The nature of contemporary British neo-fascism demands that fascism be provided with a working historical/political definition. The question is asked- "what is fascism?". The term fascist has been applied to numerous groups in Britain by their detractors, often in an indiscriminate fashion. Certainly 'fascism' can be a smear term, and few groups have accepted the label without qualification.

Maurice Bardeche, editor of the Paris magazine,Defence de l’Occident, has been one of European neo-fascism’s premier ideologists. In his Qu’est-ce que le fascisme? (1960), Bardeche attempted to provide a definition of post-war fascism. He remarked:

We must be sincere. There were certain elements of the fascism that was, that the fascism of today must refuse to accept. (1)

Bardeche felt that the "heaven-sent leader" concept was irrelevant, and dangerous, to post-war fascism. This modernisation of fascism was a revision of many of the movement’s mythologies; the 'Technology-Myth', Bardeche reasoned, to be fascism’s charter myth for an new society. This neo-fascism would bear little relation to the earlier fascisms for it was to spring from modern social and psychological conditions. (2)

Ernst Nolte has successfully pointed to fascism as a European-wide phenomenon with varied roots and forms according to its national applications. (3) Certainly the post-war situation should demand some caution in investigating neo-fascisms. Bardeche agreed (implicitly) with Nolte’s formulation, and introduced a novelty which may be important to this study. This, that a fascism needs not be conscious of itself as a fascism; indeed modern fascisms may view classical fascisms (1919-45) as scarce related to their existences.(4) The American fascist ideologist of the 1930’s, Lawrence Dennis, reasoned fascism to be a "world view" which can imposed by a movement which did not have to understand the 'fascist idea', or one which saw fascism as a "foreign subversive" creed.(5) Hence the term ‘neo-fascist’ could best be applied to movements which seemingly combine racist, nationalist and socialist notions in the post-1945 scene.

A modern fascism could find example in the "guerre-revolutionnaire" (revolutionary-war) ideology which desired to "integrate" French society into a modernistic Technocracy.(6) Total social and economic mobilisation coupled with suppression of liberal and marxist creeds was held necessary for national survival. The projected fusion of the nation’s political and military functions may constitute part of a modern authoritarian ideology. (7) Whereas this can be compared with Nazi Ernst Rohm’s dreamed ‘Sturmabteilung Staat’, the difference lay in the projection of the former scheme as a national necessity toned to a scientific age, not as an element of the social revolution. Some members of the Greek junta (I exclude those with a pro-American perspective) 1967-74, seem to have shared broad sympathies with guerre-revolutionnaire principles. To highlight their 'modern' ideology, some Continental neo-fascists style themselves as "Revolutionary-Nationalists".(8)

British neo-fascism may appear less ideologically refined, articulate, or philosophical, than these continental counterparts, though 'fundamentals' were shared. This new fascism should never be viewed as a strict phenomenon, for it implements Bardeche’s plea to avoid "sacred doctrines" and surplus ideological colouring, this tendency growing stronger since the early 1960's. 'Conscious' and 'unconscious' fascists move in various parties, the Britain of today not the Europe of yesteryear, now dominating their thinking. Nonetheless, fascism in Britain has a past, which creates a shadow over its present, and therefore possesses some relevance to the contemporary scene such as to warrant account.

The history of fascism in Britain reaches back to the 1920’s and 1930’s with the ‘British Fascists’, the ‘Imperial Fascist League (IFL), and the ‘British Union of Fascists' (BUF), the strongest grouping, formed by Sir Oswald Mosley in 1932. The BUF produced various schismatic groups of marginal consequence. Some of the personalities, methods, and ideas of these early fascists possess relevance in that they form part of the backdrop to the modern Extreme-Right. The leading figures of the BUF are of some note.

At various times Mosely had the support of Alexander Raven Thompson, the party "philosopher" who rejoined his former chief after 1945; Henry Williamson, a novelist who in the 1950's backed the 'League of Empire Loyalists' (LEL); A.K. Chesterton, a BUF propagandist whose influence extends through the LEL into the current National Front; Major-General J.F.C Fuller a military theorist and later LEL supporter; John Beckett, a Goebbels’ like orator, who floated in the early 1950's into various groups; and the infamous William Joyce (Lord Haw Haw) now a martyr to some fascists. The BUF demonstrably contained a circle of intellectuals who articulated the BUF’s action programme. Other notable figures who obliquely aided in the defining of British fascism included Percy Wyndham Lewis and W.E.D.Allen. (Note: Allen was revealed as MI-5 agent) (9)

The career of Sir Oswald Mosley prior to 1932 proves him a man of great talents, and despite his detractors a man of some principle. He believed the Depression offered an opportuntity for a fundamental reorganisation of British society, a new movement being necessary to counter the "Old Gang". Events on the continent allowed him to see in motion, a universal progress towards fascism. Benewick argued:

