"In 1932 Robert Forgan approached the IFL and suggested that they should merge into Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists but the offer was declined. Leese rejected any overtures from Mosley due to the latter's initial reluctance to make anti-Semitism a central theme, leading to Leese dismissing Mosley as a ""kosher fascist"". He even dubbed the BUF the ""British Jewnion of Fascists"" over the issue. One of their biggest differences was the fact that the IFL held a biological view of anti-Semitism, the belief that the Jews were inherently inferior as a race, in contrast to the BUF, whose eventual"
"called in a £500 loan. This effectively brought the British Fascists to a conclusion; Rotha Lintorn-Orman died the following year. British Fascists The British Fascists were the first political organisation in the United Kingdom to claim the label of fascist. While the group had more in common with conservatism for much of its existence, it nonetheless was the first to self-describe as fascist in Britain. William Joyce, Neil Francis Hawkins, Maxwell Knight and Arnold Leese were amongst those to have passed through the movement as members and activists. They were formed in 1923 by Rotha Lintorn-Orman in the aftermath of"
"British Fascists The British Fascists were the first political organisation in the United Kingdom to claim the label of fascist. While the group had more in common with conservatism for much of its existence, it nonetheless was the first to self-describe as fascist in Britain. William Joyce, Neil Francis Hawkins, Maxwell Knight and Arnold Leese were amongst those to have passed through the movement as members and activists. They were formed in 1923 by Rotha Lintorn-Orman in the aftermath of Benito Mussolini's March on Rome, and originally operated under the Italian-sounding name British Fascisti. Despite their name the group had"
"Fascist Defence Force The Fascist Defence Force (FDF) was the paramilitary section of the British Union of Fascists (BUF). It was established in August 1933 by Oswald Mosley, after the BUF acquired its headquarters, the ""Black House"" (formerly ""The Whitelands Teacher Training College"") in King's Road, Chelsea. The Fascist Defence Force comprised three hundred men; they wore black shirts and black trousers (their shirts, modelled on Mosley's fencing jacket, were akin to polo neck sweaters) as well as six badges and stripes to denote rank. They also wore a red armband with the BUF symbol of a flash of lightning"
"a local branch for Mosley's transformed political movement, the British Union of Fascists (BUF, or ""British Union""), of which Risdon was a founder member. The inaugural ceremony on 1 October 1932, was attended by 32 founder members, most of whom wore black shirts. Risdon remained in Newcastle until February 1933, when he moved to London to take up his post as Mosley's first Director of Propaganda. His main area of responsibility was organising Mosley's public meetings, the first of which was held at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester on 12 March. The following month, he was one of a"
"my deed, let every one remember that such an outcry is an hypocrisy so long as they allow the destruction of Mrs Pankhurst and other beautiful living women, and that until the public cease to countenance human destruction the stones cast against me for the destruction of this picture are each an evidence against them of artistic as well as moral and political humbug and hypocrisy."" In 1932, after forming the belief that fascism was the ""only path to a 'Greater Britain,'"" Richardson joined the British Union of Fascists (BUF), led by Oswald Mosley. She claimed that ""I was first"
"Rotha Lintorn-Orman Rotha Beryl Lintorn Lintorn-Orman (1895–1935) was the founder of the British Fascisti, the first avowedly fascist movement to appear in British politics. Born as Rotha Beryl Lintorn Orman in Kensington, London, she was the daughter of Charles Edward Orman, a major from the Essex Regiment, and his wife, Blanch Lintorn, née Simmons. Her maternal grandfather was Field Marshal Sir Lintorn Simmons. The Orman family would adopt the surname of Lintorn-Orman in 1912. Rotha Orman, with her friend Nesta Maude, was among the few girls who showed up at the 1909 Crystal Palace Scout Rally wanting to be Scouts"
