The Black Shirts in London: A Study of the popularity of Fascism in Britain

The inept and unimaginative
Sir Oswald Mosley

            During interwar period, Europe became exposed to new political ideologies: Communism and Fascism.  Fascism was able to gain notice on the world stage and had established a strong presence in Germany and Italy.  It also found some popularity in Britain during the 1930s, most notably under the leadership of Sir Oswald Mosley and his party the British Union of Fascists (BUF).  Through looking at the case of Sir Oswald Mosley, this blog post will show that Fascism gained a foothold in Britain due to a variety of issues in the 1930s.

            It is first important to understand the reasoning behind Mosley’s turn to Fascism.  His motivation was partially rooted in the crash of the United States stock market in October 1929.[1]  The crash was only a part of other events that helped to bring about the Great Depression.  High grain prices during the First World War allowed for farmers to “put more land into production,”[2] but the end of the war caused both prices and demand to drop during the interwar period.[3]  The first to be affected by this were the smaller Eastern European states, who pressured their governments to introduce tariff barriers on imported agricultural goods.[4]  Britain faced a similar situation with the coal industry; a staple of its economy since the industrial revolution, though it was also facing displacement from oil by this time.[5]

            In addition, the move to return to the gold standard played into the economic issues.  The move to do so was based on the idea that currencies would be secured and be protected from “wild fluctuations in exchange rates that would result in inflation and social disorder.”[6]  The British government chose to reinstitute the gold standard in 1925 in order to respond to the balance-of-payments deficits.[7]  This was hazardous to the economy due to the fact that previously Britain had been importing too many goods and were paying for these goods with their gold supplies.[8]

James Ramsay Macdonald

            By 1931, unemployment in Britain grew from ten percent to sixteen percent while exports had declined by half.[9]  To combat these issues, the British Labour government under James Ramsay Macdonald, in an attempt to keep Liberal support, chose to face the economic crisis through classic economic solutions by implementing austerity measures such as “sharp increases in taxation and drastic spending cuts.” [10]  Mosley did not support these measures.  To Mosley, the 1929 crash had proven to him that Britain’s structural and ideological basis were now lost and the future of the British economy was now “bound up within a competing global market place.”[11]  While critics were looking to the ideas of John Maynard Keynes, who proposed “increased governmental spending and lower interest rates to stimulate the economy,”[12] or Stalin’s fine-year-plans, Mosley looked to Mussolini’s corporate state for a solution.

Benito Mussolini (left) and Sir Oswald Mosley(right)

            Mosley lacked faith in the democratic system.  Mosley had originally been a member of the Conservative Party when he first ran for the riding of Harrow in 1918.[13]  In 1920, Mosley crossed the floor of the House of Commons over conflictions with the Conservative Party to join the Labour Party in 1924, only to leave the party sometime after.[14]  According to Matthew Worley’s article “Why Fascism? Sir Oswald Mosley and the Conception of the British Union of Fascists,” the basis for Mosley’s departure from the Labour Party derived from his experience as a government minister, which “undermined his belief in the efficiency of a of a democratically elected parliamentary government.”[15]

This conclusion came from the fact that all of Mosley’s proposals to combat unemployment were simply knocked down by senior colleagues in both the cabinet and the treasury.[16]  For this reason Mosley believed that the “archaic traditions of parliamentary procedure” were “ill-suited to tackling the severe economic problems” that were effecting Britain.[17]  The British parliamentary system, according to Mosley, was prone to being tedious and easily caught up in party politics.[18]  In the case of the Macdonald government, Mosley thought the Labour party’s approach to the economic crisis as similar to “the Salvation Army taking to its heels and running away from the Day of Judgment.”[19]

For Mosley, the alternative was simple: replace Parliament with a five minister cabinet that would be given the power to carry through the necessary emergency policies.[20]  This platform was adapted by Mosley’s newly formed New Party, along with plans to streamline parliament to the point where government issued orders would only be subjected to “limited parliamentary discussion and accepted or rejected within a specific time frame.”[21]

Flag of the British Union of Fascists

In September 1931, Mosley had the New Party renamed the British Union of Fascists.[22]    It was not the only Fascist party to appear in Britain, nor was it the first.  The earliest party to form in Britain was the British Fascisti in 1923 by Rotha Lintorn-Orman.[23]  Seen as a more conservative form of fascism, the party was well known for volunteering “personal services for patriotic purposes” and for having a role in the 1926 General Strike.[24]  Another fascist party that appeared before the BUF was the Imperial Fascist League, co-founded by Arnold Leese in 1928.[25]  Unlike the other fascist parties who were eventually incorporated into the BUF, Leese refused to allow his party to be absorbed, though he did collaborate with Mosley’s party in “joint ventures.”[26]  Leese did not approve of the British Union of Fascists, dubbing Mosley to be only a “Jew fascist” running a group of “kosher fascists” and called the BUF “The British Jewnion of Fascists.”[27]

