The British Fascists was the first political organisation in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
to claim the label of
fascist, although the group had little ideological unity apart from
anti-socialism
Criticism of socialism (also known as anti-socialism) is any critique of socialist models of economic organization and their feasibility as well as the political and social implications of adopting such a system. Some critiques are not directe ...
for much of its existence, and was strongly associated with
conservatism
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilizati ...
.
William Joyce
William Brooke Joyce (24 April 1906 – 3 January 1946), nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw, was an American-born fascist and Nazi propaganda broadcaster during the Second World War. After moving from New York to Ireland and subsequently to England, ...
,
Neil Francis Hawkins,
Maxwell Knight and
Arnold Leese were amongst those to have passed through the movement as members and activists.
Structure and membership
The organisation was formed on 6 May 1923 by
Rotha Lintorn-Orman
Rotha Beryl Lintorn Lintorn-Orman (7 February 1895 – 10 March 1935) was the founder of the British Fascisti, the first avowedly fascist movement to appear in British politics.
Early life
Born as Rotha Beryl Lintorn Orman in Kensington, Lon ...
in the aftermath of
Benito Mussolini's
March on Rome
The March on Rome ( it, Marcia su Roma) was an organized mass demonstration and a coup d'état in October 1922 which resulted in Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party (PNF) ascending to power in the Kingdom of Italy. In late October 1922, ...
, and originally operated under the
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
-sounding name British Fascisti. Despite its name, the group had a poorly defined ideological basis at its beginning, being brought into being more by a fear of left-wing politics than a devotion to fascism. The ideals of the
Boy Scout movement, with which many early members had also been involved in their younger days, also played a role, for the British Fascisti wished, according to General
R. B. D. Blakeney
Robert Byron Drury Blakeney, generally known as R. B. D. Blakeney (18 April 1872 – 13 February 1952), was a British Army officer and fascist politician. After a career with the Royal Engineers, Blakeney went on to serve as President of the Bri ...
, who was the BF President from 1924 to 1926, to "uphold the same lofty ideas of brotherhood, service and duty". At its formation, at least, the British Fascisti was positioned in the same right-wing conservative camp as the
British Empire Union
The British Empire Union (BEU) was created in the United Kingdom during the First World War, in 1916, after changing its name from the Anti-German Union, which had been founded in April 1915. From December 1922 to summer 1952, it published a regula ...
and the
Middle Class Union, and shared some members with these groups. The group had a complex structure, being presided over by both an Executive Council and Fascist Grand Council of nine men, with County and Area Commanders controlling districts below this. Districts contained a number of companies, which in turn were divided into troops with each troop made of three units and unit containing seven members under a Leader. A separate structure existed along similar lines for the group's sizeable female membership. The group became notorious for its inflated claims of membership (including the ridiculous claim that it had 200,000 members in 1926), although at its peak from 1925 to 1926 it had a membership of several thousand. It mustered 5,000 people for a London march on
Empire Day
Commonwealth Day (formerly Empire Day) is the annual celebration of the Commonwealth of Nations, since 1977 often held on the second Monday in March. It is marked by an Anglican service in Westminster Abbey, normally attended by the monarch a ...
in London in 1925.
Early membership largely came from high society, and included a number of women amongst its ranks, such as Dorothy, Viscountess Downe, Lady Sydenham of Combe, Baroness Zouche and
Nesta Webster
Nesta Helen Webster (née Bevan, 24 August 1876 – 16 May 1960) was an English author who promoted antisemitic canards and revived theories about the Illuminati.Who are the Illuminati? ''Independent on Sunday'' (London) 6 November 2005. S ...
. Men from the
aristocracy also joined, including
Lord Glasgow,
The Marquess of Ailesbury,
Lord Ernest Hamilton
Lord Ernest William Hamilton (5 September 1858 – 14 December 1939) was a United Kingdom soldier and Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1885 to 1892.
Hamilton was the seventh son of James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Abercorn ...
,
The Baron de Clifford,
The Earl Temple of Stowe, Sir
Arthur Henry Hardinge
Sir Arthur Henry Hardinge, (12 October 1859 – 27 December 1933), was a senior British diplomat.
Early life
Hardinge was born in London, the son of General Hon. Sir Arthur Edward Hardinge, (1828–1892), KCB, Commander of the Bombay Army and ...
and
Leopold Canning, Lord Garvagh, who served as first President of the movement. High-ranking members of the armed forces also occupied leading roles in the group, with General Blakeney joined by the likes of General Sir
Ormonde Winter
Brigadier-General Sir Ormonde de l'Épée Winter, KBE, CB, CMG, DSO (15 January 1875 – 13 February 1962), was a British Army officer and author who, after service in the First World War, was responsible for intelligence operations in Ire ...