"and business story of England. First that gripping audience is arrested, then stirred and finally, as we have said, swept off its feet by a tornado of peroration yelled at the defiant high pitch of a tremendous voice. After his failure to be elected in 1931, Mosley went on a study tour of the ""new movements"" of Italy's Benito Mussolini and other fascists, and returned convinced that it was the way forward for Britain. He was determined to unite the existing fascist movements and created the British Union of Fascists (BUF) in 1932. The BUF was protectionist, strongly anti-communist, strongly"
"then Labour MP as a dangerous socialist. As a consequence Francis Hawkins broke away and took much of the male membership of the group with him with the New Party becoming the British Union of Fascists (BUF) soon afterwards. Relations with the BUF were as a result frosty for the remainder of the group's life and, although Mosley dismissed the British Fascists as ""three old ladies and a couple of office boys"", in 1933 a BUF fighting squad wrecked the group's London offices after British Fascists members had heckled the BUF headquarters. By this stage in their development the British"
"British Fascists (as well as the Conservative Party, for which both men sat as MPs). In 1927 the group even appointed as its chairman Colonel A. H. Lane, a man well known for his work with the strongly anti-Semitic Britons. By the late 1930s the group was closely associated with the Militant Christian Patriots, a minor group known for its anti-Semitism and fascist sympathies. It disappeared around the outbreak of the Second World War. Middle Class Union The Middle Class Union was founded in March 1919 to safeguard property after the Reform Act 1918 had increased the number of working-class"
"and popularity would further assist this process. However, during the tour, the Australian secret service were informed by the London authorities that Gilligan and the MCC tour manager Frederick Toone were members of the British Fascists. Although the organisation never achieved the same level of influence in Britain as the British Union of Fascists, which formed in 1932, the British Fascists were popular for a short time during the mid-1920s. The primary focus of the organisation was to oppose communism, but MI5 considered its threat serious enough to warrant placing leading members under surveillance. In addition, the British Foreign Office"
"Union of Fascists in 1933 and soon rose to the post of Director of Policy, from where he became the leading ideological light in the party and a close associate of Oswald Mosley and Neil Francis Hawkins. Whilst in this position he produced his seminal work ""The Corporate State"" (March 1935, republished as ""The Coming Corporate State"" in January 1937), in which he set out the vision of a BUF government in Britain. Thomson envisaged the formation of twenty corporations, each controlling a specific sector of the economy. These corporations would be further divided up to cover each individual industry"
"National Socialist League The National Socialist League was a short-lived Nazi political movement in the United Kingdom immediately before the Second World War. The NSL was formed in 1937 by William Joyce, John Beckett and John Angus MacNab as a splinter group from the British Union of Fascists. The leaders claimed that the League had been formed because BUF leader Oswald Mosley was too in thrall to continental fascism, although Mosley contended that the three had simply been sacked from their paid posts in the BUF as part of a cost-cutting exercise. Beckett and Joyce attacked Mosley as being more"
"Mosley, the founder of the British Union of Fascists. Flash and circle The flash and circle is a political symbol used by several organisations. It was first used by the British Union of Fascists (BUF), and was adopted in 1935. The BUF had originally used the fasces as its symbol, first on a black disc on a gold background and later in gold with a lightning bolt struck through it on a black background. The flash and circle was designed as a more abstract depiction of the concept of the fasces incorporating the lightning of the 1933 flag within a"
"During 1931, the New Party became increasingly influenced by Fascism. The next year, after a January 1932 visit to Benito Mussolini in Italy, 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 in October 1932. The BUF claimed 50,000 members at one point, and the ""Daily Mail"", running the headline ""Hurrah for the Blackshirts!"","
