Europe a Nation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Europe a Nation was a policy developed by British politician Oswald Mosley as the cornerstone of his Union Movement. It called for the integration of Europe into a single entity.
The idea of a united Europe began to develop in the final days of the Second World War, where it was felt that the war had been a terrible waste of life and resources. Arguments began to appear claiming that the only way to avoid a repetition would be to tear down the divisions in Europe. These arguments, which initially appeared in Germany, informed much of Mosley's post-War thinking.
Europe a Nation consisted of the idea that all European states should come together and pool their resources (including their colonies) to work as one giant superstate under a system of corporatism. For Mosley, it was the only viable alternative to the prospect of individual European countries carrying on alone, whilst the growing global market continued to make them poorer. Autarky was, therefore, a central aim of Europe a Nation, with Africa retained in colonial status to serve the needs of the European people (explaining the occasional use of the term Eurafrika as an alternative name).
Mosley summed up the arguments himself by stating that 'no lesser degree of union than that of an integral nation can give the will and power to act on the great scale.... No lesser space than all Europe, and the overseas possessions of Europe in a common pool, can give the room within which to act effectively'. [1]. The notion also had an important geopolitical dimension as Mosley saw it as the only defence against Europe becoming the scene of the power struggles between the United States and the Soviet Union in the Cold War.
Europe a Nation formed the central platform of the Union Movement and its successor, the Action Party. The failure of these two groups electorally indicates that there was little support for Mosley's idea in the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, the notion of a wider European nationalism has continued to be an important doctrine within far right circles, including the British-based International Third Position and the European National Front.
[edit] References
- ^ Oswald Mosley, 'European Socialism', The European, May 1956
