British Fascism

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British fascism is the form of fascism promoted by some political parties and movements in the United Kingdom.^[1] It is based on British ultranationalism, and had aspects of Italian Fascism and Nazism both before and after World War II.^[2]

Historical examples of fascist movements in Britain include the British Fascists (1923–1934), the Imperial Fascist League (1929–1939), the British Union of Fascists (1932–1940), the British League of Ex-Servicemen and Women (1937–1948) and the Union Movement (1948–1978). More recent examples of British fascist groups include the British Movement (1968–1983), National Front (1967–present), British National Party (1982-present), Britain First (2011–present),^[3][4][5] National Action (2013–2017), and the Sonnenkrieg Division (2015–2020).^[6]

Ideological origins[]

Italy's Duce Benito Mussolini (left) with Oswald Mosley (right) of the BUF during Mosley's visit to Italy in 1936

British Fascism acknowledges the inspiration and legacy of Italian Fascism but also states that it is not a mere application of a "foreign" ideology, alleging roots within British traditions.^[1] British Fascism claims that both its economic and its political agenda intend to embody that of Tudor England^[7] (1485–1603). It claims that its advocacy of a centralized national authoritarian state is based upon the Tudor state's hostility to party factions and to self-interested sectional interests, and upon the Tudor goal of national integration through a centralised authoritarian state.^[1] Supporters see the Tudor state as a prototype fascist state.^[8] In 1935 A. L. Glasfurd, a member of the British Union of Fascists (BUF), praised Henry VII's subjugation of "lawless barons who had brought about the Wars of the Roses"; he also praised the "Tudor dictatorship" for introducing national policies and restrictions on the export of English capital by self-serving private speculators.^[9] Glasfurd also praised the Tudor state for instituting a planned economy that he claimed was a predecessor of the "scientific" national economic planning of fascism.^[10]

British Fascism also claims the legacy of Oliver Cromwell, who dominated the British Isles in the 1650s; Oswald Mosley claimed that Cromwell brought about "the first fascist age in England".^[11] English political theorist Thomas Hobbes in his work Leviathan (1651) systematised the ideology of absolutism that advocated an all-powerful absolute monarchy to maintain order within a state. Hobbes' theory of absolutism became highly influential in fascist theory.^[12] British Fascism claims that its corporatist economic policy accords with England's historical medieval guild system, with its enlightened regulation of wages, prices and conditions of labour providing precedents for a British Fascist corporatist economic system.^[13]

Tenets[]

A flowchart showing the history of the early British fascist movement

Nationalism and racialism[]

British Fascism is based upon British nationalism. The British Union of Fascists (BUF) sought to unify the British nation by healing sectarian divide between Protestant and Catholic Britons, and in particular it sought to appeal to Catholic Irish living in Britain.^[14] The BUF declared support for complete religious toleration.^[15] BUF Leader Sir Oswald Mosley emphasised the "Irish Connection" and the BUF held both Protestant and Catholic religious branches.^[16] Mosley condemned the Liberal government of David Lloyd George for being responsible for allowing reprisals between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland.^[16] As a result of the BUF's conciliatory approach to Catholics, it gained a substantial support amongst Catholics, and several BUF leaders in Hull, Blackburn, and Bolton, were Catholics.^[17] Support by Catholic Irish in Stepney for the BUF increased after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War that involved clerical traditionalist and fascist forces fighting against an anti-clerical government.^[14]

On racial issues, the various British Fascist movements held different policies. The British Fascism of Mosley's BUF believed that culture created national and racial differences - a policy closer to the views on race by Italian Fascism rather than German Nazism.^[18] Initially the BUF was not explicitly anti-Semitic and was in fact based upon the views on race of Austrian Jewish sociologist Ludwig Gumplowicz and Scottish anthropologist Arthur Keith who defined race formation as the result of dynamic historical and political processes established within the confines of the nation state and that the defining characteristics of a people were determined by the interaction of heredity, environment, culture, and evolution over a historical period of time.^[18] However Mosley later prominently asserted anti-Semitism invoking the theory of German philosopher Oswald Spengler who described that Magian Jews and Faustian Europeans were bound to live in friction with each other.^[19] The British Fascism of Arnold Leese's Imperial Fascist League promoted pro-Nazi racial policy including anti-Semitism.^[20]