"drugs, rumours about her private life began to damage her reputation, until her mother stopped her funding amid lurid tales of alcohol, other drugs and orgies. Taken ill in 1933, she was sidelined from the British Fascists, with effective control passing to Mrs D. G. Harnett, who sought to breathe new life into the group by seeking to ally it with Ulster loyalism. She died on 10 March 1935 at Santa Brígida, Las Palmas, Canary Islands, with her organisation all but defunct. Rotha Lintorn-Orman Rotha Beryl Lintorn Lintorn-Orman (1895–1935) was the founder of the British Fascisti, the first avowedly fascist"
"as an ""association of race conscious Britons"" and sought to co-ordinate all far-right and fascist movements whilst giving particular emphasis to anti-Semitism. The League sought to unite leading figures from across the far right, as demonstrated in April 1939 when a meeting addressed by Ramsay was chaired by a member of the British Union of Fascists who was supported by former British Fascists president R. B. D. Blakeney and Imperial Fascist League member E. H. Cole. Other leading members included J. F. C. Fuller, the United Empire Fascist Party leader and Nazi agent Serocold Skeels, Henry Hamilton Beamish, Arnold Leese"
"British Union of Fascists were opposed to war, believing that another world war against Germany was not in Britain's national interest and that Britons should ""fight for Britain alone"". Mosley devoted all of the party's efforts to the ""Peace Campaign"", calling for a referendum on the continuation of the war and advocating a negotiated peace treaty with Germany. The campaign ended after Mosley and many other senior BUF members were interned under Defence Regulation 18B in May 1940. Numerous US anti-Semites and anti-communists during the 1930s, notably within the Mothers' movement led by Elizabeth Dilling, also opposed World War II"
"World Union of National Socialists The World Union of National Socialists (WUNS) is an organisation founded in 1962 as an umbrella group for neo-Nazi organisations across the globe. The movement came about when the leader of the American Nazi Party, George Lincoln Rockwell, visited England and met with National Socialist Movement chief Colin Jordan and the two agreed to work towards developing an international link-up between movements. This resulted in the 1962 Cotswold Declaration which was signed by neo-Nazis from the United States, United Kingdom, France (Savitri Devi), West Germany (Bruno Ludtke), Austria and Belgium. More member nations would join"
"Neil Francis Hawkins Neil L. M. Francis Hawkins (1903 – 25 December 1950) was a leading British fascist, both before and after the Second World War. He played a leading role in the British Union of Fascists, controlling the organisational structure of the movement. Francis Hawkins joined the British Fascisti (BF) around the time of its inception and became a member of the three-man Headquarters Committee, being seen by many of the male members as a preferable leader to Rotha Lintorn-Orman. Under the influence of Francis Hawkins and his close ally E.G. Mandeville Roe, the BF, which despite its name"
"Federal Union Federal Union is a Pro-European British group launched in November 1938, to advocate a Federal Union of Europe as a post-war aim. The founders of the organisation were Charles Kimber (1912–2008), Derek Rawnsley and Patrick Ransome. Barbara Wootton, C. E. M. Joad, Stephen King-Hall and Philip Kerr, 11th Marquess of Lothian. In 1940 the group set up a Federal Union Research Institute (FURI), chaired by William Beveridge, to discuss the direction of post-war European integration. FURI attracted contributors from across the political spectrum, including F.A. Hayek, J. B. Priestley, H. N. Brailsford, Lionel Robbins and Arnold Toynbee. In"
"Unite Against Fascism Unite Against Fascism (UAF) is an anti-fascist pressure group in the United Kingdom, with support from politicians of the three largest political parties in the House of Commons, including the former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron and Labour politician Tony Benn. It describes itself as a national campaign with the aim of alerting British society to a perceived threat of fascism and the far right—in particular the British National Party (BNP)—gaining a foothold at local, national and European elections, arguing that ""there is a real danger that the BNP could get a significant platform in elected institutions""."
