| British Union | |
|---|---|
| Leader | Oswald Mosley |
| Founded | 1932 |
| Dissolved | 1940 |
| Preceded by | New Party British Fascisti |
| Succeeded by | Union Movement |
| Paramilitary wing | Blackshirts |
| Ideology | Fascism (British) Factional: National Socialism |
| Political position | Far right |
| International affiliation | N/A |
| Official colours | Flash and Circle |
The British Union (BU) was a political party in the United Kingdom formed in 1932 by Sir Oswald Mosley as the British Union of Fascists, in 1936 it changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists and then in 1937 to simply the British Union. It existed until 1940, when it was proscribed by the authorities.
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Oswald Mosley was the youngest elected Conservative MP before crossing the floor in 1922, joining first the Labour Party and, shortly afterwards, the Independent Labour Party. He became a minister in Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government, advising on rising unemployment. In 1930 he issued his 'Mosley Memorandum' a proto-Keynesian programme of policies designed to tackle the unemployment problem, and resigned from the party soon after, in early 1931, when the plans were rejected. He immediately formed the New Party, with policies based on his memorandum; but, despite winning 16% of the vote at a by-election in Ashton-under-Lyne in early 1931, the party failed to achieve any electoral success.
Over 1931 the New Party became increasingly influenced by Fascism.[1] The next year, after a January 1931 visit to Benito Mussolini in Italy, Mosley's own conversion to fascism was confirmed. He wound up the New Party in April, but preserved its youth movement, which would form the core of the BUF, intact. He spent the summer that year writing a fascist programme, The Greater Britain, and this formed the basis of policy of the BUF, which was launched in October 1932.[1]
The BUF claimed 50,000 members at one point[2] and the Daily Mail was an early supporter, running the headline "Hurrah for the Blackshirts!"[3]
Despite strong resistance from anti-fascists, including the local Jewish community, the Labour Party, the Independent Labour Party and the Communist Party of Great Britain, the BUF found a following in the East End of London, where in the London County Council elections of March 1937 it obtained reasonably successful results in Bethnal Green, Shoreditch and Limehouse, polling almost 8,000 votes, although none of its candidates was actually elected.[4] However, the BUF never stood in a General Election. Having lost the funding of newspaper magnate Lord Rothermere that it previously enjoyed, at the 1935 General Election the party urged voters to abstain, calling for "Fascism Next Time".[5] There never was a "next time", as the next General Election was not held until July 1945, by which time the Second World War in Europe had ended and fascism was discredited.
Towards the middle of the 1930s, the BUF's violent activities and its alignment with the German Nazi Party began to alienate some middle-class supporters, and membership decreased. At the Olympia rally in London, in 1934, BUF stewards violently ejected anti-fascist disrupters, with one protester claiming to have lost an eye, and this led the Daily Mail to withdraw its support for the movement. The level of violence shown at the rally shocked many, with the effect of turning neutral parties against the BUF and contributing to anti-fascist support. As one observer remarked "I came to the conclusion that Mosley was a political maniac, and that all decent English people must combine to kill his movement".[6] The reaction to the Olympia rally can be illustrated in the growth in British Communist parties from 1935 onwards.[7]
With lack of electoral success, the party drew away from mainstream politics and towards extreme antisemitism over 1934-1935, which saw the resignation of members such as Dr. Robert Forgan. Its provocative antisemitic activity in London led to serious, often violent, conflict, most famously at the Battle of Cable Street in October 1936, when over 100,000 anti-Fascists of English, Irish, Jewish and Somali (amongst others) descent successfully prevented the fascists from marching through London's East End.
Membership fell to below 8,000 by the end of 1935. The government was sufficiently concerned, however, to pass the Public Order Act 1936, which banned political uniforms and required police consent for political marches. This act hindered BUF activity, although in the years building up to the war they enjoyed brief success on the back of their "Peace Campaign" to prevent conflict with Germany. In May 1940, the BUF was banned outright by the government, and Mosley, along with 740 other fascists, was interned for much of World War II. After the war, Mosley made several unsuccessful attempts to revive his brand of fascism, notably in the Union Movement.
Mosley, known to his followers as The Leader, modelled his leadership style on Benito Mussolini and the BUF on Mussolini's National Fascist Party in Italy, including an imitation of the Italian Fascists' black uniforms for members, earning them the nickname "Blackshirts". The BUF was anti-communist and protectionist, and proposed replacing parliamentary democracy with executives elected to represent specific industries, trades or other professional interest groups – a system similar to the corporatism of the Italian fascists. Unlike the Italian system, British fascist corporatism planned to replace the House of Lords with elected executives drawn from major industries, the clergy, and colonies. The House of Commons was to be reduced to allow for a faster, "less factionist" democracy.[8]
The BUF's programme and ideology were outlined in Mosley's Great Britain (1932) and A. Raven Thompson's The Coming Corporate State (1938). Many BUF policies were built on isolationism, prohibiting trade outside an insulated British Empire. Mosley’s system aimed to protect the British economy from the fluctuations of the world market, especially during the Great Depression, and prevent "cheap slave competition from abroad." [9]
In a January 2010 BBC documentary, Mother Was A Blackshirt, James Maw reported on how in 1914 Norah Elam was placed in a Holloway prison cell with Emmeline Pankhurst for her involvement with the Suffragette movement, yet in 1940 she returned to the same prison with Diana Mosley, but this time for her involvement with the fascist movement. Another leading suffragette, Mary Richardson, became head of the women's section of the BUF.
The report described how Elam's fascist philosophy grew from her suffragette experiences, how the British fascist movement became largely driven by women, how they targeted young women from an early age, how the first British fascist movement was founded by a woman, and how the leading lights of the Suffragettes had, with Oswald Mosley, founded the BUF.[10]
Mosley's electoral strategy had been to prepare for the election after 1935, and in 1936 he announced a list of BUF candidates for that election, with Elam nominated to stand for Northampton. Mosley accompanied Elam to Northampton to introduce her to her electorate at a meeting in the Town Hall. At that meeting Mosley announced that "He was glad indeed to have the opportunity of introducing the first candidate, and it killed for all time the suggestion that National Socialism proposed putting British women back into the home, this is simply not true. Mrs Elam, he went on, had fought in the past for women's suffrage ... and was a great example of the emancipation of women in Britain".[11]
The BUF march, Comrades the Voices, was a rough translation of Horst-Wessel-Lied, the anthem of the Nazi Party, and was set to the same tune. It was reused by Mosley's Union Movement in the 1950s with slightly modified lyrics.
Despite the short period of operation the BUF attracted prominent members and supporters. These included:
Other "shirts":
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