Dissertation in the Public Order Act 1936

This increased awareness of this perceived threat and the need not to offend against it is also evident in the correspondence that relates to the stewarding of various meetings. A Special Instruction to stewards at indoor meetings is sent to Saunders on the 31st May 1937, describing the desired conduct of stewards stating that they ‘will wear neither the black shirt nor any other distinguishing sign’, and also that ‘all interrupters are to be warned TWICE FROM THE PLATFORM before any action is taken.’ The instruction finally states rather obviously that ‘No steward in the performance of his duties is entitled to cause grievous bodily harm to any person.’ In light of section two of the Act, this source represents an attempted dislocation, an obvious political reaction, from the past reputation of the BUF and excessively violent stewarding at indoor meetings. The problem of Fascist stewarding was quite complicated for the BUF, for example, Stevenson has stated that in Manchester the hall-owners had previously refused to allow Fascist meetings in municipally-owned halls unless the police were to act as stewards. What this source also represents, quite significantly, is the Fascist acceptance of all sections of the Public Order Act, at least at the top echelons of the hierarchy, and the need to conform to it.

The institutional goal at this point must primarily have been survival. Therefore the political response of the BUF to the Public Order Act is an attempt to make a perceived break from the past even if the BUF did not recognise having done anything that was illegal or wrong. Through the Saunders Papers this is made evident as various sources reveal that chronologically the effect of the Act becomes more real and certainly more secure. Thus the predictable response of the BUF is in keeping with its traditional ethos of loyalty to England and confirms it as the alleged standard-bearer of patriotism in British politics. This standard is further reinforced by events at the Dalston speech during May 1938 where upon the meeting being broken up by the police, a newspaper cutting from the Peroni Scrapbooks reveals that Mosley stated ‘don’t blame the police because they are controlled by the government’, and that ‘After the singing of the National Anthem, Mosley left in his car.’ What makes this excerpt significant is that not only does it reinforce the loyalty of Mosley and the BUF to the authorities and by default England, but it also reveals Mosley’s parallel disdain for the government and as Lewis asserts, the necessity to progress a good working rapport with the police, something that can be traced back to the 1st full active year of the BUF during 1933 where Mosley asserted, ‘I very much desire to conform in every way with police regulations’. It should not be forgotten that ultimately the main objective of the BUF was to democratically commandeer the government of Great Britain.

In terms of document analysis though, it ought to be recognised that the Peroni Scrapbooks were the scrapbooks compiled by Douglas Peroni, an active member of the BUF over three decades. Not only do the majority of newspaper cuttings that inhibit the scrapbooks reflect positively upon the BUF but the majority of them are also not dated. Many are missing the reel number or even the title of the newspaper. Therefore the use of such sources becomes increasingly problematic as the majority of excerpts cannot be identified and therefore placed within the appropriate historical context. It is difficult to distinguish what is unambiguous propaganda and what isn’t especially given the political leanings of Peroni. The reason that I have included the above quote therefore was because I thought it unlikely that even if the source employed happened to be from a right-wing paper or magazine that there would be no cause to lie about the National Anthem being played at a meeting. If it was from a Fascist-associated article then I am sure that there would be significant omissions on the part of Peroni but this would not affect the point that I am attempting to express.

