest MP in the House of Commons. He became disillusioned with the Conservatives and in 1922, stood as an Independent and won again. A couple of years later, Mosley crossed the floor, joining the Labour Party. In October 1927, Mosley was elected to the party’s National Executive Committee. After the 1929 General Election, Ramsey MacDonald appointed Mosley as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. In 1930, Mosley proposed a programme to help deal with a growing unemployment. This programme was based on the ideas of Maynard Keynes ((05/06/1883 – 21/04/1946), a British economist whose ideas are known as Keysian economics), stimulating foreign trade, directing industrial policy, and using public funds to promote industrial expansion. When MacDonald and his cabinet rejected these proposals, Mosley resigned from office.
A year later, in 1931, after leaving the Labour Party, Mosley founded the “New Party” whose supporters included:
John Strachey
As a political thinker and politician, John Strachey (1901-1963) strove to alter and modernise British society for 40 years. For him, modernisation meant Marxism. Before and after the Second World War, Strachey was a thinker on the left of Britain's political spectrum. Like Mosley, Strachey began his political life as a Conservative (he was a Member of Parliament at the age of 22). John Stachey returned to his natural home, the Labour Party.
William Joyce
William Joyce was born on 24th April 1906 in Brooklyn; New York. His father originally came from Ireland, and became a naturalised American citizen. Having moved to London in 4th July 1934, William Joyce applied and obtained his British Passport. Better known by the name of Lord Haw-Haw, he broadcast Nazi propaganda from Germany. After the war he stood trial for treason. He was found guilty and after a failed appeal, he was hanged at Wandsworth Prison in London, a few minutes past 9am on 3rd January 1946, with a sizable crowd outside the prison. Joyce was buried within the prison grounds (as with all executed prisoners). On 18th August 1976, William Joyce’s remains were exhumed and reburied in Ireland.
John Beckett
John Beckett (1894-1964) was a leading figure in British politics between the world wars, both in the Labour Party and the Fascist movements. He was elected as Labour MP for Gateshead in 1924, moving to Peckham in 1929. He achieved notoriety in 1930, when he lifted the Ceremonial mace during a Commons debate. In 1931, he lost his seat. Retiring from active politics, he visited Italy where he was much impressed by the state of affairs there.
Harold Nicholson
Harold Nicholson (Born in Tehran, 21/11/1886, died 01/05/1968) was a British diplomat, author and politician. He stood unsuccessfully for Parliament on the New Party ticket in the 1931 General Election. He was the editor of the party newspaper. Nicholson ceased to support Mosley when Mosley formed the British Union of Fascists in 1932.
In the 1931 General Election, none of the New Party’s candidates were elected.
In January 1932, Mosley met Benito Mussolini in Italy. He was impressed by Mussolini’s achievements and when he returned to England, he disbanded the New Party and replaced it with the British Union of Fascists (BUF). He was determined to unite all the existing fascist movements in his party. The BUF was anti-Communist, anti-Semitic and protectionist. It had a membership of 50,000. The BUF and their leader, Mosley, enjoyed the support of Lord Rothermere (Harold Sidney Harmsworth, the Newspaper tycoon, b. 26/04/1868 d. 26/11/1940) and his publications, the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror. In January 1934, he wrote an article, “Hurrah for the Blackshirts”, in which he praised Mosley for his “sound, common sense, Conservative doctrine”. His Lordship had several meetings with the Führer and he believed all he had wanted was peace. In March 1934, he wrote an article in which he called for the lands in Africa, taken from Germany at Versailles, to be returned to Hitler.
[As a footnote, the Daily Mail is still under the Rothermere family’s control!]
Mosley had problems with disruptions of party meetings and organised a group of black-uniformed paramilitary stewards, the “Blackshirts”. They were often involved in fights with Jews, Trade Unionists, Socialists and Communists, especially in London. At a rally at Olympia on 7th June 1934, because hecklers were manhandled and removed from the Hall by force at the hands of the Blackshirts, there was a backlash against the BUF and they lost a lot of support; the Party was unable to fight the 1935 general election.
