The British Union of Fascists (BUF) was a British fascistpolitical party formed in 1932 by Oswald Mosley. Mosley changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists in 1936 and, in 1937, to the British Union. In 1939, following the start of the Second World War, the party was proscribed by the British government and in 1940 it was disbanded.
The BUF emerged in 1932 from the electoral defeat of its antecedent, the New Party, in the 1931 general election. The BUF's foundation was initially met with popular support, and it attracted a sizeable following, with the party claiming 50,000 members at one point. The press baron Lord Rothermere was a notable early supporter. As the party became increasingly radical, however, support declined. The Olympia Rally of 1934, in which a number of anti-fascist protestors were attacked by the paramilitary wing of the BUF, the Fascist Defence Force, isolated the party from much of its following. The party's embrace of Nazi-style antisemitism in 1936 led to increasingly violent confrontations with anti-fascists, notably the 1936 Battle of Cable Street in London's East End. The Public Order Act 1936, which banned political uniforms and responded to increasing political violence, had a particularly strong effect on the BUF whose supporters were known as "Blackshirts" after the uniforms they wore.
Growing British hostility towards Nazi Germany, with which the British press persistently associated the BUF, further contributed to the decline of the movement's membership. The party was finally banned by the British government on 23 May 1940 after the start of the Second World War, amid suspicion that its remaining supporters might form a pro-Nazi "fifth column". A number of prominent BUF members were arrested and interned under Defence Regulation 18B.
Flowchart showing the history of the early British fascist movementOriginal flag of the British Union of FascistsAlternate flag of the British Union of Fascists
In 1930, Mosley issued his Mosley Memorandum, which fused protectionism with a proto-Keynesian programme of policies designed to tackle the problem of unemployment, and he resigned from the Labour Party soon after, in early 1931, when the plans were rejected. He immediately formed the New Party, with policies based on his memorandum. The party won 16% of the vote at a by-election in Ashton-under-Lyne in early 1931; however, it failed to achieve any other electoral success.[20]
During 1931, the New Party became increasingly influenced by fascism.[21] The following year, after a January 1932 visit to Benito MussoliniinItaly, 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 on 1 October 1932[21] at 12 Great George Street in London.[22]
Having lost the funding of newspaper magnate Lord Rothermere, that it had previously enjoyed, at the 1935 general election the party urged voters to abstain, calling for "Fascism Next Time".[32] There never was a "next time" as the next general election was not held until July 1945, five years after the dissolution of the BUF.[citation needed]
Towards the middle of the 1930s, the BUF's violent clashes with opponents 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, 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. One observer claimed: "I came to the conclusion that Mosley was a political maniac, and that all decent English people must combine to kill his movement."[33]
In Belfast in April 1934 an autonomous wing of the party in Northern Ireland called the "Ulster Fascists" was founded. The branch was a failure and became virtually extinct after less than a year in existence.[34] It had ties with the Blueshirts in the Irish Free State and voiced support for a United Ireland, describing the partition of Ireland as "an insurmountable barrier to peace, and prosperity in Ireland".[35] Its logo combined the fasces with the Red Hand of Ulster.[36]
The BUF became more antisemitic over 1934–35 owing to the growing influence of Nazi sympathisers within the party, such as William Joyce and John Beckett, which provoked the resignation of members such as Robert Forgan. This antisemitic emphasis and these high-profile resignations resulted in a significant decline in membership, dropping to below 8,000 by the end of 1935, and, ultimately, Mosley shifted the party's focus back to mainstream politics. There were frequent and continuous violent clashes between BUF party members and anti-fascist protesters, most famously at the Battle of Cable Street in October 1936, when organised anti-fascists prevented the BUF from marching through Cable Street. However, the party later staged other marches through the East End without incident, albeit not on Cable Street itself.
BUF support for Edward VIII and the peace campaign to prevent a second World War saw membership and public support rise once more.[37] The government was sufficiently concerned by the party's growing prominence to pass the Public Order Act 1936, which banned political uniforms and required police consent for political marches.