In contrast to the internal and political response to the Public Order Act, is the bitter propaganda advocated in contextual BUF magazines of the era, the British Union Quarterly. The British Union Quarterly represents the case for the BUF against the case of the government in introducing the Act. Obviously this source again must be viewed critically because it is a Fascist source but again, that does not mean that it is not useful, indeed it presents the Fascist response to the Public Order Act which is the objective of this piece. The main point of contention for the article is the fact that prior to the Abdication Crisis, something in which the BUF themselves were fully occupied supporting King Edward VIII; the Public Order Bill had attracted much criticism from the liberal media. The secondary point of contention is that the Blackshirt uniform assisted the police in separation of Fascists and anti-Fascists but it also made the BUF willingly stand out, thus allowing their behaviour to fall under greater public scrutiny than the anti-Fascists. The conclusion of the article refers to attempts made by the BUF in Newcastle and Manchester not to wear uniform which resulted in disorder far more conspicuously greater than on occasions when uniform had been worn. The overall tone of the piece is sarcastic and mocking, and the language is blunt, which is to be expected, after all, the Public Order Act was not something that was beneficial to the BUF. One must also recognise the audience that the article was written for. Without being overtly crass it is likely that the article was written to surmise the BUF’s argument for the non-intellectual members of the BUF, thus the line of reasoning must be presented in comparatively simple terms. Significantly too, prior to the arguments in opposition to the Act, the magazine begins with coverage of the Abdication Crisis which referred to the ‘great King gone’. That the BUF would present this before contesting a legal act that was effectively crushing the Movement is a perfect illustration of the manner in which the BUF desired to represent themselves as loyal, above all else, to the Crown. What is also interesting about the articles response is that the arguments presented are not presented internally as the correspondence from the Saunders Collection discloses. The internal correspondence states initially that the Act is only temporary and that potential legal action will make the Act redundant but it does not present the logical arguments that the article attempts to. This perhaps is reflective of weak central-periphery leadership and a weak economic base, as not all branches received the same attention both from civilians and the authorities as was the case in London. Indeed, this is where the geographical and demographic distribution of BUF branches becomes significant. In wider terms London was the hub of BUF activity. BUF anti-semitism was confined mainly to the East End, thus the majority of trouble with anti-Fascists occurred in London due to the larger amount of marches than anywhere else in the country, and thus the effect of the Public Order Act was felt less strongly across Great Britain than in the capital city.

        Whilst the Public Order Ban was very significant in London due to the amount of meetings and processions it was less significant in Birmingham, that does not underestimate the importance of the Act but recognises that there was no homogenous effect of the Act across Britain. In his study of the Birmingham branch, Brewer has noted the stark contrasts between London and Birmingham, thus reinforcing my assertion that different branches were affected differently. For example, in Birmingham the branch held no public meetings and very few processions of which the Act could control. However, Brewer does note that notwithstanding this the Act was specifically employed in the banning of uniforms, and during January two members of the local branch were brought before Birmingham Magistrates, bound over and ordered to pay costs. Conversely this must be viewed within the appropriate ratio. The Birmingham branch had around a hundred members, with potentially half of these members being non-active. The effect of the Act was either a weak enforcement of section one therefore reflecting an overall effect that was limited at best or a low amount of activity that did not need to be maintained. Similarly Jeff Wallder in his unpublished study of the Kingston-upon-Thames branch of the BUF also notes that the effect of the Act in that part of the country, despite only being as far away as Surrey, was also negligent because there was little for the authorities to regulate.

As the BUF had decided to present the Movement as progressively less militaristic and more political the decision was taken to compete in the March London County Council elections thereby expressing the Movement’s electoral motivations and evidence of further internal transition. Interestingly this decision preceded the brutal economic culling that the Movement would experience a week after the LCC elections, thus the conclusion can be reached that the political response of the BUF to the Public Order Act at this point was to reveal its legal political determination as had begun with the earlier reorganisation of the central structure, and secondly the secret objective must solely have been survival. The sackings of Beckett and Joyce, two of the more obvious advocates of anti-Semitism within the Movement, illustrate an attitude, in contrast to Mosley’s defiance/bravado at Hornsey, not to rile the authorities. The ‘Private Document’ NHQ circular, relating to the redundancy of Beckett and Joyce, which although undated must have been sent out during March 1937 reiterates the above point that survival, through an economic reduction was a key priority. The circular also allows itself the opportunity of propaganda to congratulate the spirit of National Socialism which emerged even stronger from ‘this stern test of character.’ 

        Relating to the LCC elections, after asking for administrative help in Dorset-West the response to Saunders from the Assistant Director-General of Organisation, Southern Administration states that ‘until the Elections are safely out of the way, no unit of personnel can be spared for work outside London’. This illustrates the political commitment the Movement has made but it also reflects how London took priority, as previously stated was the BUF stronghold, thus revealing that the effect of the Act was clearly felt more strongly in London than other municipalities. The response in London to contest local elections could never have happened in Dorset-West, or any where else for that matter. The source also makes plain the imminent economic problems of the BUF affirming the need for political survival first and foremost. Interestingly, despite the removal of Beckett and Joyce, the leadership of Francis-Hawkins signalled a return to the quasi-military mentality that the BUF had so far been attempting to downplay.

