Oswald
Mosley was born in 1896. Educated at Winchester and Sandhurst he fought
with the 16th Lancers on the Western Front
during the First World War. He later transferred
to the Royal Flying Corps but was invalided
out of the war after a plane crash in 1916.
Mosley became the youngest MP in the House
of Commons after winning Harrow for the Conservative
Party in the 1918 General Election. Disillusioned
with the Conservatives he won Harrow as an Independent in the 1922
General Election. Two years later Mosley joined the Labour
Party. In October 1927 Mosley was elected to the party's National
Executive Committee.
When Ramsay MacDonald formed his Labour
Government after the 1929 General Election,
he appointed Mosley as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. In 1930
Mosley proposed a programme that he believed would help deal with
the growing unemployment in Britain. Based on the ideas of Maynard
Keynes stimulating foreign trade, directing industrial policy,
and using public funds to promote industrial expansion. When MacDonald
and his cabinet rejected these proposals, Mosley resigned from office.
The following year Mosley founded the New Party. Supporters included
John Strachey, William
Joyce, John Becket and Harold
Nicholson, but in the 1931 General Election
none of the New Party's candidates were elected. In January 1932 Mosley
met Benito
Mussolini
in Italy. Mosley was impressed by Mussolini's
achievements and when he returned to England he disbanded the New
Party and replaced it with the British Union
of Fascists.
The BUF was strongly anti-communist and argued for a programme of
economic revival based on government spending and protectionism. By
1934 Mosley was expressing strong anti-Semitic views and provocative
marches through Jewish districts in London
led to riots. The passing of the 1936 Public
Order Act that made the wearing of political uniforms and private
armies illegal, using threatening and abusive words a criminal offence,
and gave the Home Secretary the powers to ban marches, completely
undermined the activities of the BUF.
Mosley
was married to
Cynthia Curzon, the daughter of the former Viceroy of India. However,
he began an affair with Diana
Mitford,
the daughter of the 2nd
Baron Redesdale, one
of Mosley's wealthy supporters. Diana
left her husband but Mosley refused to desert his wife. It
was not until Cynthia died of peritonitis, that Mosley agreed to marry
Diana.
In October 1936, Diana
and Oswald
Mosley were
secretly married in Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels's drawing
room in Berlin. Adolf
Hitler was
one of only six guests at the ceremony. While in Nazi
Germany Diana
talked to Hitler about the possibility of establishing a pro-Nazi
radio station in Britain.
Oswald Mosley with members of the British Union of Fascists
The outbreak of the Second World War further
reduced support for the National Union of
Fascists. On
22nd May 1940 the British government announced the imposition of Defence
Regulation 18B. This legislation gave the Home Secretary the right
to imprison without trial anybody he believed likely to "endanger
the safety of the realm". The following day, Mosley
was arrested. Over the next few days other prominent figures in the
BUF were imprisoned. On the 30th May the BUF was dissolved and its
publications were banned.
Mosley
and his wife
received privileged treatment while in prison. Winston
Churchill granted permission for the couple to live in a small
house inside Holloway Prison. They were given a small garden where
they could sunbathe and grow their own vegetables. They were even
allowed to employ fellow prisoners as servants.
In
November 1943, Herbert
Morrison controversially
decided to order the Mosleys to be released from prison. There were
large-scale protests and even Diana's sister, Jessica
Mitford, described the decision as "a
slap in the face of anti-fascists in every country and a direct betrayal
of those who have died for the cause of anti-fascism."
After
the war Mosley and Diana
Mosley established
Euphorion Books in an attempt to publish the work of right-wing authors.
Diana also edited the far-right magazine, The
European. In 1947 Mosley formed the Union Movement which
advocated British integration in Europe and an end to commonwealth
immigration.
The
couple left England in 1949 and after a period in Ireland settled
in France where they lived close to their
friends, the Duke
of Windsor
and Wallis
Simpson.
Mosley
was unsuccessful in his two attempts to enter the House
of Commons for Kensington North (1959) and Shoreditch & Finsbury
(1966). Oswald Mosley died in 1980.
David
Low commented on Mosley resigning
in May, 1930
Forum Debate: Cable Street
(1)
In her book My Life With Nye, Jennie Lee
explained her views on Oswald Mosley.
Another bright light in this 1929 Parliament was Sir Oswald
Mosley. He had a fatal flaw in his character, on overwhelming arrogance
and an unshakable conviction that he was born to rule, drove him on
to the criminal folly of donning a black shirt and surrounding himself
with a band of bullyboys, and so becoming a pathetic imitation Hitler,
doomed to political impotence for the rest of his life.