In 1937, William Joyce and other Nazi sympathisers split from the party to form the National Socialist League, which quickly folded, with most of its members interned. Mosley later denounced Joyce as a traitor and condemned him for his extreme antisemitism. The historian Stephen Dorril revealed in his book Blackshirts that secret envoys from the Nazis had donated about £50,000 to the BUF.[38]
By 1939, total BUF membership had declined to just 20,000.[37] On 23 May 1940, Mosley and some 740 other party members were interned under Defence Regulation 18B. The BUF then called on its followers to resist invasion, but it was declared unlawful on 10 July 1940 and ceased its activities.[1][2]
After the war, Mosley made several unsuccessful attempts to return to political life, one such being through the Union Movement, but he had no successes.
Attracted by ‘modern’ fascist policies, such as ending the widespread practice of sacking women from their jobs on marriage, many women joined the Blackshirts – particularly in economically depressed Lancashire. Eventually women constituted one-quarter of the BUF's membership.[39]
In a January 2010 BBC documentary, Mother Was A Blackshirt, James Maw reported that in 1914 Norah Elam was placed in a Holloway Prison cell with Emmeline Pankhurst for her involvement with the suffragette movement, and, in 1940, she was returned to the same prison with Diana Mosley, this time for her involvement with the fascist movement. Another leading suffragette, Mary Richardson, became head of the women's section of the BUF.
Mary Sophia Allen OBE was a former branch leader of the West of England Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). At the outbreak of the First World War, she joined the Women Police Volunteers, becoming the WPV Commandant in 1920. She met Mosley at the January Club in April 1932, going on to speak at the club following her visit to Germany, "to learn the truth about of the position of German womanhood".[40]
The BBC 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.[41]
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 ... [thereby] 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."[42]
Former suffragettes were drawn to the BUF for a variety of reasons. Many felt the movement's energy reminded them of the suffragettes, while others felt the BUF's economic policies would offer them true equality – unlike its continental counterparts, the movement insisted it would not require women to return to domesticity and that the corporatist state would ensure adequate representation for housewives, while it would also guarantee equal wages for women and remove the marriage bar that restricted the employment of married women. The BUF also offered support for new mothers (due to concerns of falling birth rates), while also offering effective birth control, as Mosley believed it was not in the national interest to have a populace ignorant of modern scientific knowledge. While these policies were motivated more out of making the best use of women's skills in state interest than any kind of feminism, it was still a draw for many suffragettes.[43]
The Channel 4 television serial Mosley (1998) portrayed the career of Oswald Mosley during his years with the BUF. The four-part series was based on the books Rules of the Game and Beyond the Pale, written by his son Nicholas Mosley.[61]
In the film It Happened Here (1964), 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 cinema.
The first depiction of Mosley and the BUF in fiction occurred in Aldous Huxley's novel Point Counter Point (1932), in which Mosley is depicted as Everard Webley, the murderous leader of the "BFF", the Brotherhood of Free Fascists; he comes to a nasty end.
The BUF has been featured in several novels by Harry Turtledove.
In his alternative history novel In the Presence of Mine Enemies, set in 2010 in a world in which the Nazis were triumphant, the BUF led by Prime Minister Charlie Lynton governs Britain. It is here that the first stirrings of the reform movement appear.
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.
James Herbert's novel '48 (1996) has a protagonist who is hunted by BUF Blackshirts in a devastated London after a biological weapon is released during the Second World War. The history of the BUF and Mosley is recapitulated.
InKen Follett's novel Night Over Water, several of the main characters are BUF members. In his book Winter of the World, the Battle of Cable Street plays a role and some of the characters are involved in either the BUF or the anti-BUF organisations.
The BUF also appears in Guy Walters' book The Leader (2003), in which Mosley is the dictator of Britain in the 1930s.
The British humorous writer P. G. Wodehouse satirized the BUF in books and short stories. The BUF was satirized as "The Black Shorts",[62] rather than "shirts", because all of the best shirt colours were already taken. Its leader was Roderick Spode, the owner of a ladies' underwear shop.
The British novelist Nancy Mitford satirized the BUF and Mosley in Wigs on the Green (1935). Diana Mitford, the author's sister, had been romantically involved with Mosley since 1932.
The BUF and Mosley are shown in the BBC version of Upstairs, Downstairs (2010) in which two of the characters are BUF supporters.
The Pogues' song "The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn", from their album Rum Sodomy & the Lash (1985), refers to the BUF in its second verse with the line "And you decked some fucking blackshirt who was cursing all the Yids".