It can be noted that among the BUF’s supporters were members of the Anglican Church.  In late February 1934, a group of BUF members were openly welcomed at a special service by the minister if Saint John’s Church, Sutton-on-Plym.[28]  That same week, an entire BUF attended christening was held at Holy Trinity Church in Sloane Square, London.[29]  According to Thomas Linehan, the Anglican Church’s support for fascism was based from their dislike toward Bolshevik communism.[30]  Communist treatment of the Orthodox Church in Russia and the Roman Catholic Church in Spain had pushed Anglican clerics into emotional fits of hatred.[31]  In one case, the Reverend M. Yate Allen described Christian priests and nuns being “cruelly tortured and slain” by these communist groups as if it were “by a tribe of most cruel savages.”[32]  In the same piece of anti-communist rhetoric, Allen presented that there were only two sides to choose: the side of fascism where there was God, “health, purity, industry, faith, hope, [and] charity;”[33] or communism, the cradle of “cruelty, murder, filth, immorality,” and the Devil and Antichrist.[34] 

Officially, the BUF supported the role of Christian church.  It saw churches as having a significant part in developing social law and wanted to develop a fascist society based upon Christian principles.[35]  The BUF also promised to protect the “principle of religious belief and worship” from the threat of “secular liberalism and communism.”[36]  Though this was the case, Mosley himself could not care for the Christian faith, finding its methods “puritanical and ‘dull’” for being used to recruit the youth.[37]  In siding with the Church of England, the BUF was able to show itself to the British public, mainly those of the middle class, that they were a morally just party.

Another form of appeal to the public came in the use of Anti-Semitism, the “crassest of blunt instruments” used by the BUF.[38]  In Jewish households in Britain, Mosley became a monstrous figure who would go after Jewish children if they did not behave.[39]  Though Mosley used anti-Semitic values since he ran for the Conservative Party in 1918 under his anti-immigration platform, it, like the conception of a fascist political party, it was not an original idea.[40]  Between 1901 and 1905, the British Brothers League stood against Jewish immigration and a strong position toward eugenics.[41]  This anti-Semitic sentiment was also popular among pro-fascist Anglican clerics, who feverously spread such rhetoric in the BUF press.  One cleric, who went under the pseudonym “Vicar”, accused Jews of hiding in Britain, “cloaking their identities under ‘assumed’ English names.”[42]  The Vicar of Saint Bede Church in Bristol, George Henry Dymock, argued that Jews in Britain were plotting to flood the world in a “bath of blood” through “supposed war-talk in the press,”[43] feelings that find their way in the speeches of Enoch Powel in the 1970s.

The equally inept and
unimaginative Enoch Powell

Despite Mosley’s use of anti-Semitism to gain public support, it was limited in gaining a mass following with such a discourse.  Robert Benewick’s article, “Interpretations of British Fascism” points out that the BUF were only successful in gaining public support through such a platform in East London.[44]  The reason, according to Benewick, was because of locations such as Birmingham.[45]  These towns were not attracted as much to the BUF due to its “relative prosperity and the low density of Jewish population.”[46]

Though the BUF was unable to gain support via anti-sentiment, the party was able to gain support through the use of violence.  According to Jon Lawrence, violence was “the essence for Mosley’s ‘fascism’.”[47]  It is even believed that British fascism was formed from the “disorderly Ashton by-election in May 1931.”[48]  That same year, Mosley had his personal bodyguards known as “Biff Boys” reformatted into the Nuppa Youth Movement.[49]  Nuppa would serve as an “embryo” for the BUF’s Fascist Defence League, which acted on the party’s behalf in combating communist groups.[50]

Olympia Rally, 1934

The best example of fascist violence can be seen in the Mosley’s address at Olympia on June 7, 1934.[51]  Here Mosley was meant to publicize the BUF before an estimated audience of fifteen thousand people.[52]  The disorder caused at Olympia allowed for Labour and Liberal newspapers to make fascist violence an issue, running articles, such as the case of the News Chronicle, of “gang attacks on single victims.”[53]  The issue was even brought before Parliament, where it became the hope of the National Government to discredit both Mosley and the BUF.[54]  The Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, believed that fascism was as dangerous as communism, citing both group’s needs to “supress opposition” and their need for dictatorial methods.”[55]  The violence committed at Olympia eventually put the British Union of Fascists into decline.  The anti-fascist interpretations of what happened began to dominate and influence the public over the months that followed.[56]

