The Rise of British Fascism
An opportunist politician, his violent supporters and the people who rose up against them
How close did Oswald Mosley come to victory?
Thousands of men and women were gathered on the streets of London on 4 October 1936. They were textile workers, dockers, community leaders, socialists, communists, local Jewish residents and everything between. In front of them were the Metropolitan Police and behind them members of the British Union of Fascists (BUF), the party of Sir Oswald Mosley, who had planned to march through the streets of East London only to find their route barricaded. “M-O-S-L-E-Y, we want Mosley,” chanted his black-shirt wearing followers. “So do we, dead or alive,” came the retort of the assembled protestors.
This was the stage for what would come to be known as the Battle of Cable Street, an iconic clash between fascists and the residents of East London who had been tormented and provoked by the group for the last four years. While this would not mark the end of fascism in Britain, it has come to be seen as a final nail in the coffin of public opinion for the BUF and for Mosley who for so many years had been a popular, if eccentric, public figure.
To the manor born
Oswald Ernald Mosley was born on 16 November 1896 to Sir Oswald Mosley, 5th Baronet and Katharine Maud Edwards-heathcote. After his parents split, he was raised by his mother and lived with his grandparents in the stately Apedale Hall for many years. In January 1914 he attended the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, but was expelled after only a few months for getting involved in a violent altercation over a polo defeat to a rival Aldershot academy. Still, he was commissioned to the 16th The Queen’s Lancers during World War I and spent time in the trenches. His experience in the war would lead to a continued anti-war stance in his politics for many years to come.
After the war he decided on a career in politics. In December 1918 he stood for election as a member of the Conservative Party in the district of Harrow, London, quickly gaining attention for his charismatic and powerful oratory as well as his colourful social life and womanising. Aged just 22 when he won, he was the youngest person to take a seat in the House of Commons. But while he represented the Tories in this election, it became clear Mosley had no firm political loyalties, even challenging future prime minister Neville Chamberlain for a seat in Birmingham as an independent in 1924.
Having lost that election he switched sides completely and ran for Labour in 1926, taking the seat of Smethwick. He was appointed to the cabinet of Ramsay Macdonald’s Labour Government in 1929 as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (a title for a minister without portfolio) where he was tasked with tackling the unemployment crisis after the Great Depression.
The resultant Mosley Memorandum called for a move away from free trade to more protectionist economic policy. An executive council, something similar to a war cabinet but for peace time, was also proposed to tackle the emergency. The proposals were rejected as too pessimistic about Britain’s economic prospects and too authoritarian. His ideas had some support, though, and he was praised for his bravery as he quit the government in response to this rejection in 1930.
Fascism in Britain
Mosley spent the next couple of years trying to define his political agenda, but he didn’t immediately jump to fascism. First he formed the New Party on 28 February 1931. With the support of several Labour members and his wife Lady Cynthia Curzon, daughter of the 1st Earl Curzon of Kedleston, this new group sought support from across party lines based purely on its economic policies and government restructuring.
However, when they ran a candidate in a by-election for Ashton-under-lyne in April 1931 they were soundly beaten. Worse still, Mosley’s former Labour colleagues accused him of splitting the vote, allowing the Conservatives to win. The following October saw a General Election and a coalition government between Labour and the Conservatives, leaving Mosley with little hope of chipping away support from either party. The energy with which Mosley had left the government was in danger of slipping away when an invitation to Italy by Benito Mussolini set an entirely new course for him.
Mussolini’s fascists had been in power since 1922 and the impact of this new political force had been seen across Europe in various guises. Britain was not entirely immune to this disturbing trend, although it had failed to gain much ground. The first of the fascist groups in Britain was the British Fascisti in 1923 organised by Rotha Linton-orman. Splinter groups such as National Fascisti in 1924 and the Imperial Fascist League in 1929 emerged, but these were fringe organisations (numbering in the dozens). Mosley would soon change all of that.
“AGED JUST 22, HE WAS THE YOUNGEST PERSON TO TAKE A SEAT IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS”
Forming The BUF
The trip to meet Mussolini in January
1932 appears to have been revealing for Mosley. Both men disdained traditional government structures, appreciated military discipline and wanted to mobilise a younger generation to create change. Seeing what Mussolini had achieved in Italy, Mosley finally seems to have embraced authoritarianism outright.