, Rear-Admiral John Armstrong (the BF Vice President 1924–1926) and Colonel Sir
Charles Rosdew Burn, who combined a role on the Grand Council of the British Fascisti with that of
Conservative Party
The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right.
Political parties called The Conservative P ...
MP for
Torquay
Torquay ( ) is a seaside town in Devon, England, part of the unitary authority area of Torbay. It lies south of the county town of Exeter and east-north-east of Plymouth, on the north of Tor Bay, adjoining the neighbouring town of Paig ...
. Admirals Sir
Edmund Fremantle
Admiral The Honourable Sir Edmund Robert Fremantle (16 June 1836 – 10 February 1929) was a Royal Navy officer who served as Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth (at the time, and from 1845 to 1900, formally known as Commander-in-Chief, Devonport).
Na ...
and Sir
Reginald Tupper
Admiral Sir Reginald Godfrey Otway Tupper, (16 October 1859 – 5 March 1945) was a Royal Navy officer active during the late Victorian period and the First World War.
Early life and career
Reginald Tupper was born on 16 October 1859, the son o ...
, Brigadier-Generals
Julian Tyndale-Biscoe and
Roland Erskine-Tulloch, Rear Admiral
William Ernest Russell Martin (BF's paymaster), Major-Generals
James Spens,
Thomas Pilcher
Major-General Thomas David Pilcher, CB (8 July 1858 – 14 December 1928) was a British Army officer, who commanded a mounted infantry unit in the Second Boer War and the 17th (Northern) Division during the First World War, before being ...
and Colonel
Daniel Burges
Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Burges, VC, DSO (1 July 1873 – 24 October 1946) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Common ...
were also members. Serving military personnel were eventually banned from joining the group by the
Army Council however.
At a more rank-and-file level, the group attracted a membership of middle- and working-class young men who spent much of their time in violent confrontations with similar men involved in the
Communist Party of Great Britain;
William Joyce
William Brooke Joyce (24 April 1906 – 3 January 1946), nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw, was an American-born fascist and Nazi propaganda broadcaster during the Second World War. After moving from New York to Ireland and subsequently to England, ...
was typical of this sort of low-level member. This domination by disgruntled members of the peerage and high-ranking officers meant that certain concerns not normally associated with the demands of fascism, such as anger at the decline of the large landowning agricultural sector, high levels of estate taxation and death duties, and the dearth of high-ranking civilian occupations considered suitable for the status of officers, were a central feature of the political concerns advanced by the British Fascisti. Other officials included
Sir Michael Bruce,
Arnold Leese, England cricket manager Sir
Frederick Toone
Sir Frederick Charles Toone (25 June 1868 - ) was a cricket administrator, who in 1929 became the second man ever to be knighted for cricket-related activities. Unusually for a man who achieved such eminence in the game, he never played cricket ...
, England cricket captain
Arthur Gilligan,
John Baker White MP and
Patrick Hannon MP.
Early development
The party confined itself to stewarding Conservative Party meetings and
canvassing for the party. In particular it campaigned vigorously on behalf of
Oliver Locker-Lampson
Commander Oliver Stillingfleet Locker-Lampson, CMG, DSO (25 September 1880 (Belgravia, London) – 8 October 1954 (Kensington, London)) was a British politician and naval reserve officer. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Ramsey, Huntingdon ...
, whose "Keep Out the Reds" campaign slogan struck a chord with the group's strong
anti-communism
Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when the United States and the ...
. The group also indulged in a series of high-profile stunts, many of which were more in the vein of elaborate practical jokes than genuine subversion. In one such example, five British Fascisti forcibly removed
Harry Pollitt
Harry Pollitt (22 November 1890 – 27 June 1960) was a British communist who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) from 1929 to September 1939 and again from 1941 until his death in 1960. Pollitt spent ...
from a train to
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...
, where he was due to address a
National Minority Movement
The National Minority Movement was a British organisation, established in 1924 by the Communist Party of Great Britain, which attempted to organise a radical presence within the existing trade unions. The organization was headed by longtime unio ...
event, and attempted to bundle him on to a different train. The five members arrested for the event insisted that they had intended to send Pollitt on a weekend break and even claimed that he had taken £5 in expenses they offered him for that purpose. One of the group's few policies was a call for a reduction in
income tax
An income tax is a tax imposed on individuals or entities (taxpayers) in respect of the income or profits earned by them (commonly called taxable income). Income tax generally is computed as the product of a tax rate times the taxable income. Tax ...
so that the well-off could hire more servants and so reduce
unemployment
Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the refere ...