(2) David Low,
Autobiography (1956)
The British Fascist Party was comparatively insignificant until Mosley
took over its leadership. Mosley was young, energetic, capable and
an excellent speaker. Since I had met him in 1925 he had graduated
from close friendship with MacDonald to a job in the second Labour
Government; but he had become disgusted with the evasions over unemployment
and had resigned to start a party of his own.
Unfortunately at the succeeding general election he fell ill with
influenza and his party-in-embryo, deprived of his brilliant talents,
was wiped out. Mosley was too ambitious to retire into obscurity.
Looking around for a 'vehicle' he united himself to the British Fascists,
rechristened 'the Blackshirts', and acquired almost automatically
the encouragement of Britain's then biggest newspaper, the Daily
Mail, which was more than willing to extend its admiration for
the Italian original to the local imitation. That was a fateful influenza
germ.
(3)
Oswald Mosley, Message for British Union Members and Supporters
(2nd September, 1939)
We have said a hundred
times that if the life of Britain were threatened we would fight again,
but I am not offering to fight in the quarrel of Jewish finance in
a war from which Britain could withdraw at any moment she likes, with
her Empire intact and her people safe. I am now concerned with only
two simple facts. This war is no quarrel of the British people, this
war is a quarrel of Jewish finance, so to our people I give myself
for the winning of peace.
(4)
David Low attended one of the public meetings
held by the British Union of Fascists in 1936.
Mosley
spoke effectively at great length. Delivery excellent, matter reckless.
Interruptions began, but no dissenting voice got beyond half a dozen
sentences before three or four bullies almost literally jumped on
him, bashed him and lugged him out. Two such incidents happened near
me. An honest looking blue-eyed student type rose and shouted indignantly "Hitler means war!" whereupon he was given the complete
treatment.
(5)
Herbert
Morrison,
An Autobiography (1960)
During his detention
under the 18B regulation, moves to have him released came from all
sorts of people and organizations. Some were undoubtedly genuine efforts
by those who put the basic principles of British freedom first even
if the matter concerned a man with an avowed policy of destroying
that freedom, but the majority, I had no doubt, were the efforts of
Mosley's class friends and political sympathizers.
And a few of the complaints
were doubtless meant to embarrass me personally or to put a spanner
in the works of a smoothly- running coalition by rousing political
controversy. I noticed with amusement that some critics, who had been
vociferous about the ruthless injustice of interning aliens and keeping
them interned, now, showed an equally large amount of indignation
about my tender-heartedness when the possibility of releasing Mosley
from prison was known. It was impossible to please everyone, and in
any case placating my critics was of no importance as compared with
observing the law and safeguarding the nation.
The crux of the matter
was Mosley's health. He had become ill with phlebitis. His doctor
was allowed to examine him and he reported that continued imprisonment
would jeopardize his life. I did not consider it advisable to accept
this without a second opinion. The prison doctors confirmed it. The
quandary was whether to free this leading fascist, a sympathizer with
Hitler and Mussolini, or whether to risk having a British citizen
die in prison without trial. Apart from such a blot on history going
back to Magna Charta, martyrdom is a very profound source of strength.
I had little doubt that some of the near-fascists in the country would
have liked nothing better than that their leader should become a dead
martyr. However, my task was to decide what was the right thing to
do.
(6)
New York Times (November,
1943)
There is little doubt that the people of Britain are worked up over
Sir Oswald's release. Early morning trains arriving here from the
Midlands carried large numbers of outraged Yorkshire miners representing
140,000 fellow workers. Representatives of 10,000 miners
of South Wales also arrived, and a telegram signed in the name
of 75,000 Sheffield war workers was sent to Mr Churchill.
(7)
Jessica
Mitford, letter to San Francisco
Chronicle (November, 1943)
Like millions of
others in the United Nations and the occupied countries, I have all
my life been an opponent of the fascist ideology in whatever form
it appears. Because I do not believe that family ties should be allowed
to influence a person's convictions I long ago ceased to have any
contact with those members of my family who have supported the fascist
cause. The release of Sir Oswald and Lady Mosley is a slap in the
face of anti-fascists in every country and a direct betrayal of those
who have died for the cause of anti- fascism. They should be kept
in jail, where they belong.
(8)
Francis Beckett, The
Guardian (16th August, 2003)
In recent years, there has been an appalling TV biopic
portraying Mosley as a heroic figure, their affair as one of history's
great love stories, and fascism as a tremendous lark. Lady Diana was
interviewed by Sue Lawley on Desert Island Discs and by James Naughtie
on Today with a level of indulgent respect that neither of these interviewers
would have summoned up for a working-class fascist. And four years
ago, Jan Dalley's biography whitewashed Lady Diana and her husband.
Like Mosley's biographer
Robert Skidelsky before her, Dalley fell for the central post-war
Mosley lie: that anti-semitism was confined to his proletarian followers.
