British Union of Fascists

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British Union of Fascists
Flash and Circle logo
Years active 1932 - 1940
Political ideology Fascism,
British Nationalism,
British Imperialism,
National Corporatism
Political position Far Right
International affiliation N/A
Preceded by New Party
British Fascisti
Succeeded by Union Movement
Colours Flash and Circle

The British Union of Fascists (BUF) was a political party in the United Kingdom formed in 1932 by a former Labour government minister and former MP of the Conservative Party, Sir Oswald Mosley.

Contents

[edit] Background

See also: List of British fascist parties

Oswald Mosley had been a junior minister of 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. He resigned in early 1931 when these were rejected and formed the New Party, with policies based on his memorandum. Despite winning 16% of the vote at a by-election in Ashton-under-Lyne in early 1931, the party failed to achieve electoral success.

During 1931 New Party policies became increasingly influenced by Fascism.[1] In January 1932, Mosley's conversion to Fascism was confirmed when he visited Benito Mussolini in Italy. He wound up the New Party in April 1932 but kept the youth movement as the basis for a Fascist fighting force. He spent summer that year writing a Fascist programme; The Greater Britain. The BUF was launched in October 1932.[1]

[edit] Character

[edit] Imagery

Mosley modelled himself on Benito Mussolini and the BUF on Mussolini's National Fascist Party in Italy. Mussolini and, later, Mosley instituted black uniforms for members, earning them the nickname "Blackshirts." The BUF was anti-communist and protectionist, and proposed replacing parliamentary democracy with elected executives having jurisdiction over specific industries – a system similar to the corporatism of the Italian fascists. Unlike the Italian system, British fascist corporatism planned a democracy that would 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. [2]

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 by British nationals outside the British Empire. Mosley proposed this would protect the British economy from the flux of the world market, especially during the Great Depression, and prevent "cheap slave competition from abroad." [3]

[edit] Prominence

 This does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2007)

The BUF claimed 50,000 members at one point[4] and the Daily Mail was an early supporter, running the headline "Hurrah for the Blackshirts!".

Opinion was divided on the BUF's black-shirted followers; in some quarters, their unified appearance, and the vision of militant Britishness, won supporters[citation needed]. Others found them absurd. P.G. Wodehouse based the "amateur dictator" Roderick Spode and his Black Shorts, in The Code of the Woosters, on Mosley and the BUF.

Despite considerable and sometimes violent resistance from Jewish people, the Labour Party, democrats 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 1937 it obtained good results in Bethnal Green, Shoreditch and Limehouse.[5] However, the BUF never faced 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, offering "Fascism Next Time".[6] There never was a "next time", as the next General Election was not held until July 1945, by which time World War II in Europe had ended and fascism had been discredited.

Towards the middle of the 1930s, the BUF's violent activities and its perceived 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 were in a violent confrontation with militant communists, and this caused the Daily Mail to withdraw support.

[edit] Final years and legacy

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. It organised antisemitic marches and protests in London, recalling tactics of predecessors such as the British Brothers League, like the one which resulted in the Battle of Cable Street in October 1936.

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 of 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 of reviving his brand of fascism, notably in the Union Movement.

[edit] The BUF in popular culture

The television serial Mosley featured the BUF and Oswald Mosley, through his political career to the internment of the BUF.

In the film It Happened Here, the BUF appears to be the ruling party of German-occupied Britain. A Mosley speech is heard on the radio in the scene before everyone goes to the movies.

Emblem of P.G. Wodehouse's fictional Black Shorts movement, featured in the television series Jeeves and Wooster.

Harry Turtledove's alternate history novel, In the Presence of Mine Enemies, is set in 2010 in a world where the Nazis were triumphant, the BUF governs Britain — and the first stirrings of the reform movement come from there. The BUF and Mosley also appear as background influences in Turtledove's Colonization trilogy which follows the Worldwar tetralogy and is set in the 1960s.

In Ken Follett's novel Night Over Water, several of the main characters are BUF members.

The BUF is also in Guy Walters book The Leader (2003), where Mosely is the dictator of Britain leading up to World War II.

British humorous writer P.G. Wodehouse satirized the BUF in books and short stories. The BUF was satirized as "The Black Shorts" (shorts being worn as all the best shirt colours were already taken) and their leader was Roderick Spode, owner of a ladies' underwear shop.

The BUF and Oswald Mosley are also alluded to in Kazuo Ishiguro's novel The Remains of the Day.

[edit] BUF Anthem

The BUF Anthem resembles the German Horst-Wessel-Lied, the anthem of the NSDAP or Nazi Party, which is now banned in Germany, and was set to the same tune.

The lyrics are as follows:

Comrades, the voices of the dead battalions,
Of those who fell that Britain might be great,
Join in our song, for they still march in spirit with us,
And urge us on to gain the fascist state!
(Repeat Last Two Lines)
We're of their blood, and spirit of their spirit,
Sprung from that soil for whose dear sake they bled,
Against vested powers, Red Front, and massed ranks of reaction,
We lead the fight for freedom and for bread!
(Repeat Last Two Lines)
The streets are still, the final struggle's ended;
Flushed with the fight we proudly hail the dawn!
See, over all the streets the fascist banners waving,
Triumphant standards of our race reborn!
(Repeat Last Two Lines)

[edit] Prominent members

Despite the short period of operation the BUF attracted prominent members and supporters. These included:

[edit] See also

[edit] Further reading

  • Blackshirt: Sir Oswald Mosley and British Fascism by Stephen Dorril
  • 'Hurrah for the Blackshirts!': Fascists and Fascism in Britain between the Wars, Martin Pugh (Random House, 2005)

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Thorpe, Andrew. (1995) Britain In The 1930s, Blackwell Publishers, ISBN 0-613-17411-7
  2. ^ Tomorrow We Live (1938)
  3. ^ Tomorrow We Live (1938), by Sir Oswald Mosley and http://www.oswaldmosley.com/audio/speeches.html entitled http://www.oswaldmosley.com/audio/speeches.html'
  4. ^ Andrzej Olechnowicz, ‘Liberal Anti-Fascism in the 1930s: The Case of Sir Ernest Barker’ in Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, (Vol. 36, No. 4, Winter, 2004), p. 643.
  5. ^ R. Benewick, Political Violence and Public Order, London: Allan Lane, 1969, pp. 279-282
  6. ^ 1932-1938 Fascism rises - March of the Blackshirts

[edit] External links

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