As the summer of 1934 progressed, the BUF began to lose supporters and influence.[57]  The root of this decline was the fact that the British Union of Fascists only “threatened public order” and not the state.[58]  Britain’s system of “institutional legitimacy” of a “secure position [for] the ruling groups and the entrenched class basis of political loyalties” prevented the party from gaining any actual influence.[59]  In addition, Mosley caused confusion for party supporters by allying with Christian pacifists, communists, and fascists in campaigns in 1939 to keep Britain from going to war.[60]  This conflicted with the party message of “empire patriotism” for BUF members, who went on to join the British armed forces when war did eventually break out.[61]

In closing, the formation of fascism in Britain was a reaction to the events of the interwar period.  Ramsey Macdonald’s response to the economic crisis facing Britain caused many to look to other alternatives, such as Keynesian economics.  For Sir Oswald Mosley, the answer to Britain’s troubles was fascism.  The formation of the British Union of Fascists came as a result of Mosley trying to form a better alternative to the parties in power after feeling that the parliamentary system was too long-winded to address the economic issues.  The party gained support through its hatred of communism and use of anti-Semitism by providing the British public with something to blame for the issues facing the empire.  Though the party was gaining much support from influential institution, like the Church of England, the BUF eventually fell into decline by the mid-thirties because of its growing use of violence.  The established British system and its contradiction in philosophy, made party rhetoric difficult to follow for members.  For this reason the British Union of Fascists makes fascism to be nothing more than a passing movement in British history.

Bibliography

Benewick, Robert. “Interpretations of British Fascism.” Political Studies 24, no. 3 (September 1976): 320-324. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 15, 2014).

Di Scala, Spencer M. Europe’s Long History: Society Politics, and Culture, 1900-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Lawrence, Jon. “Fascist violence and the politics of public order in inter-war Britain: the Olympia debate revisited.” Historical Research 76, no. 192 (May 2003): 238-267. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 15, 2014).

------. “‘Why Olympia mattered’.” Historical Research 78, no. 200 (May 2005): 263-272. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 16, 2014).

Linehan, Thomas. “‘On the Side of Christ’: Fascist Clerics in 1930s Britain.” Totalitarian Movements & Political Religions 8, no. 2 (June 2007): 287-301. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 15, 2014).

Martin, Paul. “Contexualising Mosley.” History Today 48, no. 5 (May 1998): 62-63. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 16, 2014).

Worley, Matthew. “Why Fascism? Sir Oswald Mosley and the Conception of the British Union of Fascists.” History 96, no. 321 (January 2011): 68-83. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 15, 2014).

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[1] Spencer M. Di Scala, Europe’s Long History: Society Politics, and Culture, 1900-1945, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 239.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Di Scala, 241.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid., 243.

[10] Ibid., 242.

[11] Matthew Worley, “Why Fascism? Sir Oswald Mosley and the Conception of the British Union of Fascists,” History 96, no. 321 (January 2011): 72, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost.

[12] Di Scala, 242.

[13] Paul Martin, “Contexualising Mosley.” History Today 48, no. 5 (May 1998): 62. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost.

[14] Worley, 72.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid., 72-73.

[19] Ibid. 73.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Worley, 73.

[22] Ibid. 81-82.

[23] Martin, 62.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Ibid., 63.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Thomas Linehan, “‘On the Side of Christ’: Fascist Clerics in 1930s Britain,” Totalitarian Movements & Political Religions 8, no. 2 (June 2007): 287, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost.

[29] Linehan, 287.

[30] Linehan, 289.

[31] Ibid.

[32] Ibid.

[33] Ibid.

[34] Ibid.

[35] Ibid., 297.

[36] Ibid.

[37] Ibid.

[38] Martin, 62.

[39] Ibid.

[40] Ibid.

[41] Ibid.

[42] Linehan, 295.

[43] Ibid., 296.

[44] Robert Benewick, “Interpretations of British Fascism,” Political Studies 24, no. 3 (September 1976): 322, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost.

[45] Benewick, 321.

[46] Ibid.

[47] Jon Lawrence, “Fascist violence and the politics of public order in inter-war Britain: the Olympia debate revisited,” Historical Research 76, no. 192 (May 2003): 245, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost.

[48] Ibid., 244.

[49] Ibid., 245.

[50] Ibid.

[51] Ibid., 238.

[52] Ibid.

[53] Ibid., 246.

[54] Jon Lawrence, “‘Why Olympia mattered’,” Historical Research 78, no. 200 (May 2005): 268, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost.

[55] Jon Lawrence, “‘Why Olympia mattered’,” 268.

[56] Ibid.

[57] Ibid.

[58] Benewick, 322.

[59] Ibid.

[60] Martin, 63.

[61] Ibid.