My Life

My Life - Oswald MosleyAll over the country we met a storm of organised violence. They were simply out tosmother us, we were to be mobbed down by denying us our only resource, the spokenword; we were to be mobbed out of existence. The General Election, with the wholePress supporting the National Government, coupled with the smother tactics of theLeft, led to our inevitable defeat, in which I polled 10,543 votes and the rest of thetwenty-two New Party candidates polled an average of 1,036 votes apiece. We had toreform our organisation, but not our policy, to meet an entirely new situation. Beforethe day of this renaissance I published the epitaph of the New Party and emphasisedour enduring determination:'Better the great adventure, better the great attempt for England's sake, better defeat,disaster, better far the end of that trivial thing called a political career, than stifling ina uniform of blue and gold, strutting and posturing on the stage of little England, amidthe scenery of decadence, until history, in turning over an heroic page of the humanstory, writes of us the contemptuous postscript: "These were the men to whom wasentrusted the Empire of Great Britain, and whose idleness, ignorance and cowardiceleft it a Spain". We shall win; or at least we shall return upon our shields.'238 of 424