Mosley considered Fascism and National Socialism to be the same movement...(with)...different expressions in different countries.(10)

Nonetheless much of the failure of the BUF can be attributed to a drift towards emulation of other fascisms. This may be symbolised by the name change of the BUF to the 'British Union of Fascists and National Socialists', the anti-semitic campaign in East London in the years 1936-40, and the borrowing of foreign rituals. According to Robert Skidelsky however, Mosely remained an original thinker who "saw more clearly than Churchill that the avoidance of a European war had become the condition for the survival of the British Empire".(11) With national survival as Mosely’s fundamental imperative, his opposition to the liberal democracy becomes understandable. Skidelsky added:

Mosley’s alienation from parliamentary politics was rooted in his disgust with contemporary social values. At heart he was not preparing for catastrophe, but rebelling against a diseased morality.(12)

Mosley did not stray from this course.

Mosley’s failure to achieve political power may lie beyond his tactical errors and pro-nazi stance. Robert Benewick maintains that, despite the advance of fascism internationally, the BUF miscalculated on the socio-psycological makeup of Britain; Benewick contends, "It is possible the British class structure militated against the fascist movement." (13) The unimpaired John Bull tradition implicitly denied Britain was in a crisis which fascism could pretend to cure. The breakdown of these institutionalised barriers to fascism may open up new possibilties for such a movement.

British fascism is much remembered for its violent image, though as both Mosley and Skidelsky have pointed out, fascism’s opponents enjoyed being "provoked". (14) The modern Left still cites 'Mosley violence' in its attacks on the contemporary Right. The fascism of the 1930’s should be viewed as having definite roots in British society and thought, this rather than conceptualising it as an exotic esoteric import, completely beyond the pale. Modern fascism may deserve a similar treatment rather than a sharp dismissal as a psychological malady of mere individuals, or a rebuttal as a last gasp of the social order of capitalism. Mosley’s error in colouring his movement with foreign trappings serves as an important lesson to the new fascism. The point was not lost on Mosley either, when the Right, after 1945 certainly of necessity, had to redefine itself.

Changing ideas and circumstances in the fifteen years following the War promoted the immediate ideological bases for the contemporary Right. The first pre-war fascist leader to re-enter politics was Mosley, whose dominant role needs be noted. Fascistic elements had formed numerous book clubs and small groups in years 1945 to 1947, the largest of which was Jeffrey Hamm’s League Of Ex-servicemen. The Mosley Newsletter, first issued in mid-1946, served a common role in ideological redefinition. In the January-February 1947 number, Mosley wrote "The Extension Of Patriotism". He claimed fascism could have led to the "renaissance" of Western man, but rigid nationalism had been its undoing. (15) Nonetheless, in My Answer (1946), Mosley had not excused himself; however he believed his fascism had always possessed an underlying message for "the union of Europe within the universalism of the modern movement". (16) He later reasoned; "The Idea of Kingship is the true idea which can unite Europe where the old internationalism failed". (17) Although there were good tactical reasons for it, Mosley no longer spoke of himself as a fascist. This contrasted with some European movements, the Italian Social Movement (MSI), for example, which, while playing at Pan-European ideology, used the nostalgia for the past with effect. (18)

Before Mosley asceded to Hamm’s request to re-enter active politics, he wrote The Alternative, his post-war manifesto, still popular with his Union Movement. In this 1947 work, Mosley defended the old continental fascisms (and therefore himself) from the charge of anti-British conspiracy. Rather, he indicted the "little men" of British politics for their "irrational" hatred for the past "giants" of fascism. (19) Mosley then asserted that the Establishment’s insipid social-democratic philosophy would lead to the social-psychological dissolution of Britain, and a retreat from Empire. (20) Britain--and Europe--could therefore lose "cohesion" , and become incapable of resisting "Soviet Imperialism".(This dubbed an Oriental-Jewish-Russian chauvinist combination). Mosley believed the Left was aiding to "turn Russia into an army and every opposing country into a mob...". A united Europe was the "alternative" to catastrophe.(21)

This ‘Europe’ was seen as a radical-cultural-political possibility and, as a "union of nations", the means to achieve a Spenglerian "renewal" of Western Civilisation. Mosely spurned Francis Parker Yockey, an American neo-fascist, author of Imperium, and instigator of the London-based ‘European Liberation Front’. Yockey’s metapolitics and oblique praise for Hitler perhaps alienated the Union Movement, which formed in February 1948. (22) (Note: we now know Yockey desired to steer a pro-Soviet course in order to bring on the apocalypse; Yockey simply regarded Mosley as too cautious and Mosley considered Yockey too dangerous!)