"joining the Labour Party. He returned to Parliament as the MP for Smethwick at a by-election in 1926, having stood as a Labour candidate, and served as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the Labour Government of 1929–31. He was considered a potential Labour Prime Minister, but resigned due to discord with the Government's unemployment policies. He then founded the New Party. He lost his Smethwick seat at the 1931 general election. The New Party became the British Union of Fascists (BUF) in 1932. Mosley was imprisoned in May 1940 and the BUF was banned. He was released in"
"higher than its membership numbers would indicate. After the IFL turned down a merger with the British Union of Fascists in 1932, due to policy differences, the BUF mounted a campaign against the IFL, physically breaking up its meetings and fabricating phony plans that showed the IFL planning to attack the BUF's headquarters, which were passed on to the British government. The Imperial Fascist League went into a steep decline upon the outbreak of World War II, after Leese declared his allegiance to ""King and country"", to the displeasure of pro-German members. Nevertheless, Leese was interned under wartime security regulations,"
"a member of the British Union of Fascists (BUF) in the 1930s. Over the following months, many members of Britain's far-right visited Chesterton at his Croydon apartment to discuss the proposal, among them Andrew Fountaine and Philip Maxwell of the British National Party (BNP), John Tyndall and Martin Webster of the Greater Britain Movement (GBM), and David Brown of the Racial Preservation Society (RPS). In principle, everyone agreed with the idea of unification, but there were many personal rivalries that made the process difficult. Combining anti-Semitism and anti-communism with anti-Americanism and anti-capitalism, the LEL had filled a void on the"
"not officially racist or anti-semitic, had strong connections to Adrien Arcand's National Unity Party. Canadian Union of Fascists The Canadian Fascist Party was a fascist political party based in the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada in the 1930s. The formative core of the party was a splinter group from the Canadian Nationalist Party that found the principles of corporativism to be more important than the largely racial motivations of the Nationalist Party. This disposition is highlighted in one official statement that ""anti-semitism was a symptom of Germany not of Fascism"". The party was founded as the British Empire Union of"
"of the British Union of Fascists, as a merger between his League of Empire Loyalists and the British National Party. It was soon joined by the Greater Britain Movement, whose leader John Tyndall became the Front's chairman in 1972. Under Tyndall's leadership, it capitalised on growing concern about South Asian migration to Britain, rapidly increasing its membership and vote share in urban areas of East London and Northern England. Its public profile was raised through street marches and rallies, which often resulted in clashes with anti-fascist protesters, most notably the 1974 Red Lion Square disorders and the 1977 Battle of"
"popular support, and it attracted a sizeable following. 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 anti-semitism in 1936 led to increasingly violent clashes with opponents, 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"
"go on to greater significance. National Fascisti The National Fascisti were a splinter group from the British Fascisti formed in 1924. In the early days of the British Fascisti the movement lacked any real policy or direction and so this group split away with the intention of pursuing a more definite path towards a fascist state. The National Fascisti's leader was Lieutenant Colonel Henry Rippon-Seymour. Members of the National Fascisti were dressed in black shirts in imitation of Benito Mussolini and his followers and received some military drilling, although membership was much too small for them to pose any real"
"Sussex and England following the Great Depression. On 31 March 1930, Charles Bentinck Budd was elected to the Offington ward of West Sussex County Council. Later that year, Budd, who lived at Greenville, Grove Road, Worthing, was elected to the town council as the independent representative of Ham Ward in the Broadwater area of the town. In 1933 Oswald Mosley relaunched his 'New Party' as the British Union of Fascists, following a visit to Benito Mussolini in Italy. One of the first branches of the BUF was set up by Budd in Worthing, who attracted a good deal of publicity"
"Jeffrey Hamm Edward Jeffrey Hamm (15 September 1915 – 4 May 1992) was a leading British Fascist and supporter of Oswald Mosley. Although a minor figure in Mosley's pre-war movement he became a leading figure after the Second World War and eventually succeeded as leader of the Union Movement on Mosley's retirement. Hamm was born in Ebbw Vale, Wales, whilst his father was serving in the First World War. The family later relocated to Monmouth. It has been claimed that he first became attracted to the British Union of Fascists (BUF) in 1934 when, on a trip to London, he"
"of proposals for 1930 and both the Labour government and the party rejected it. In response, Mosley left Labour in 1931 to found the New Party, taking four other Labour MPs with him. The New Party failed to win any seats in 1932 and Mosley subsequently came to support fascism, merging his party with several far-right groups to form the British Union of Fascists. The Independent Labour Party disaffiliated from the Labour Party in 1932, in protest at an erosion of their MPs' independence. For a time, they became a significant left-of-Labour force. In 1936, the Spanish Civil War was"
"National Fascisti The National Fascisti were a splinter group from the British Fascisti formed in 1924. In the early days of the British Fascisti the movement lacked any real policy or direction and so this group split away with the intention of pursuing a more definite path towards a fascist state. The National Fascisti's leader was Lieutenant Colonel Henry Rippon-Seymour. Members of the National Fascisti were dressed in black shirts in imitation of Benito Mussolini and his followers and received some military drilling, although membership was much too small for them to pose any real threat. Despite their frustrations at"