Spike Magazine

Spike | 15 YEARS OF BOOKS, MUSIC, ART, IDEAS | www.spikemagazine.com
timidity rather than any genuine opposition to creeping
dictatorship. Mosley was enraged as his proposals
were ignored, and immediately split with the Labour
leadership. As this schism occurred, it is a testimony to
both the man’s demagogic charisma and his ideological
vacuity that many in both main parties now saw him
as a possible leader. The ambiguity was such that for
a very brief time Churchill and Bevan alike were keen
for him to lead their respective parties. But impatient
Tom had his own ideas. He had taken his ball home. He
would have his own party. The New Party.
The New Party was formed in early 1931, it soon
became clear just what its founder’s forever trumpeted
radicalism amounted to. Fierce rhetoric about change
and national renewal (and the clamour of a throng of
restless, violent young men to drive this home) masked
a dangerous and ringing hollow at the party’s ideological
core. Its launch was a huge media event at the time,
and figures of the stature of Bernard Shaw and H.G.
Wells were initially sympathetic (both being Fabian
socialists but with a disturbing penchant for Mosley’s
coldly elitist, authoritarian and technocratic attitudes).
The initial boost was short-lived however, and the New
Party’s lack of clarity, together with a poor showing
at their first by-election in Ashton-under-Lyne, saw it
heading nowhere in electoral terms. By 1932, the New
Party had already changed its name to the British Union
of Fascists.
BUY Stephen Dorril books online from and
The BUF was never less than an unabashed personality
cult from the beginning, the logical conclusion of
the overweening toxic brew of narcissism and megalomania
that animated its founder. Massively over- represented
by ex military men like Mosley himself, he
found it easy to run the movement as army rather than a
party, dominating every aspect of members’ lives. They
even had their own uniform, they were the Blackshirts,
aping Mussolini’s crew before them. Ex-member Colin
Cross recalled the faithful “Even saluted him when he
went into the sea to bathe at the Movement’s summer
camps at Selsey”, and “they whispered his name in
religious awe … he was presented to the public as a
superman. Criticism was taboo and humour nearly so.”
At last the man had found the captive audience he had
always craved. Now all he had to do was enlarge the
audience to encompass the whole nation.
The BUF was always clear in its violence, but it
was far from ideologically coherent, even less so
than the man himself. He took a fair-sized gang
of old Labour comrades with him, but to the great
majority of Labour and trade-union men and women,
the Fascist movement was not just a mistake, but a
sickening anathema. This was a party based on a
movement that massacred their brothers and sisters
in Italy, directly supported by the capitalist class
in that country. They knew the enemy where they
saw it. The organised working-class were forever,
198
More
Spike
email
RSS
Facebook
Twitter
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z