The idea of a Third Force Europe, neither capitalist or communist, neither dominated be Washington or Moscow, sometimes defined this way, sometimes visualised as a Racial-Cultural unit was, and still is, a key driving force in post-war European fascism. In various ways it has inspired the British fascist Right; Mosley’s theory was the first and its most elaborate expression. Certainly Mosley had, "a full appreciation of the most fundamental geo-political fact of the Twentieth Century: the decline of Europe as a power centre". (23)

In March 1950, Mosley, Heinz Preister, and various Falangists, under the chairmanship of Swede, Per Engdahl, founded the ‘European Social Movement’. The latter intermidable splits which formed at least a dozen of these fascist Internationals caused Mosley to be a more passive delegate at further such meetings in the 1950's. (24) In the early 1950's Mosley began his association with the German magazine, Nation Europa , which has lasted until today. Mosley infused this publication with his cold realpolitik "new Europe" ideology, differentiating a part of European neofascism from the nostalgic, romantic, metapolitical ‘New European Order’ organisation and creed. (25) This devotion to abstract ideas and international questions suggests that British fascists were politically isolated at this time. That Mosley should continue to dabble in continental neo-fascism in the 1960's suggests his progressive alienation from immediate political realities.

From the mid-1950's Union Movement did contest numerous local elections with some reasonable results-- "E.London", "Bethnal Green", "Shoreditch", and "Finsbury" in 1955 brought an average poll of 6.3%; "Shoreditch" and "Finsbury" in 1956 brought an average result of 9%. These areas were the BUF’s old stamping grounds. Mosley recovered from his campaign failures of 1947-51 to hold a series of meetings to dramatise his movement in 1956. Such demonstrations occurred at Manchester, Limehouse, Trafalgar Square, Manchester, and Birmingham. At this time also, Union Movement gained the 'honour' to be the first rightist group to warn about the rise in coloured immigration, such that in 1958 Hamm was censured by the Trade Union Congress, for "racism". In 1959, the Union Movement showed sufficient energy to contest "North Kensington" in the General Election. Because the area was adjacent to Notting Hill, the race issue was involved; however Mosley denied he was a "racist". The final result gave Union Movement 2821 votes, or 8.1% of the poll. Mosley lost his election deposit. He had however, rightly assessed an upturn in the fortune of British neo-fascism, and its close relation to the racial question. (27)

Throughout the 1950's Mosley had striven to prove his intellectual credibility. He had published The European which contained his literary treatises on Shaw, Goethe, and Wagner.

Despite all, he remained a bete-noir in British politics. The last public man to associate himself with Mosley was Oswald Pirow, a one time minister in the South African government. Mosley’s "Euro-Africa" plan, a partition of Africa between black and white, won some approval in Africa just as it was supported by some German 'Conservative Revolutionaries' in the 1950's. (28) By the 1970's this no longer played much part in Union Movement ideology, probably because of changed conditions in Africa. These ideals, as elaborated, have been consistently maintained by UM as the basis of its world-view into the 1970's.

Despite Mosley’s efforts to establish a new respectable creed, other forces were at work in the 1950's. His former opponent of the 1930’s, Arnold Leese, the leader of the naziphile Imperial Fascist League, returned to politics with his 'Anti-Jewish Information Bureau'. This group remained active after Leese’s death in early 1956. The substance of Leese’s thought was set out in Gothic Ripples, the tone of which was rabidly anti-semitic and anti-communist. Leese equated marxism, capitalism, and Soviet imperialism to "Jewish conspiracy". (29) He influenced Colin Jordan to his anti-semitic and anti-Mosley positions, (Mosley was held to be a "kosher-fascist") and had guided Jordan to write a book which asserted the "reality" of the conspiracy and the "fraud" of Soviet anti-semitism. (30) Leese’s secure political position, with control over Briton’s Publishing Company and a building in Notting Hill enabled him to issue his calls for the creation of a movement of "racial-fascism" , that is, a national socialist party, with impunity. Mosley was his chief obstacle. Yet too, A.K.Chesterton, the director of the League of Empire Loyalists, had managed to gain much support which robbed the extreme Leese of any real political base. Hence Chesterton is also worthy of consideration.

With Mosley and Leese, Chesterton represents the third major element on the Right of the 1950’s. The LEL, formed in 1954, managed to have such patrons as Field Marshal Lord Ironside, and Sir Hugh Carleton Green. (31) Chesterton’s main ideas were set out in Candour (published until the 1990's), then the second major publication on the Right. Comparing those few editions of Candour remained for this study with Chesterton’s last book, The New Unhappy Lords (an important piece of political theory for the National Front), the LEL’s ideology shows little variance from mid-1950's to mid-1960's. The LEL displayed an exaggerated monarchist patriotism and defended the idea of "Empire" without qualification, urging its overhaul and restructure.(32) The LEL reasoned the white Commonwealth ready to re-embrace the old Imperial connection.

