Oswald Mosley

Fascist leader

Oswald Mosley

Together in Britain we have lit a flame that the ages shall not extinguish! Guard that sacred flame, my brother Blackshirts, until it illuminates Britain and lights again the Paths of Mankind!
—Oswald Mosley

Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet (16 November 1896 – 3 December 1980) was a British politician and founder of several nationalist organizations, the most notable being British Union of Fascists and Union Movement. Educated at Winchester and Sandhurst, he fought with the 16th Lancers on the Western Front during the First World War. He later transferred to the Royal Flying Corps but was invalided out of the war after a plane crash in 1916. He was the foremost leader in British Fascist politics.

Politics

Mosley (with Roman salute) at a Black Shirt Rally in London, 14 September 1934

Mosley speaks at Earl’s Court 1939

Sir Oswald Mosley was well known as a great speaker.

Ideas in a void have never appealed to me; action must follow thought or political life is meaningless.
—Oswald Mosley, “My Life (1968)”

Mosley became the youngest MP in the House of Commons after winning Harrow for the Conservative Party in the 1918 General Election. Disillusioned with the Conservatives, he won Harrow as an Independent in the 1922 General Election. Two years later Mosley joined the Labour Party. In October 1927 Mosley was elected to the party's National Executive Committee.

When Ramsay MacDonald formed his Labour Government after the 1929 General Election, he appointed Mosley as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. In 1930 Mosley proposed a programme that he believed would help deal with the growing unemployment in Britain. When MacDonald and his cabinet rejected these proposals, Mosley resigned from office.

The following year Mosley founded the New Party. In the 1931 General Election none of the New Party's candidates were elected. In January 1932 Mosley met Benito Mussolini in Italy. Mosley was impressed by Mussolini's achievements and when he returned to England he disbanded the New Party and replaced it with the British Union of Fascists. The BUF was strongly anti-communist and argued for a programme of economic revival based on government spending and protectionism.

Mosley was married to Cynthia Curzon, the daughter of the former Viceroy of India. However, he began an affair with Diana Mitford. Diana left her husband but Mosley refused to desert his wife. It was not until Cynthia died of peritonitis, that Mosley agreed to marry Diana.

In October 1936, Diana and Oswald Mosley were secretly married at the home of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels in Berlin. Adolf Hitler was one of the guests at the ceremony. Diana was a friend of Joseph Goebbels wife Magda.

In July 1939, BUF hosted one of the largest indoor political rallies in the world with Mosley speaking at a peace rally attended by over 30,000 people at Earls Court in London.

Internment

We ask those who join us to march with us in a great and hazardous adventure. We ask them to be prepared to sacrifice all, but to do so for no small and unworthy ends. We ask them to dedicate their lives to building in this country a movement of the modern age, which by its British expression shall transcend, as so often before in our history, every precursor of the Continent in conception and in constructive achievement. We ask them to rewrite the greatest pages of British history by finding for the spirit of their age its highest mission in these islands. Neither to our friends nor to the country do we make any promises; not without struggle and ordeal will the future be won. Those who march with us will certainly face abuse, misunderstanding, bitter animosity, and possibly the ferocity of struggle and of danger. In return, we can only offer to them the deep belief that they are fighting that a great land may live!
—Oswald Mosley

On 22nd May 1940 the British government announced the imposition of Defence Regulation 18B. This legislation gave the Home Secretary the right to imprison without trial anybody he believed likely to "endanger the safety of the realm". The following day, Mosley was arrested. Over the next few days other prominent figures in the BUF were imprisoned.

On the 30th May the BUF was dissolved and its publications were banned. Mosley and his wife received privileged treatment while in prison. Winston Churchill granted permission for the couple to live in a small house inside Holloway Prison. They were given a small garden where they could sunbathe and grow their own vegetables.

On November 20, 1943, they were released from prison but had to be placed under house arrest until the war was over.

Post-WWII

Fascism was an explosion against intolerable conditions, against remediable wrongs which the old world failed to remedy. It was a movement to secure national renaissance by people who felt themselves threatened with decline into decadence and death and were determined to live, and live greatly!
—Oswald Mosley, “My Life (2012)”, p. 29

In the postwar period, Mosley formed the Union Movement and was involved in the National Party of Europe. In 1951, he moved to Ireland and later Paris. Shortly after the 1958 Notting Hill race riots, he briefly returned to Britain to stand in the 1959 general election. Mosley led his campaign on an anti-mass immigration platform, calling for repatriation of Caribbean immigrants as well as a prohibition upon mixed marriages. In 1966, he was a candidate in the general election. Thereafter, he retired and moved back to France, where he wrote his autobiography, My Life (1968).

Battle of Cable Street

Those who march with us will certainly face abuse, misunderstanding, bitter animosity, and possibly the ferocity of struggle and of danger. In return, we can only offer to them the deep belief that they are fighting that a great land may live.
—Oswald Mosley, “The Greater Britain” (2012), p.132

The so-called "Battle of Cable Street" is a famous Anti-Fascist myth. The narrative usually revolves around the idea that a small group of jews, Communists and varied Antifascists beat Mosley's Blackshirt, both physically and politically, in one sweep, on the 4th of October 1936.

There are several misconceptions involved in this:

• Blackshirts were enourmously outnumbered, yet stood their grounds. There were around 33 times as many opposition members as there were Fascists (around 100.000 against around 3000); nonetheless, the people were not defeated. Moreover, these are all the lowest figures; the actual numbers of Anti-Fascists are as high as over 310.000 and there could have been over a 1000 more policemen.
• The opposition was supported by the Metropolitan Police. The Metropolitan Police - which was 6000 men strong, making the true odds around 35-to-1 - worked to oppose the Blackshirt, attacking them and even forcing the people to change the course of the march last minute.
• The membership of the BUF actually increased following the march. Making it clear that the Anti-Fascists were soundly defeated - over 600 new members joined within solely the 2 days following the march; this figure is only for the East London branch of the organization.
• The decline of the organization started solely following the Public Order Act 1936. This law, created by the Liberal system in collaboration with Anti-Fascists, was created exactly because of the rise of the BUF; it targeted uniformed marching, one of its key differences compared to the actions of other groups.
• Mosley and the BUF remained enourmously popular within London. In an election in which a large amount of the organization's supporters - young English men - could not vote, the election of 1937 for London, the Blackshirts received over 23% of the vote; estimates for a normal election put their support at possibly over 50%. In 1940, Mosley talked to a crowd of over 100.000 people in Victoria Park Square, making him likely among the most well-known and popular British public figures.
• The real opposition happened against Communist marchers. When, a week later on Sunday, the Communists organized a "Victory March", they were pelted with rotten fruit and boo'd as they walked through East London, demonstrating their lack of support within the county. This in particular highlights the deception of the Battle of Cable Street.

Books

• Revolution by Reason (1925)
• Greater Britain (1932)
• Fascism Explained: 10 Points of Fascist Policy (1933)
• Tomorrow We Live (1938)
• My Answer (1946)
• The Alternative (1947)
• European Socialism (1951)
• My Life (1968, autobiography)

See also

• Fascism
• Chronology of Sir Oswald Mosley

Further reading

• B.U.F. Oswald Mosley and British Fascism by James Drennan

External links

• Sir Oswald Mosley: Briton, Fascist, European
• Oswald Mosley Reconsidered
• Dunkirk Backstory:jewsTraitors, Communist Spies, and the Internment of Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts
• Oswald Mosley: Europeans - IMDb