This is a cross-post from Howie’s Corner
With eyes having been mainly focused of the rise of the English Defence League and the continuing travails of the British National Party it’s shocking to discover that an openly fascist organisation has not only been established but managed to escape most people’s attention, mine included.
The organisation called the New British Union has been formed by ex-BNP member Gary Raikes who seems to be an admirer of Oswald Mosley, Leader of the British Union of Fascists and Hitler worshipper in the 1930s. Raikes even claims to be in touch with some of the surviving Blackshirts, so let’s remind ourselves exactly who these people were.
The British Union of Fascists was formed in 1932 and led by Oswald Mosley, a former Conservative and Labour (ILP) Member of Parliament who had come to Fascism via his New Party. Mosley appears to have finally converted to fascism after a visit to Mussolini in January 1932.
The organisation, which was virulently anti-communist, claimed 50,000 members at its height and the Daily Mail at one point published the now notorious headline “Hurrah for the Blackshirts”. However the violent nature of the organisation which adopted its own uniform (hence the term “Blackshirts) alienated most middle class supporters by the middle of the 1930’s.
The organisation developed an anti-Semitic policy and attracted the attention of William Joyce (better known as Lord Haw Haw during the second world war, later executed for treason). This signalled the decline of the organisation to around 8,000 members by 1935 and it was finally “checked” by the now famous Battle of Cable Street where the fascists were prevented from marching through Jewish areas of the East End by the left and other anti-fascists.
Joyce split from the BUF in 1937 and Mosley rebuilt the BUF to around 20,000 members before they were banned in May 1940 and Mosley with several hundred of his supporters were interned until the end of the second world war.
When Gaites was interviewed by The Sun newspaper he made the following and ominous comment:
“If democracy means everyone should have a say, then I’m not democratic, no. I think liberalism is a sickness that needs to be exterminated.”
The fascist nature of the New British Union is openly stated:
…a political community organisation for the dispossessed and disillusioned from all political parties. Our aim is to bring people together in the struggle against the out of touch political class who only represent themselves, rich bankers and industrialists.
We are following in the footsteps of Sir Oswald Mosley who remains our spiritual leader, the last man that led a movement that shook the establishment to the core. This of course led to all the lies and misconceptions that have been peddled about Mosley and British Union for decades, wrongs we aim to right.
Despite their protestations that Mosley was not anti Semitic, his own words condemn him and them.
“Throughout the ages Jews have taken a leading part in international usury and all forms of finance and money lending, while smaller exemplars of the method have engaged in such practices as price cutting, the sweating of labour, and other means of livelihood which any ordered and regulated economy must bring to an end. So the reason was not far to seek why we had incurred the bitter and especial enmity of Jewish interests. Some say that it is a wicked animal that defends itself when attacked, but the response of the Englishman to a blow in the face is traditional. That response was greeted immediately by all the organs which Jewish interests control with a loud clamour of racial persecution.”
Nothing could be clearer.
In fact they even wear the uniforms and use the fascist salute though Gaites claims:
“We don’t do it because it’s been demonised by the Press, even though it goes back thousands of years and is a Roman salute.”
Although unlikely to make much headway in the modern era, it is a sign that these Fascist/Nazi types are not going to go away any time soon.
Anti-fascists must remain vigilant to all threats no matter how absurd they may seem at the time.