He made his appreciation for fascism clear on his return to Britain and began to draw up his idea of a British version of it, much to the alarm of his New Party colleagues, including his wife, who did not share his affinity for this new political ideology. His constant affairs did not help the relationship, and Lady Curzon died in 1933 after surgery for peritonitis.
Those who had supported Mosley among the establishment began to abandon him, even before he founded the BUF in October 1932. The party was launched alongside a manifesto entitled The Greater Britain that laid out Mosley’s vision of British fascism, which was largely built on similar economic and political reforms he had advocated as a minister. The key difference was a much more sweeping change to the parliamentary system, with the whole country built around economic and business interests under a single leader. Mosley was betting that growing dissatisfaction with current political institutions would see support for such a revolution of government, much as it had done in Italy and Germany.
The manifesto itself got very little press attention, but Mosley remained a prominent draw for reporters. Between 1933 and 1937 he would average 200 speeches a year. At first his BUF didn’t attract too much negative interest from the public, but it was expected. With the New Party he had a small group of men around to keep order during his speeches who became known as the ‘Biff Boys’.
This concept evolved into the Blackshirts for the BUF. In the years that followed, a training base was established in Chelsea, called the Black House, to train loyal BUF members in martial arts and military discipline. It’s believed about 1,000 men lived in the Black House in its time.
To begin with this force involved strong young men wearing a matching black uniform standing around the stage to offer protection to Mosley and throw out hecklers, which became more and more common as his fascist rhetoric took shape. From early on their motto was, “We never start fights, we only finish them.” By 1933, Mosley also started to wear a black shirt for public appearances.
To much of the public, it looked a lot like Mosley was building a paramilitary force and could be planning for revolution. The politician who had once been seen as brave and bold, banging on the walls of an outdated system, was now seen as a potential threat. The growing violence around fascism in Europe, especially the rise of the Nazis in Germany, only raised concerns further.
However, the endorsement of Daily
Mail owner Lord Rothermere saw the BUF membership leap up. His article in the 8 January 1934 edition of the paper titled, Hurrah for the Blackshirts! was followed by membership rising to 40-50,000, with conservative elites and disaffected workers alike drawn to the organisation. But as the party grew, so did the opposition against it.
Olympia
Mosley had not openly endorsed antisemitic policies. In fact he told the Jewish Chronicle in January 1933,
“antisemitism forms no part of the policy of this Organisation, and antisemitic propaganda is forbidden”. However, that hadn’t stopped BUF members from pushing this hateful agenda of their own accord. The Blackshirts were becoming notorious for provoking altercations with inflammatory propaganda and rhetoric in Jewish communities, such as Stepney in East London.
Having embraced fascism, the BUF was instantly opposed by socialists and communists who began to organise against them, leading to clashes at speeches and in the streets among newspaper sellers. While the Blackshirts were officially forbidden from carrying weapons in their role of keeping order at events, they were frequently reported using street fighting weapons such as knuckle dusters. Mosley publicly defended the increasing violence at his rallies as being in defence of free speech.
This all came to a head on 7 June 1934 when the BUF held a rally at Olympia, a massive event space in West Kensington, London. The event was intended as a show of strength, although Mosley still seems to have believed in achieving his goals through electoral politics, much as Hitler had just done in Germany.
15,000 people filled the huge hall, cheering and giving the Roman salute of fascist movements around Europe as Mosley took the stage. But they were not the only people represented in the room. As early as 25 May anti-fascist groups had been planning to infiltrate and disrupt the rally, taking up tickets through their unions and posing as BUF members to get in. They spread themselves through the crowd and interrupted with heckling throughout, one picking up when another was dragged out and beaten by Blackshirts.