.
The group changed its name in 1924 from ''British Fascisti'' to ''British Fascists'', in an attempt to distance itself from the Italian associations, although this move helped to bring about a split in the group with a more ideologically fascist group, the
National Fascisti
The National Fascisti (NF), renamed British National Fascists (BNF) in July 1926, 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 th ...
, going its own way. The group's patriotism had been questioned because of the Italian spelling of the name, while accusations were also made that it was in the pay of the Italian government. Placing emphasis on its support for the establishment, it even wrote to
Labour Party Home Secretary
Arthur Henderson
Arthur Henderson (13 September 1863 – 20 October 1935) was a British iron moulder and Labour politician. He was the first Labour cabinet minister, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1934 and, uniquely, served three separate terms as Leader of th ...
in 1924 telling him that the group was at his disposal if he wished to deploy them against picket lines during industrial unrest, an offer to which Henderson did not respond. Blakeney had replaced Canning as President that same year, with Canning claiming that he lived too far from London to be politically influential enough. London was the group's major base of operation. In December 1925 an attempt to organise a meeting in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
was broken up by communists, and the BF abandoned its attempts to set up in the city as a result.
Despite its close association with elements of the Conservative Party, the British Fascists did occasionally put up candidates in local elections. In 1924 two of its candidates in the municipal elections in
Stamford, Lincolnshire
Stamford is a town and civil parish in the South Kesteven District of Lincolnshire, England. The population at the 2011 census was 19,701 and estimated at 20,645 in 2019. The town has 17th- and 18th-century stone buildings, older timber-framed ...
,
Arnold Leese and Henry Simpson, managed to secure election to the local council. Simpson would retain his seat in 1927 although by that stage both he and Leese had broken from the British Fascists.
General Strike
The British Fascists began to take on a more prominent role in the run-up to the
General Strike of 1926
The 1926 general strike in the United Kingdom was a general strike that lasted nine days, from 4 to 12 May 1926. It was called by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in an unsuccessful attempt to force the British governmen ...
, as it became clear that their propaganda predicting such an outcome was about to come true. They were, however, not permitted to join the
Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies
The Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies was a British right-wing movement, established in 1925 to provide volunteers in the event of a general strike. During the General Strike of 1926, it was taken over by the government to provide vit ...
(OMS), a group established by the government and chaired by
Lord Hardinge to mobilise a non-striking workforce in the event of general strike, without first relinquishing any explicit attachment to fascism, as the government insisted for the group to remain non-ideological. The structure of the OMS was actually based on that of the British Fascists, but the government was unwilling to rely on the British Fascists because of what they saw as the group's unorthodox nature and its reliance on funding from
Rotha Lintorn-Orman
Rotha Beryl Lintorn Lintorn-Orman (7 February 1895 – 10 March 1935) was the founder of the British Fascisti, the first avowedly fascist movement to appear in British politics.
Early life
Born as Rotha Beryl Lintorn Orman in Kensington, Lon ...
(who had garnered a reputation for high living) and so excluded it as a group from the OMS. As a result, a further split occurred, as a number of members, calling themselves Loyalists and led by former BF President Brigadier-General Blakeney, did just that. In the event, the British Fascists formed their own Q Divisions, which took on much of the same work as the OMS during the strike, albeit without having any official government recognition.
The strike severely damaged the party as it failed to precipitate the "
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
Revolution", which Lintorn-Orman had set the party up to fight. In fact, the strike was largely peaceful and restrained, and fears of future outbreaks were quelled somewhat by the passing of the Trades Disputes Act. Many of its most prominent members and supporters also drifted away from the group in the aftermath of the strike. The party journal, initially called ''Fascist Bulletin'' before changing its name to ''British Lion'', went from a weekly to a monthly, and the loss of a number of key leaders and the erratic leadership of Lintorn-Orman, who was battling alcoholism, brought about a decline of activity. The group also became ravaged by factionalism, with one group following Lady Downe and the old ways of the British Fascists, and another centred around
James Strachey Barnes
James Strachey Barnes (1890–1955) was a British theorist of Fascism.
Life
He was born in India, the son of Hugh Shakespear Barnes and his wife Winifred Strachey, daughter of Sir John Strachey. Brought up in Florence by his Strachey grandparents ...
and Sir
Harold Elsdale Goad advocating full commitment to a proper fascist ideology.