The League seems to have owed much to Nesta Webster, a conspiracy-historian who believed the 'International Money Power' (also Chesterton’s phrase) had singled the British Empire out for destruction. Between 1958 and 1961 the LEL received much media coverage for its clever disruption of party-conferences, and heckling of public personages. It is probable that later nationalist leaders like John Bean, JohnTyndall, and Jordan found the League a useful source of political experience...though they were expelled for extremism. The LEL declined into the 1960's to become little more than a publishing society and "club" when it helped form the National Front. Though the LEL should not be seen as a fascist organisation, its work in creating the National Front has warranted this attention.

There were also, assorted other minor groupings in the 1950's, which lay outside these three main strands on the Right; this would include Colin Jordan’s Birmingham Nationalists’ Club of the early 1950's, and Andrew Fountaine’s National Front. Such groups were perhaps relevant only to the personal development of the individuals concerned. It would seem that the three main forces, as above, dominated the scene as the neo-fascist upsurge began.

(1) Bardeche, Maurice. Qu’est ce que le fascisme? (Les Sept Coleurs) Paris 1970. p.14

(2) ibid.pp 181-2

(3) Nolte, Ernst. Three Faces of Fascism. (Weidenfeld and Nicolson) London 1965 Chapters One, Two, and Three. pp 3- 26.

(4) Bardeche op.cit. pp.194-5.

(5) Dennis, Lawrence. The Coming American Fascism. (Harper and Brothers Publishers) New York 1936. ppVIII-IX.

(6) Kelley, George A. Lost Soldiers: The French Army and Empire in Crisis 1947-62. (The M.I.T. Press) Cambridge Mass. 1965 p.236.

(7) Paret, Peter. French Revolutionary Warfare from Indo China to Algeria: The Analysis Of A Political And Military Doctrine. (Pall Mall Press) London 1964. pp.17, 23, 27, 57.

(8) see Cedade magazine.(Spanish Circle of the Friends of Europe) Barcelona, Spain and Cashiers Europeens Hedbo Le Trait, France.

(9) Hamilton, Alastair. The Appeal of Fascism:a study of intellectuals and fascism.(Anthony Blond) London 1971 pp.264, 266, 268, 281.

(10) Benewick, Robert. The Fascist Movement in Britain.(Revised edition) London, 1972.p.138.

(11) Skidelsky, Robert. Oswald Mosley. (Macmillan) London 1975 p.492.

(12) ibid.p.290

(13) Benewick op.cit.p.304

(14) Skidelsky op.cit.pp 376 and 381. and Mosley Sir Oswald. My Life (Nelson) London 1968

(15) Mosley, Sir Oswald. ‘The Extension of Patriotism’ in Mosley Newsletter, January-February 1947.pp1-2

(16) Mosley, Sir Oswald. My Answer (Mosley Publishers) 1946.p.81.

(17) Mosley. ‘The Extension of Patriotism’ p.4.

(18) Del Boca, Angelo, and Giovanna, Mario. Fascism Today: A World Survey. (Heinmann), London 1970 pp. 132-3, 156-64.

(19) Mosley, Sir Oswald. The Alternative. (Mosley Publications) Ransbury. 1947. pp.38, 104-5, 129.

(20) ibid. pp.53-5, 156.

(21) ibid., p.191.

(22) Skidelsky, op.cit.,p.491.

(23) Tauber, Kurt P.. Beyond Eagle and Swastika:German Nationalism Since 1945. Volume One. (Wesleyan University Press) 1967.p.206.

(24) ibid., pp.208-14.

(25) ibid.,pp.645-50.and Duprat, Francois. Les Mouvements Nationaux et Nationalistes en Allemagne. ( Supplement au N.132 Cahiers Europeens Hedbo ) Le Trait. 1976.p.23.

(26) Mosley. Sir Oswald. Mosley: The Facts. (Euphorion Distribution) London 1957 pp.293-4.

(27) Skidelsky op.cit.,pp.513-4. and Mosley My Life, p.448.

(28) Mosley. The Facts, p.119 and Tauber op.cit.pp.232, 574.

(29) Gothic Ripples: an occasional report on the Jewish Question. (Anti-Jewish Information Bureau.) see N.97 February 1953, N.64 24 May 1950, N.148 9 October 1958.

(30) Gothic Ripples. N.124 March 10 1955.

(31) Thayer, George. The British Political Fringe: a profile. (Anthony Blond) London, 1965.p.55

(32) ibid.,pp.57 and 62. and Candour (for the League of Empire Loyalists) London. January 6 1956 p.1.

(33) Spearhead (ed. Richard Verral) Teddington Middlesex. N.103 March 1977 pp.2, 6, 7.

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