In 1936, the Jews of Great Britain numbered an estimated 350,000, a mere 0.7% of the general population. Nearly half were crowded in the East End – 60,000 in Stepney alone. In October of that year, Mosley decided to flex the Fascist muscle by organising a march through the East End of London. Then, as now, it had some of the worst living conditions in Britain. Poverty caused the place to be a hotbed of anti-Semitism and racism. The British Brothers’ League, founded by ex-army officers in 1900, claimed 45,000 members in the East End. Organised on semi-military lines, it campaigned against Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe. The Aliens Restriction Act in 1905 was passed in reaction to the British Brothers’ activities.
Mosley’s East End campaign began in June 1936 with a rally in Victoria Park, Hackney, with intimidating street-corner meetings, firebombing and the breaking shop windows of Jewish businesses, verbal and physical racist attacks; the fascists were creating an atmosphere of terror. In September, the BUF announced its intention to mount a show of strength on the afternoon of Sunday 4th October to intimidate the local people. Uniformed fascists were to gather in military formation at Royal Mint Street, where they would be reviewed by their Führer, before marching in separate contingents to four meetings in East London.
“Cable Street is an unassuming, run of the mill street in the heart of Whitechapel. Walking along it today it would be difficult to believe that anything extraordinary had ever happened there. But on Oct 4th 1936, over 250,000 ordinary East Enders took to the streets to fight their own war against fascism. The ensuing clashes became known as “The Battle of Cable Street”.
[From bbc.co.uk]
Despite appeals to the Government from Jewish and other organisations, the march was approved by the Government, and a large escort of police was provided to prevent disruption of the march, but the Jews and anti-Fascists were determined to do just that! Barricades were erected and manned by young Jews and others. The police fought running battles to clear the way for the marching Fascists, but eventually they gave up and the march was abandoned, with the BUF marchers were dispersed towards Hyde Park. Eventually, Sir Philip Game, the Police Commissioner, disallowed the march. However, Mosley continued to organise marches policed by the Blackshirts. The government, worried about public order, passed the Public Order Act 1936 which, amongst others, banned political uniforms and quasi-military style organisations. The Act came into effect on 1 January 1937.
Professor Bill Fishman, now 89, who was 15 on the day, was at Gardner's Corner in Aldgate, the entrance to the East End. “I heard this loudspeaker say: They are going to Cable Street”, said Prof Fishman. “Suddenly a barricade was erected there and they put an old lorry in the middle of the road and old mattresses. The people up the top of the flats, mainly Irish Catholic women, were throwing rubbish on to the police. We were all side-by-side. I was moved to tears to see bearded Jews and Irish Catholic Dockers standing up to stop Mosley.”
[Extract from Audrey Gillan’s article in The Guardian, Saturday 30th Sept 2006]
Let me put the Battle of Cable Street in perspective. Throughout the 1930s, Nazi domestic policy was aimed at stripping Jews of all citizenship, economic and political rights. The Jews were completely dehumanised by Hitler. His swift rise to power between 1932 and 1934, his militarisation of the Rhineland in 1936 and the success of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, had convinced him that he was infallible and that no one would interfere in his affairs. British Jewry was deeply concerned about the fate of their German brethren, and what was unfolding on the continent strengthened their resolve to stand up to these Fascist bullies!
In the London County Council elections in 1937, the BUF stood in three of its East London strongholds, polling up to a quarter of the vote. At this point, some of the members, including William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw), defected from the party. As the Continent was moving towards war, the BUF put up Parliamentary candidates and launched campaigns on the theme of "Mind Britain's Business". After the outbreak of war, they favoured a negotiated peace with Germany. Their ideas were well received but, after the German invasion of Norway, the hostility towards them grew.