Decline
Having been hit hard by the split from the General Strike, the British Fascists attempted to move gradually towards a more defined fascism, starting in 1927 by adopting a blue shirt and beret uniform in the style of similar movements in Europe. That same year they attempted to organise a
Remembrance Day
Remembrance Day (also known as Poppy Day owing to the tradition of wearing a remembrance poppy) is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth member states since the end of the First World War to honour armed forces members who have died in t ...
parade past
Buckingham Palace where they requested the King should salute them from the balcony but the requests were rejected and the parade did not take place. The progress towards fascism did not however come quickly enough for Arnold Leese who in 1928 split from the group, which he denounced as "
conservatism
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilizati ...
with knobs on", to establish his own
Imperial Fascist League (IFL), a much more hard-line group which emphasised
anti-Semitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
. Before long, however, the British Fascists began to advocate a more authoritarian government in which the monarch would take a leading role in government, as well as advocating the establishment of a
Benito Mussolini-style
corporate state
Corporate statism, state corporatism, or simply corporatism is a political culture and a form of corporatism whose adherents hold that the corporate group (sociology), corporate group, which forms the basis of society, is the State (polity), stat ...
. These policy changes were made possible by the departure of Blakeney, who was committed to
representative democracy
Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy, is a type of democracy where elected people represent a group of people, in contrast to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies function as some type of represe ...
and whose main economic opinion was opposition to the
gold standard
A gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. The gold standard was the basis for the international monetary system from the 1870s to the early 1920s, and from the l ...
. Even without Blakeney they retained some of their earlier Conservative-linked views, such as loyalty to the king, anti-trade union legislation, free trade within the
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...
and a general preference for the rural, although these were bolstered by fascist-influenced policies such as limiting the franchise, gradual purification of the "English race" and stringent restrictions on immigration and the activities of immigrants admitted to Britain. However, as
Martin Pugh
Martin John Pugh is a British guitarist who came to prominence after joining blues-rock band Steamhammer in 1968, staying with that band through 5 years and 4 albums. The debut Steamhammer album, also known as '' Steamhammer'', was released ...
has pointed out the British Fascists actively encouraged comparisons with the Conservative Party, feeling that it would add a sense of legitimacy and Britishness to their activities, particularly as they faced harsh criticism from not only the left but also some Tories for their increasingly paramilitary structure. Nonetheless some Tories were close to the group, with Charles Burn sitting on the Grand Council and support being lent by the likes of
Patrick Hannon,
Robert Tatton Bower
Commander Robert Tatton Bower (9 June 1894 – 5 July 1975) was a Royal Navy officer and a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom.
Early life
Bower was the only son- with two sisters- of Major Sir Robert Lister Bower, KBE, CMG, o ...
,
Robert Burton-Chadwick
Sir Robert Burton-Chadwick, 1st Baronet (20 June 1869 – 21 May 1951) was a shipping magnate and an English Conservative Party politician.
Chadwick was born at Oxton, Cheshire, the son of Joseph Chadwick, being baptised with the name of Robert ...
and
Alan Lennox-Boyd. Indeed, in May 1925 Hannon even booked a room in the House of Commons to host an event for the British Fascists.
After 1931 the BF abandoned its attempts to form a distinctly British version of Fascism, and instead adopted the full programme of Mussolini and his
National Fascist Party
The National Fascist Party ( it, Partito Nazionale Fascista, PNF) was a political party in Italy, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of Italian Fascism and as a reorganization of the previous Italian Fasces of Combat. Th ...
. The already weakened group split further in 1932 over the issue of a merger with
Oswald Mosley
Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet (16 November 1896 – 3 December 1980) was a British politician during the 1920s and 1930s who rose to fame when, having become disillusioned with mainstream politics, he turned to fascism. He was a member ...
's
New Party. The proposal was accepted by
Neil Francis Hawkins of the Headquarters Committee and his allies Lieutenant-Colonel H. W. Johnson and E. G. Mandeville Roe, although the female leadership turned the proposal down due to objections over serving under Mosley. Indeed, the British Fascists had protested against public meetings being addressed by Mosley as early as 1927, when they denounced the then Labour MP as a dangerous socialist. As a consequence Hawkins broke away and took much of the male membership of the BF with him; soon afterward, the New Party became the
British Union of Fascists (BUF). Relations with the BUF were as a result frosty for the remainder of the group's life, and although Mosley dismissed the BF as "three old ladies and a couple of office boys", in 1933 a BUF fighting squad wrecked the BF's London offices after British Fascists members had heckled the BUF headquarters.