There were small, short-lived Fascist groups at several universities including Oxford, Cambridge, Birmingham, Liverpool and Reading. Mosley arranged a series of public meetings of his British Union of Fascists (formed in 1932) in university towns, which often ended in conflict between supporters and opposition, followed by violence.^[21]

Foreign policies[]

This section needs expansion with: Contemporaneous imperialism and influence on Nazi Germany's imperial ambitions. You can help by . (March 2021)

British Fascism was non-interventionist and argued against war when it was not in defence of United Kingdom or the British Empire. It believed the only threat to the British Empire was from the Soviet Union.^[22] In defence of this policy Mosley pointed to Benjamin Disraeli who opposed going to war with Turkey over its mistreatment of Armenians.^[23]

Corporatist policies would also be spread to the empire.^[24] It was seen as natural that the Dominions would accept these policies as it would be beneficial to them.^[25] The spread of corporatist policies would have also led to an increased hold on India and British Fascists argued that it would have improved working conditions there.^[26]

Corporatism[]

Despite being a fascist movement, British Fascism claimed to be democratic. The BUF declared support for a democratic state with Mosley describing it in relation to the BUF's support of corporatism as "a nation emerges organised in the divine parallel of the human body as the name implies. Every organ plays a part in relation to the whole and in harmony with the whole".^[27]

Economic policy[]

In economics, British Fascism opposed both socialism and laissez-faire economics for being an outmoded system and proposed instead a syndicalist economic system^[28] guided by a corporate state.^[29] The BUF denounced capitalism, with Mosley declaring: "Capitalism is a system by which capital uses the nation for its own purposes. Fascism is a system by which the nation uses capital for its own purposes".^[30] He went on to say "private enterprise is not permitted when it conflicts with national interests".^[31] At the same time, the BUF also denounced socialism, and Mosley wrote that the Fascist state "will not attempt to conduct industry as it would under Socialism, instead, the State will lay down the limits within which industry may operate, and those limits will be the national welfare. Private ownership will be permitted and encouraged, provided such activity enriches the nation as well as the individual."^[32] British Fascism "requires the widest possible diffusion and ownership of capital" and "opposes both the Socialist principle of State ownership, and the capitalist principle of the concentration of capital in the hands of a few exploiters."^[33]

Traditionalism and modernism[]

The BUF declared support for the British monarchy, regarding the monarchy as a beneficial institution for its role in bringing Britain to preeminence in the world, and seeing it as a symbol of Britain's imperial splendour.^[15] Its support went as far as "Absolute loyalty to the Crown" with Mosley saying that British Fascists aimed to "in every way maintain its dignity".^[34]

The BUF declared its support for complete religious toleration, but also declared that it sought to merge both religious and secular spheres of the nation into a "higher harmony" between church and state, by supporting political representation for leading clerics in the House of Lords and state maintenance for religious schools for those who demanded them.^[15] The BUF declared its support for Christianity and its opposition to atheism, saying "atheism will perish under British Union; Christianity will find encouragement and security, in which it may prosper to the glory of its Creator".^[15]

The BUF stressed the need for Britain to be linked to modernity, especially in economics. Mosley had declared such in 1931 in addressing the action needed in response to the onset of the Great Depression: "we have to face modern problems with modern minds, we should then be able to lift this great economic problem and national emergency far above the turmoil of party clamour and with national unity could achieve a solution adequate to the problem and worthy of the modern mind".^[15] They found "the money spent on both scientific and technical research [was] absurdly inadequate".^[35]

British Pan-European Nationalism[]

After the defeat of the Axis powers in 1945, Sir Oswald Mosley founded the Union Movement (UM) as the successor to his post-war BUF. The Union Movement diverged from the BUF's focus on British nationalism and instead focused on promoting the idea of Pan-European nationalism.^[36]

References[]