John Beckett was born in Thurlwood, Cheshire, on 11th October, 1894.
After being educated at Latymer Secondary School he began work as
a shop assistant at the age of fifteen.
A
member of the British Army in the First
World War he established the National Union of of Ex-Servicemen,
a left-wing alternative to the British Legion, in 1918. He also joined
the Independent Labour Party and was a member
of Hackney Borough Council (1919-22) and shared a house in Limehouse
with Clement Attlee.
In
the 1924 General Election Beckett became
the Labour Party's youngest MP when he was elected to the House
of Commons for Gateshead. Beckett was a rebellious MP and in 1927
he was suspended from Parliament for calling Stanley
Baldwin a liar.
Beckett
won his new constituency, Peckham in London,
In the 1929 General Election. He was in trouble
again in 1930 when he protested against government policies by stealing
the mace in the House of Commons. Beckett
also hit a parliamentary attendant after he had assaulted his friend,
James Maxton.
Beckett
refused to support Ramsay MacDonald
and his National Government in 1931. He stood as a member of the Independent
Labour Party in
the 1931 General Election but was defeated.
In
March 1934 Beckett joined the British Union
of Fascists
(BUF) led by Oswald Mosley.
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
lead 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.
Beckett
became Director of Publications and during the Second
World War was imprisoned under the Defence of the Realm Act.
John
Beckett died in December 1964.
(1)
John Beckett wrote about Clement Attlee's decision to vote for a cut
in the unemployment benefit in his unpublished autobiography.
It would have seemed impossible to me that a kind, lovable man might
be so corrupted by the parliamentary system that he could represent
the people of the abyss and yet vote for two shillings a week for
their children.
(2)
John Beckett was a great supporter of
John Wheatley and
was devastated by his death in 1930.
James Maxton and I talked of the necessity for carrying on the work
that Wheatley had left to our hand but in our hearts we knew that
it could not be done. We were the men with whom Wheatley might have
built civilization in Britain, but without him - we could only hope
to fight on, whatever the consequence might be.
On Maxton's
frail shoulders had fallen the sole burden of leadership, and I saw
much of him at that time. I have never associated with a kinder, more
impeccably honesty, loyal and courageous man; but he is without ambition,
has no patience for detail, and a queer philosophy adapted to his
inherent laziness which makes him an impossible leader for any movement.
His politics are socialist, but his habits of thought and temperament
are completely anarchist.
(3)
Fenner
Brockway,
letter to Colin Holmes, published in the book, Anti-Semitism in
British Society (1979)
He was
a rebel, sincerely outraged by poverty and injustice and human suffering.
He was loveable in his utter devotion. He might have become a great
personal force and it was sad to see him wasted when he succumbed
to the drive and force of Mosley's personality.
(4)
Francis Beckett, writing about his father, John
Beckett, in History Today (May 1994)
There is
no evidence that Beckett was anti-Semitic before joining Mosley, but
he does seem to have been psychologically ready to endorse the anti-Semitism
he found in the BUF. And yet all this time he guarded a secret - guarded
it so well that I only discovered it years after his death, and it
has never been published before. He was, strictly speaking, a Jew,
because his mother was a Jew.
He denied
it when there was a rumour in BUF circles. It is a surprising and
rather shocking lie from a man who was, most of the time, more truthful
than was good for him.
He was
the most unlikely fascist you could imagine. He was irreverent, spontaneous,
funny. He loathed accepting orders. He spoke and wrote with fluency,
humour, logic - the weapons of a democratic politician, not a demagogue.
He had no time for the trappings of fascism, which he called "heel-clicking
and petty militarism". He did not have the proper reverence and
admiration for The Leader. He referred to Mosley as 'the Bleeder'.
Mosley, who was a textbook fascist leader resented this: Beckett was
not a textbook fascist lieutenant. He was shocked by some of the people
who were attracted to fascism because it enabled them to strut about
self-importantly in a uniform. He does not seem to have realised that
all this was an intrinsic part of the creed he had embraced.
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