British Fascism, Having Failed to Woo Labor Classes, Turns to Tories for Support

Sir Oswald Mosley has embarked on a new campaign to attract support to the jagged arrow emblem of the British Union of Fascists.

Convinced by the failure of the Fascist ticket in the last municipal elections that the Blackshirt tactics, which at times during the past three years have made London’s east End a battlefield, would not make headway, Mosley has abandoned them and set off on a new task.

Fascism in England henceforth is to be a “respectable” movement catering to the ultra-conservative white collar Tories and to the small tradesmen, instead of to the working classes whom the Blackshirts have wooed so unsuccessfully since the inception of the movement.

This change in tactics, it is learned here, has been necessitated partly by financial reasons. Although Mosley has a few wealthy supporters, in addition to his own private fortune, there have been recurrent rumors that the organization has been having financial difficulties. its principal organ was recently changed over from weekly to monthly publication presumably because of finances, and several paid employes have been dismissed.

The program of outdoor meetings in the East End, formerly the B.U.F.’s chief activity, has now been drastically curtailed and the organization has dispensed with most of its paid street agitators and soap-box orators.

It is generally believed that these men – and they included high-ranking officers of the B.U.F. – were quietly “purged” as the result of a split between the “radicals” and the conservatives on the question of policy. the “Radicals” – those who had conducted the East End campaign – wanted the intensification of Jew-baiting activities which had brought the organization more publicity than all its other activities combined. Although, according to reports, they lost the fight when Mosley lined up with their opponents, anti-Semitism remains an important plank in the B.U.F. program.

But the chief blow the organization suffered was the enactment a year ago of the Public Order bill which prohibited the wearing of uniforms by political bodies and political processions. Deprived of their uniforms, most of Mosley’s storm troops faded away and the organization lost its main attraction for young lads who were the bulk of its membership and its likeliest recruits.

Another factor affecting the organization was the decision of the Newsdealers Associations not to handle the Fascist papers. As a result, it is easier to get them at a Berlin news-stand than in London. The decision of the newsdealer was not political but was based on a wholesome fear of British libel law which holds distributors as well as printers and publishers of libelous material liable for damages.

These factors, combined with the dismal showing the B.U.F. candidates made in the last municipal elections when, despite their most intensive campaign they failed to win a single seat, brought the fortune of the organization to its lowest ebb at the beginning of this year and led Mosley, in desperation, to find some new means of saving it from collapse.

Having thrown over his extremist followers, Mosley, with the aid of Raven Thompson and A.K. Chesterton, the “theorists” of the movement, and that of Mrs. Brock-Gregg, A woman enthusiast, is now stumping the country, holding indoor meetings aimed at the more intelligent and more prosperous elements of the community than the old-time street demonstrations.

At these meetings, Fascist theory is expounded along with criticism of the Chamberlain Government, particularly on its agricultural and foreign policies – policies, incidentally which leave considerable grounds for criticism.

The Fascists are also trying to organize the small shopkeepers to fight against their Jewish competitors and against the chain stores which they claim are owned by “international Jewish finance.” They are reported to be making some slight headway in this drive, particularly in Bethel Green, in the East End-where Fascist propaganda has made more headway than in any other district.

The B.U.F. have not entirely abandoned the ungrateful working classes which thus far have failed to respond to its advances. Fascists are now being urged to Join the trades unions and, emulating Communist strategy, to “bore from within.”

The Public Order Bill, which dealt the Mosley organization such a damaging blow, coupled with the increased measures put in force in the East End, has restored order there and the nightly Jew-baiting expeditions of the Blackshirt of a year ago, have now practically disappeared. The special nightly patrols established to cope with the Blackshirts have now been discontinued as no longer necessary.

According to civic organizations which have kept a close watch on the situation, only thirty-odd cases of assault or insult, mostly of a minor character, have been reported in the last twelve months. According to reporters at the Old-Street Police Court, which covers the area where most of the disturbances took place, only one Jew-baiting case has been heard there in the past six months.

The most spectacular Fascist meetings in the East End now are the weekly open-air discussions by speakers of the Imperial Fascist League which is run by Arnold Leese, the retired horse-doctor who was imprisoned a year ago for criminally libelling the Jewish religion. His speakers, however, spend as much of their time attacking Mosley’s “kosher Fascism” as they do the Jews.