        Therefore the response of the BUF betrays a fear of complete redundancy hence the complete centralisation of he Movement to London, the sackings of Beckett and Joyce and the continued circulars stating that uniform is not to be worn. The defiance of Mosley at Hornsey can be viewed as misplaced bravado which as time progresses the analysed sources reveal becomes less assured. Furthermore, whilst most of this occurred in London the political response in other parts of the country was less intense as chapter two will assess.

        

2

The Public Order Act, 1936: the individual response

This chapter of the project is concerned with the individual responses to the Public Order Act. There is only so much value that the historian can gain from the analysis of a political response because a political response is uniform and tends only to compound the stereotypical image of that party. That is not to disregard the value of the previous chapter in any sense but the historian must be aware of the limitations of the sources he will employ. To that point this chapter is more of a social chapter than the previous but the method employed has no basis in sociology or Marxist interpretations. The methodology of this chapter is conceived through the analysis of primary material again from the Robert Saunders Collection, therefore history from below and also oral history. As aforementioned in the first chapter, London was more heavily affected from the Public Order Act because it held far more processions and meetings there than anywhere else in the country. Thus when one employs sources such as from the Saunders Collection, which is the only largely surviving District archive left in the United Kingdom, one must realise that the impact felt in Dorset would have been a lot less severe than in London, but that at the same time one cannot fully qualify that due to lack of available sources. The response of Saunders to the Act then does not reflect the attitudes of all BUF individuals, but what it does demonstrate is that there could be no homogenous individual fascist response to the Public Order Act as there was no specific national political response that encompassed all branches either.

        Significantly during December whilst the Act is being planned and passed through the appropriate channels, Saunders receives three pieces of correspondence from local branch members warning him not to wear uniform to future meetings as it is likely to be banned. This reflects firstly the commitment of local members in Dorset-West but also the weakness of centre-periphery leadership that these warnings would not have come first from NHQ. The correspondence from C.H. Sureties on the 31st December the day prior to the official commencement of the Act, the Director of Organisation in Weymouth, defines this point, ‘Presume you haven’t received notification from NHQ. In case you have not, uniforms are banned.’ Saunders had in fact received official notification by this point, but what is significant is that the people sending the mail to Saunders had not expected him to yet. This position is further consolidated by a previous mail received by Saunders, who at this point it should be noted was the District Treasurer of Dorchester and Weymouth and not yet the District Organiser as he becomes in December, again from Sureties on the 11th November. Not only does the mail comment that Sureties was ‘afraid there would not be much doing down here if it were not for your esteemed self’ thus again exhibiting the weak central leadership, but the source also confirms the point made in the first chapter that the strength of the Movement in the differing municipalities was not consistent, thus neither was the political response. Logically then neither would the individual response, hence the second point of note in this particular source is the humour in which Sureties refers to the banning of he uniform. In the corner of the source Sureties writes a short, sarcastic pretend letter to Sir John Simon thanking him for the banning of the BUF uniform which concludes with a ‘love and three flash and circles’. One could argue that this small element of sarcasm is not particularly significant. I would disagree and cite the fact that it should not be considered bravado, as Mosley exhibits in his personal response to the Act at Hornsey, as this would be more than unlikely and also unnecessary in a short correspondence between two associates. Simply put there would be no need for it. Similarly to the historian no piece of evidence must be considered as too small. What this correspondence reveals is a shared humour between two individual leaders which contrasts starkly with what can only be described as the political fear shown by the official sources analysed in the first chapter. It seems to these two individuals, despite their positions of respective leadership, that the oncoming of the Public Order Act is considered far less serious than to the London officials. To support that point further mail received from Sureties on the 7th October should be reviewed. Sureties once again mocks Simon and the language and content of the source suggests a gentle humour as opposed to the indignation that the British Union Quarterly will go on to espouse, although obviously at this point the Bill had not been passed onto the House of Commons and the full extent of the Act was yet to be revealed. Therefore the above point must be made tentatively.

