Fascism attracted widely divergent opinions about its substance, there were problems. This could be one of the reasons it didn’t root in Britain. Each individual group of the fascist movement had different ideas and were supported by a diverse group of people, the British Fascisti attracted mainly retired officers and a smattering of middle class youths, the imperial fascist league mainly attracted those who abhorred Jews and finally the British union of Fascists attracted membership from across the classes, occupation and gender barriers. Since fascism was often held to be a foreign political style and simply not British it was not so successful, as Francis Yeats-Brown writes “We are not fascists. Fascism is a foreign culture. We are English… the British way will be different”, Britain at this time still regarded themselves as a superpower and therefore looked down on other countries and felt themselves to be better than the rest.
It wasn’t just the diverse opinions of what fascism actually was that led to it not taking off in Britain but it was also troubles within these fascists groups which also led to loss of support. The BF was made up of anti-communist reactionaries who were patriotic and loyal to the crown. The fact that the BF made no attempt at all to instigate a British Bolshevik revolution meant a mass decrease in support, from having a few thousand members in 1926 it was reduced to around 300 in 1933. The crisis of 1931 moved the BF towards corporatism, meritocracy, and increased military strength to defend the empire, but it was becoming a rump party, losing membership to them ore exciting BUF.
Even with the increased support from the BF and the leadership of Oswald Mosley the BUF couldn’t root themselves in British politic. The BUF completely collapsed along with Mosley’s dream of creating a new civilisation. The BUF and Mosley’s dream of a fascist revolution were destroyed due to the establishment making three serious decisions and acting on them. The first came after the BUF London Olympia meeting on 7 June 1934 when black shirt stewards attacked hecklers and Mosley perceived to be orchestrating violent expulsions from the rostrum. The proximity of this episode to the Night of Long Knives in Nazi Germany a few weeks later led Mosley’s foremost benefactor, Lord Rothermere, to withdraw support of the Daily Mail, reducing the BUF from a membership peak of 50,000 in 1934 to 5,000 within a year. Henceforth the BUF became localised around the issue of agriculture and foreign usurpation of British labour. The second blow was the battle of Cable Street on 4 October 1936 where a confrontation between police and anti-fascists opposing a BUF march resulted in a pitched street battle. The resulting 1936 public order act banned political uniforms, language likely to cause a breach of the peace and stewarding at outdoor meetings. It also gave police chiefs the power to ban marches. The public order act undermined the theatrical aspect of the BUF politics, removing the emotive black shirt uniform. The final coup came after the outbreak of the war, with the interment of many members in the belief that their patriotism was corrupted by enemy influence, or that they belonged to an organisation whose leadership had consorted with an enemy. British fascists were seen as irrational traitors, supports of nazi movement.
Not only did Britain have a threat from the fascist movement but also the threat of communism became clear throughout this period. The communist party of Great Britain (CPGB) existed for seventy years. Its electoral performance was always worse than modest, but its associations with a worldwide movement, together with the energy and commitment of the members, sometimes brought it an influence in social and cultural life well beyond the grasp of any other minor political organisation. The communist party founders fully believed that they were catching the tide of history that within a few years at most the party would dominate the country’s labour movement and most likely be the leading political force in Britain. Although their initial achievement fell ludicrously short of that objective, it was not altogether negligible.
Just like the Fascist movement communism was unable to root itself into the British society. This was mainly due to foreign themes either based abroad or at home in the Soviet Union where communism began. Between 1936-1939 strenuous efforts were made to support the left wing republican government, under attack from fascist rebels, aided militarily by the fascist’s powers and furtively by the British and French governments. Many of the parties most promising young activists joined, and died in the conflict, this resulted in a decrease in membership. The era of “save Spain” coincided almost exactly with the series of purge show trials in Moscow, in the course of which Stalin wiped out all of Lenin’s surviving close colleagues- along with millions of ordinary people. This was viewed as barbaric to everyone worldwide, and the people of Britain believed that the British communist party were also part of this and viewed them as inhuman traitors. When Stalin signed the nazi soviet pact in august 1939, many saw fascism joining with communism, this meant mass loss of support because Hitler was viewed as the enemy and now the communist party had joined with him. Soviet Union’s invasion of Finland, viewed in Britain as another act of unprovoked aggression, comparable to Hitler’s.
Communism and Fascism had been highly marginalized forces in British politics since the First World War. They were never able to establish themselves fully in Britain. Nobody actually knows the answer to why they didn’t root themselves in British society like they had done in others; many believe that the idealism of the British people on superiority was a key point in rejecting these two movements. Britain did not want to be associated with anything not politically British and these movements were foreign, therefore resulting in rejection. Without this rejection there would have been a large possibility that Britain’s society and governing body would have collapsed and British society would not have be what it is now.