By this stage the BF membership had plummeted, with only a hardcore of members left. Various schemes were floated in an attempt to reinvigorate the movement, although none succeeded. Archibald Whitmore announced a plan to turn the British Fascists into an
Ulster loyalist
Ulster loyalism is a strand of Ulster unionism associated with working class Ulster Protestants in Northern Ireland. Like other unionists, loyalists support the continued existence of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom, and oppose a u ...
group and successor to the
Ulster Volunteers
The Ulster Volunteers was an Irish unionist, loyalist paramilitary organisation founded in 1912 to block domestic self-government ("Home Rule") for Ireland, which was then part of the United Kingdom. The Ulster Volunteers were based in the ...
, although after claiming that he was preparing to begin recruitment in
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
, nothing came of this. The scheme had been led by Mrs
D. G. Harnett, a close friend of Lintorn-Orman, who hoped the BF could profit from the emergence of prominent
Irish republican Éamon de Valera
Éamon de Valera (, ; first registered as George de Valero; changed some time before 1901 to Edward de Valera; 14 October 1882 – 29 August 1975) was a prominent Irish statesman and political leader. He served several terms as head of govern ...
as
President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State
The president of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State ( ga, Uachtarán ar Ard-Chomhairle Shaorstát Éireann) was the head of government or prime minister of the Irish Free State which existed from 1922 to 1937. He was the chairman of t ...
but the plan was scuppered when the policies of the
Irish Free State
The Irish Free State ( ga, Saorstát Éireann, , ; 6 December 192229 December 1937) was a state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independence between ...
towards Northern Ireland largely remained the same under de Valera. A small group did exist in the
Irish Free State
The Irish Free State ( ga, Saorstát Éireann, , ; 6 December 192229 December 1937) was a state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independence between ...
, claiming to have a thousand members, although in fact having no more than 25 active in
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...
under H. R. Ledbeater. Favouring reunification with the UK, the group was involved in sending anti-Semitic leaflets to prominent Jews such as
Robert Briscoe. It sought a merger with the right-wing
Army Comrades Association
The Army Comrades Association (ACA), later the National Guard, then Young Ireland and finally League of Youth, but best known by the nickname the Blueshirts ( ga, Na Léinte Gorma), was a paramilitary organisation in the Irish Free State, founded ...
, but this was rejected by
Eoin O'Duffy
Eoin O'Duffy (born Owen Duffy; 28 January 1890 – 30 November 1944) was an Irish military commander, police commissioner and politician. O'Duffy was the leader of the Monaghan Brigade of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and a prominent figure i ...
due to its pro-British stance.
[John M. Regan, ''The Irish Counter-Revolution 1921-1936'', Gill & Macmillan, 1999, pp. 334-335] Plans for a merger with the IFL did not get off the ground and plans for a merger with
Graham Seton Hutchison's National Workers Party were also abandoned when it became clear that, far from having the 20,000 members in
Mansfield alone that Seton Hutchison claimed, the party was little more than a one-man show.
In a bid to reverse its decline the party adopted a strongly anti-semitic platform. Thurlow notes: "it was noticeable that the BF became increasingly anti-semitic in its death throes." In 1933 Lord and Lady Downe, as representatives of the British Fascists, entertained
Nazi German
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
envoy Gunther Schmidt-Lorenzen at their country estate and suggested to him that the Nazis should avoid any links with Mosley, whom Lady Downe accused of being in the pay of Jewish figures such as
Baron Rothschild
Baron Rothschild, of Tring in the County of Hertfordshire, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1885 for Sir Nathan Rothschild, 2nd Baronet, a member of the Rothschild banking family. He was the first Jewish mem ...
and
Sir Philip Sassoon. Fellow member Madame Arnaud repeated similar allegations about Mosley to another German official, Dr Margarete Gartner of the Economic Policy Association. However, by this stage Lintorn-Orman's mother had cut her off financially after hearing lurid tales of debauchery involving the female fascist leader, and so the group fell into debt until being declared bankrupt in 1934 when a Colonel Wilson called in a £500 loan. This effectively brought the British Fascists to a conclusion; Rotha Lintorn-Orman died the following year.
See also
*
List of British fascist parties
Although Fascism in the United Kingdom never reached the heights of many of its historical European counterparts, British politics after the First World War saw the emergence of a number of fascist movements, none of which ever came to power.
Pr ...
References
*
*
*
*
*
* Stocker, Paul. "Importing fascism: reappraising the British fascisti, 1923–1926" ''Contemporary British History'', September 2016, Vol. 30 No. 3, pp. 326–348
*
Footnotes
{{Authority control
Political parties established in 1923
Fascist parties in the United Kingdom
Defunct political parties in the United Kingdom
Political parties disestablished in 1934
1923 establishments in the United Kingdom
Clothing in politics
Anti-communist organizations
Anti-communism in the United Kingdom