She repeated uncritically the Mosley version that William Joyce, a
leading fascist who broadcast for Hitler during the war, inspired
fascist anti-semitism, and that Mosley was "unwise" to let
Joyce edit his newspaper. But it was Mosley, not Joyce, who said during
the Abyssinian war: "Greater even than the stink of oil is the
stink of the Jew." It was Mosley who talked of German Jews as
"the sweepings of continental ghettos hired by Jewish financiers".
The only difference is: Mosley was rich and well-born; Joyce was proletarian
and poor.
It was only after the second
world war, when the Holocaust had so discredited anti-semitism that
no politician could hope to benefit from it, that Mosley started to
express well-bred distaste for his movement's wilder excesses, and
to blame people like Joyce. By then Lady Diana was used to the idea
that her wealth and social position would cushion her from the consequences
of her views. During the war, hundreds of Mosleyites were interned
without trial. But while humbler fascists were put in dank prisons
and prison camps, and husbands and wives separated, the Mosleys were
allocated a little house in the grounds of Holloway prison, where
they hired other prisoners to wait on them.
(8) Audrey Gillan, The Day the East End Said "No Pasaran' to Blackshirts (30th September, 2006)
They built barricades from paving stones, timber and overturned lorries. Women threw the contents of chamber pots on to the heads of policemen and children hurled marbles under their horses and burst bags of pepper in front of their noses.
Next Wednesday marks the 70th anniversary of the day that Jews, communists, trade unionists, Labour party members, Irish Catholic dockers and the people of the East End of London united in defiance of Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists and refused to let them march through their streets.
Shouting the Spanish civil war slogan "No pasaran" - "They shall not pass" - more than 300,000 people turned back an army of Blackshirts. Their victory over racism and anti-Semitism on Sunday October 4 1936 became known as the Battle of Cable Street and encapsulated the British fight against a fascism that was stomping across Europe.
Mosley planned to send columns of thousands of goose-stepping men throughout the impoverished East End dressed in uniforms that mimicked those of Hitler's Nazis. His target was the large Jewish community.
The Jewish Board of Deputies advised Jews to stay away. The Jewish Chronicle warned: "Jews are urgently warned to keep away from the route of the Blackshirt march and from their meetings.
"Jews who, however innocently, become involved in any possible disorders will be actively helping anti-Semitism and Jew-baiting. Unless you want to help the Jew baiters, keep away."
The Jews did not keep away. Professor Bill Fishman, now 89, who was 15 on the day, was at Gardner's Corner in Aldgate, the entrance to the East End. "There was masses of marching people. Young people, old people, all shouting 'No Pasaran' and 'One two three four five - we want Mosley, dead or alive'," he said. "It was like a massive army gathering, coming from all the side streets. Mosley was supposed to arrive at lunchtime but the hours were passing and he hadn't come. Between 3pm and 3.30 we could see a big army of Blackshirts marching towards the confluence of Commercial Road and Whitechapel Road.
"I pushed myself forward and because I was 6ft I could see Mosley. They were surrounded by an even greater army of police. There was to be this great advance of the police force to get the fascists through. Suddenly, the horses' hooves were flying and the horses were falling down because the young kids were throwing marbles."
Thousands of policemen were sandwiched between the Blackshirts and the anti-fascists. The latter were well organised and through a mole learned that the chief of police had told Mosley that his passage into the East End could be made through Cable Street.
"I heard this loudspeaker say 'They are going to Cable Street'," said Prof Fishman. "Suddenly a barricade was erected there and they put an old lorry in the middle of the road and old mattresses. The people up the top of the flats, mainly Irish Catholic women, were throwing rubbish on to the police. We were all side by side. I was moved to tears to see bearded Jews and Irish Catholic dockers standing up to stop Mosley. I shall never forget that as long as I live, how working-class people could get together to oppose the evil of racism."
Max Levitas, now 91, was a message runner and had already been fined £10 in court for his anti-Mosley activities. Two years before Cable Street, the BUF had called a meeting in Hyde Park and in protest Mr Levitas whitewashed Nelson's column, calling people to the park to drown out the fascists. Mr Levitas went on to become a Communist councillor in Stepney.
"I feel proud that I played a major part in stopping Mosley. When we heard that the march was disbanded, there was a hue and cry and the flags were going wild. They did not pass. The chief of police decided that if the march had taken place there would be death on the road - and there would have been," he said.
"It was a victory for ordinary people against racism and anti-Semitism and it should be instilled in the minds of people today. The Battle of Cable Street is a history lesson for us all. People as people must get together and stop racism and anti-Semitism so people can lead an ordinary life and develop their own ideas and religions."
Beatty Orwell, 89, was scared and excited. "People were fighting and a friend of mine was thrown through a plate glass window."
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