On 22nd May 1940, the British government announced the imposition of Defence Regulation 18B. This legislation gave the Home Secretary the right to imprison without trial anybody he believed likely to “endanger the safety of the realm”. On 23rd May 1940, Mosley was interned along with most of the active fascists in Britain, and the BUF was later banned. His second wife, Diana Mosley was also interned, shortly after the birth of their son Max and they spent most of the War years in a house in the grounds of Holloway prison. Mosley used the time to read extensively on classical civilisations. Because Mosley was suffering with phlebitis (inflammation of a vein), in November 1943, Herbert Morrison (Home Secretary in the War Time Coalition) controversially decided to order his release from prison. There were large-scale protests and even Diana’s sister, Jessica Mitford, described the decision as “a slap in the face of anti-fascists in every country and a direct betrayal of those who have died for the cause of anti-fascism”. The Mosleys spent the rest of the war years under house arrest. The war ended with his political reputation in tatters.
After the war, Sir Oswald and Lady Mosley tried publishing, with Euphorion Books formed to publish the work of right-wing authors. Diana also edited the far-right magazine, The European. In 1947, Mosley created the Union Movement which advocated British integration in to Europe and an end to commonwealth immigration. The couple left England in 1949 and after a period in Ireland, settled in France where they lived close to their friends, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
Oswald Mosley was unsuccessful in his two attempts to enter the House of Commons for Kensington North (1959) and Shoreditch & Finsbury (1966). He died in 1980 but his death did not mean the end of Fascism in this country. There were willing and eager people to carry on.
After the War, some groups emerged which found inspiration in fascism and Nazism. To mention just a few:
The Union Movement, a version of the BUF that advocated a Europeanist outlook of Neo-Fascism.
The British National Party (BNP), founded by the infamous John Hutchyns Tyndall (14 July 1934 – 19 July 2005) of the National Front, a producer of pro-Nazi propaganda. This party split in 1962. This Party is still active under the leadership of Nick Griffin, a hard-line fascist. Convicted of inciting race hate, he is a Holocaust denier and believes that Jews are conspiring against white British people. His father, Edwin, took him to his first National Front meeting when he was just 15. Griffin’s BNP is now anti-Islamic, but this has not always been the case. After his faction took control of the National Front, they began to make some strange alliances. They met with representatives of Colonel Gaddafi’s regime through the Libyan People’s Bureau in London, and expressed support for Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini.
>Read Leslie's article on 'Persian Attitudes to Jews in Perspective' for more information on Ayatollah Khomeini<
In 1985, he praised the black separatist, Louis Farrakhan: “White nationalists everywhere wish (Farrakhan) well, for we share a common struggle for the same ends.” In 1995, Griffin joined the BNP. He was the Editor of “The Rune”, an anti-Semitic quarterly. He also announced that the BNP should prioritise denying the Holocaust to schoolchildren.
[Editor note: Nick Griffin resigned in 2014 from the BNP and was succeeded by Adam Walker]
The National Socialist Movement (NSM), a breakaway from the BNP was led by Colin Jordan (born June 1923). Jordan was a Nazi leader, acknowledged around the world. In the 1960s, Jordan represented the most explicit Nazism with his open use of the styles and symbols of the Third Reich. Jordan advocated a “Universal Nazism”. Although now unaffiliated with any political party, Jordan remained a voice on British Nazism. He died in April 2009.
The British Movement evolved from the NSM in 1968, using images of Hitler and the swastika on their election literature.
The November 9 Society or the British First Party was founded by Terry Flynn in 1977. Flynn became a Nazi at the tender age of 9, when a school friend gave him a medal with a swastika on it.
The National Socialist Action Party, a splinter group from the British Movement, formed in 1982.
However, this is definitely not the end of the story. Fascism and its twin, Nazism, and anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia are on the march.
The curious development in the 21st century is that the political circle is closed with the right and left of the spectrum joining hands in their hate of the Jews in general, and Israel in particular. I fear for the future of the Jews of Europe.
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