C. J. Samson's novel Dominion (2012) has Sir Oswald Mosley as Home Secretary in a "post-Dunkirk peace with Germany alternate history thriller" set in 1952. Lord Beaverbrook is Prime Minister of an authoritarian coalition government. Blackshirts tend to be auxiliary policemen.
In the film The King's Speech (2010), a brief shot shows a brick wall in London plastered with posters, some of them reading "Fascism is Practical Patriotism" and others reading "Stand by the King". Both sets of posters were put up by British Blackshirts, who supported King Edward VIII. Edward was suspected of fascist leanings.[63]
^ abMartin Ceadel (2000). Semi-detached Idealists: The British Peace Movement and International Relations, 1854-1945. Oxford. p. 404.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Lewis, David Stephen (1987). Illusions of Grandeur: Mosley, Fascism, and British Society, 1931-81. Manchester / Wolfeboro, NH: Manchester University Press. p. 68.
^Oswald Mosley. Fascism: 100 Questions Asked and Answered. 10 points of Fascism: V. The Corporate State
^Roger Griffin. Fascism, Totalitarianism And Political Religion. Oxon, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 2005. P. 110.
^Oswald Mosley. Fascism: 100 Questions Asked and Answered. Question 88
^W F Mandle, Anti-Semitism and the British Union of Fascists Robert Benewick The Fascist Movement in Britain, pp 132-134 Alan S Millward, "Fascism and the Economy", in Walter Laqueur (ed.), Fascism: A reader's Guide, p 450 Nigel Copsey, Anti-Fascism in Britain, p. 38 and pp. 40-41
^Richard Thurlow. Fascism in Britain: A History, 1918-1945. Revised paperback edition. I. B. Taurus & Co. Ltd., 2006. Pp. 28.
^David Stephen Lewis. Illusions of Grandeur: Mosley, Fascism, and British Society, 1931-81. P. 51.
^Grundy, Trevor (1998). Memoir of a Fascist Childhood: A Boy in Mosley's Britain. William Heinemann Ltd. pp. 31–33. ISBN0434004677.
^Salvador, Alessandro; Kjøstvedt, Anders G. (2017). New Political Ideas in the Aftermath of the Great War. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 165–166. ISBN978-3-319-38914-1.
^Andrzej Olechnowicz (Winter 2004). "Liberal Anti-Fascism in the 1930s: The Case of Sir Ernest Barker". Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies. 36 (4): 643.
^Douglas, R.M. (1997). "The Swastika and the Shamrock: British Fascism and the Irish Question, 1918-1940". Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies. 29 (1): 57–75. doi:10.2307/4051595. JSTOR4051595.
^Loughlin, James (November 1995). "Northern Ireland and British fascism in the inter-war years". Irish Historical Studies. 29 (116): 537–552. doi:10.1017/S002112140001227X.
^ abRichard C. Thurlow. Fascism in Britain: from Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts to the National Front. 2nd edition. New York, New York, USA: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 2006. p. 94.
^Nigel Jones, Mosley, Haus Publishing (2004) ISBN9781904341093, p. 86: "Eventually women, under the titular leadership of ‘Ma Mosley’ – Lady Maud, ably seconded by an ex-suffragette, Mary Richardson – constituted one-quarter of the BUF's membership, and Mosley himself later acknowledged the part they played: "My movement has been largely built up by the fanaticism of women: they hold ideas with tremendous passion. Without the women I could not have got one-quarter of the way."
^Caldicott, Rosemary (2017). Lady Blackshirts. The Perils of Perception - suffragettes who became fascists. Bristol Radical Pamphleteer #39. ISBN978-1911522393.
^The National Archive (1942), KV 3/35 14. British Union evidence of support from Italy.
^Linehan, Thomas. British Fascism, 1918–39: Parties, Ideology and Culture. p. 139. while Beckett was a one-time Labour MP for Gateshead (1924–29) and Peckham (1929–31)
^Brian Holden Reid, "Fuller, John Frederick Charles (1878–1966)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 (Accessed 5 February 2014)
^John Tooley, "Goodall, Sir Reginald (1901–1990)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online ed., January 2008 (Accessed 5 February 2014)
^Anne Williamson, "Williamson, Henry William (1895–1977)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online ed., January 2008 (Accessed 5 February 2014)
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