The protest lasted an hour as 30 people were gradually ejected from the hall. The unrestrained violence that the Blackshirts inflicted on these protestors was witnessed and reported by the gathered press. While Mosley claimed these agitators were trying to silence free speech, the papers seemed to agree that even if that was the case, the violent response was excessive. Three weeks later the Night of Long Knives took place in Germany as the Nazis purged their political rivals, and the two events became tied together for many. In July Lord Rothermere withdrew his support for the BUF, leaving them more isolated and resulting in an exodus of supporters.
The Battle of Cable Street
As mentioned, up to this point Mosley had avoided outright antisemitism, but that was not true of his supporters, many of whom had joined the BUF because of an affinity with the more overtly antisemitic rhetoric of Hitler. William Joyce, for instance, was a virulent antisemite and was made propaganda director by Mosley in 1934. He would go on to become a WWII English-language Nazi propogandist under the name Lord Haw-haw.
The role of organised Jewish opposition to the BUF became the new enemy for Mosley to rail against, saying on 28 October 1934 in his first reference to Jews in a public speech: “The Jews more than any other single force in this country are carrying on a violent propaganda against us.” The leash was now off the antisemitic wing of the party with activities in Jewish communities, especially London, building up to what has become known as the Battle of Cable Street.
The BUF had planned to mark its fourth anniversary with a march through East London on 4 October 1936. After years
“TO MUCH OF THE PUBLIC, IT LOOKED A LOT LIKE MOSLEY WAS BUILDING A PARAMILITARY FORCE”
of violent and provocative action in this part of London, where an estimated 183,000 Jewish people resided by the 1930s, the plan was clearly meant to incite a reaction. Despite concerns being raised to the Home Office the march was permitted, so the people of London took matters into their own hands.
While some community leaders called for people to stay off the streets, unions and other community groups joined together to form the Jewish People’s Council against Fascism and antisemitism (JPC) and planned their resistance to the march. On 3 October the Daily Worker printed a map of the fascist route through London and called for people to mass on key streets.
Lower estimates place around 20,000 protestors in London on the day, with higher estimates going up to 100,000 or even 250,000 up against 3,000 BUF members and some 6,000 police to protect them and clear the route. The anti-fascist crowd blocked the way to Whitechapel Road, making it impossible for the BUF to march as planned, so the police looked for an alternative route to clear. They headed to
Cable Street.
However, the JPC had planned for this with three barricades (including an upturned lorry) blocking the road. Irish dock workers had even ripped up paving stones to add to the blockade, an act of solidarity in return for Jewish support in their 1912 dock strikes that was still well remembered.
When police came to clear a path they were assailed by missiles from the ground and surrounding windows above. As violence between police and protestors carried on, it became clear the fascists would not be able to pass and Commissioner of Police Sir Philip Game told Mosley to abandon the event. Eightythree protestors were arrested and nearly 100 people were injured with footage of the confrontation, including mounted police hitting protestors with batons, being shown on news reels.
The Battle of Cable Street proved to be the breaking point for the British government’s tolerance of Mosley and his Blackshirts. On 1 January 1937 the Public Order Bill was enacted banning the wearing of uniforms in association with a political movement and outlawing quasi-military organisations. With the bill so clearly targeting the BUF, there could be no doubt to the public at large that Mosley and his group were a menace to be feared and distrusted.
Decline and fall
With the Blackshirts outlawed Mosley could no longer police his speeches and the local police forces were not as willing to resort to violence against hecklers.
This made rallies and speeches even more challenging, reducing opportunities to spread his message. Growing tension between Britain and Germany saw national distaste for fascism increase too. Public appearances in Germany by BUF members, including Mosley’s second wife Diana Mitford, didn’t help matters.
When war was declared between the United Kingdom and Germany on 3 September 1939, fascism in Britain was a dead concept. Mosley’s support for Hitler made him an enemy of the state and a threat to the nation. He was interned by the government in 1940, although he was released due to ill health in 1943. When he was released a poll revealed that 87 percent of the British public thought he should have remained in prison.
While the war would not be the end of Mosley as a public figure, he would never reach the heights of popularity he enjoyed in the early 1930s. It was not an impossibility for fascism to take hold in Britain and Mosley might have been the only political figure capable of carrying it off, but the violence and hatred that surrounded it, as well as its connection to foreign interests, scuppered its chances.