Fascism, which means different things in different countries, has recently come in for a good share of public notice in England, where, due to the characteristic English freedom of press and political expression, numerous and vari-colored Fascist groups have sprung up.
Ian Coster, writing in the Sunday Dispatch, says that “grey shirts, black shirts, khaki shirts, dark-blue shirts, even green shirts are marching round the streets of London.” All except the green are Fascisti, he declares.
The British Fascists, he says, were founded ten years ago by a woman and today claim a total enrolment of about 400,000, with an active male membership of 500 in London. This group boasts it is not anti-Jewish and has several Jews as members.
Sir Oswald Mosley, Coster writes, has a headquarters that resembles a recruiting office. Sir Oswald, who is head of the British Union of Fascists, is always getting into trouble, particularly with other Fascist groups, but he too declares he is not anti-Semitic. “We are not anti-Jew, we are anti-communist,” the leaders of Sir Oswald’s faction told Coster.
The imperial Fascist League, however, is definitely and openly anti-Jewish, according to Coster. “We are defending the white man against the Jew,” A. S. Leese, the founder of this group, told Coster.
The publication, Everyman, recently sent a questionnaire to the three important Fascist groups, and received answers from two.
One of the questions asked was:
“Many Jews in Germany were ready to sympathize with Hitler, but this anti-Semitic policy made this impossible. Do you make any racial discrimination against Jews or any other section of the population of the British Empire? What would your attitude be toward a Jew who sympathized with your movement and wished to join your ranks?”
The British Fascists replied:
“We look upon the Jews as a distinct nation, with traditions, loyalties, and enemies different from ours. We hold that the British State should be an organization of the British nation, functioning in the interests of the British nation, and therefore putting the interests of Britons first. Our attitude towards non-British sections of the Empire’s population is that the interests of the British nation come first and the other Empire peoples should have rights proportionate to their loyalty and usefulness to the British nation.
“As we do not think a Jew could be in sympathy with all our aims the last part of this question does not arise.”
A. S. Leese, anti-Semitic head of the Imperial League of Fascists, replied:
“Yes; the Jew is an alien and can not help us in supporting British tradition. Jews and colored people generally will be British subjects under the Fascist State, but not British citizens. As the Jewish menace is by far the most serious in Britain, and is international, it will be dealt with internationally by Fascist States.
“Our attitude to a Jew who said he sympathized with us would be one of acute distrust and indifference. The object of politics is security for our own people, not for Jews. We would not believe a word about any Jew’s sympathy either for the Imperial Fascist League or for Britain, where his own interests are so alien that he asks for a national home elsewhere.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
