Oswald Mosley

Brief Summary

Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet (16 November 1896 – 3 December 1980) was a British politician, known principally as the founder of the British Union of Fascists.

Fascism

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 him and for Britain. He determined to unite the existing fascist movements and created the British Union of Fascists (BUF) in 1932. The BUF was anti-communist and protectionist. It claimed membership as high as 50,000, and had the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror among its earliest supporters. Among his followers were the novelist Henry Williamson, military theorist J.F.C. Fuller and the future "Lord Haw Haw", William Joyce. Mosley had found problems with disruption of New Party meetings and instituted a corps of black-uniformed paramilitary stewards, who were nicknamed blackshirts. The party was frequently involved in violent confrontations, particularly with Communist and Jewish groups and especially in London. At a large Mosley rally at Olympia on 7 June 1934, mass brawling broke out when hecklers were removed by blackshirts, resulting in bad publicity. This and the Night of the Long Knives in Germany led to the loss of most of the BUF's mass support. The party was unable to fight the 1935 general election.

In October 1936 Mosley and the BUF attempted to march through an area with a high proportion of Jewish residents, and violence resulted between local and nationally organised protestors trying to block the march and police trying to force it through, since called the Battle of Cable Street. At length Sir Philip Game the Police Commissioner disallowed the march from going ahead and the BUF abandoned it. Mosley continued to organise marches policed by the blackshirts, and the government was sufficiently concerned to pass the Public Order Act 1936 which, amongst other things, banned political uniforms and quasi-military style organisations and came into effect on 1 January 1937.

In the London County Council elections in 1937, the BUF stood in three of its East London strongholds, polling up to a quarter of the vote. Mosley then made most of the employees redundant, some of whom then defected from the party with William Joyce. As the European situation moved towards war, the BUF began nominating Parliamentary candidates and launched campaigns on the theme of 'Mind Britain's Business'. After the outbreak of war, he led the campaign for a negotiated peace. He was at first received well but, after the invasion of Norway, this gave way to hostility and Mosley was nearly assaulted.

He was a friend of Edward VIII, who approved of the BUF campaign for Edward to keep his throne.



Internment

On 23 May 1940 Mosley, who had continued his peace campaign, was interned under Defence Regulation 18B, along with most active fascists in Britain, and the BUF was later proscribed. His second wife Diana Mitford, whom he had married in 1936 in the presence of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels, was also interned, shortly after the birth of their son Max; they lived together for most of the war in a house in the grounds of Holloway prison. Mosley used the time to read extensively on classical civilisations. The couple were released in November 1943, when Mosley was suffering with phlebitis, and spent the rest of the war under house arrest. On his release from prison he stayed with his sister-in-law Pamela Mitford followed shortly by a stay at the Shaven Crown Hotel in Shipton-under-Wychwood and then purchased Crux Easton, near Newbury with Diana. He and his wife were the subject of much media attention. However, the war ended what remained of his political reputation.