Despite this shared humour, it is evident that Saunders is both highly committed and valued by the BUF. The broad and varied correspondence he receives includes being asked for specific political domes and fascist programmes and pamphlets, advice on the use of halls and also if he would be considered to steward at a meeting that Mosley would be speaking at in Exeter on 3rd July 1937. That this meeting was to be accompanied by the drums from NHQ and members from London branches indicates that it was a high profile meeting, and that stewarding had become significant under the second section of the Act, Saunders being asked obviously recognises his significance to the party in wider terms. One piece of correspondence also reveals that on the 14th December 1938 Saunders was asked for a specific piece of uniform by Henry Bartlett, the Polling District Leader of Burton Bradstock thereby illustrating the difference in individual responses to the Act. Whilst Saunders is considered a figure of comparative respectability, other members clearly do not have intentions of following the Act as far as the Special Instructions analysed in chapter one demand. The response of Saunders, who tells Bartlett to work for a Distinction (a type of badge), because even they ‘can be worn today!!’ again reveals the general humour and perhaps mild indignation with which Saunders treats the Act. Perhaps that Saunders and Sureties are so distant from the hub of enforcement in London they can treat the matter of the Act with a detached black humour as their respective branches are not that affected by it. That the political activity in these branches was much less than in London would support this idea, for example, in a Dorset East meeting on the 23rd September 1937 the audience numbered 60. Saunders spoke and noted that the paper sales were good and that their ‘activities created quite a stir in the town’. Obviously this cannot be compared to Cable Street. People with low expectations are rarely disappointed, hence Saunders allows himself to indulge in uniform ‘banter’ with Sureties and Bartlett. For exactly the same reasons Mosley was disinclined to act similarly.

As it has been tentatively suggested, because of the differences in support and strength of fascism across the nation, the effects of the Public Order Act were not homogenous. Consequently the responses of individual members of the BUF differed. If one digs a little deeper, the logic follows on that the differences in response to the Act might have differed for various reasons and not just the municipal differences, for example, Saunders and Sureties through the analysis of sources can be viewed as obviously displeased that the BUF undress uniform had been banned but there is no reference to the intellectual divide that occurred within the BUF about the value of wearing the undress uniform. Some members were content not to wear uniform prior to their loss following the Act. Thus for this project to be a true analysis of the individual response to the BUF one must investigate the argument that was sustained by the wearing of the uniform prior to the Act because of the effect that this could have ensued following the activation of the Act.

The work of Linehan develops the above thought further, through various interviews with the former members of the BUF in the East End and South-West Essex Linehan has uncovered various differences that existed intellectually throughout the groups. Although this does not relate directly to the Public Order Act and the responses it incurred but it does support the argument that fascism was heterogeneous in Britain. Once that has been accepted then it must also be accepted that the response to the Public Order Act must not be homogenous either. Linehan’s work is solely reliant upon oral testimony which like all historiographies is criticisable. The subjective texture of memory is hardly concrete evidence, especially after such a long time lapse, indeed oral statement can fluctuate between the smallest detail and obvious mental censorship, ‘Memory can work actively to erase as well as recall.’ However Linehan concurs that the overall value of the oral testimony is particularly valuable when exploring the arena of personal experience, something that is shorn of the historian when inspecting the more standard documentary sources such as PRO records. Oral history is valuable because ultimately documents are neither the beginning nor the end of historical knowledge.

The removal of the undress uniform was seen by many fascists as a hammer-blow for various reasons; the uniform provided symmetry – a collective integration, it allowed the function of discipline and therefore promoted the notion of meritocracy, rank was the reward for effort, it reflected organisation, it attracted young idealists. However this view was not uniform throughout the municipalities. As we have already seen, Saunders touches upon the matter with a sarcastic tone but with little more address. Others were far bitterer and others were quite content with the new arrangement. Pugh contends that by 1937 feelings pertaining to the uniform had become quite ambivalent which seems to be prompted by the research that Linehan uncovered whilst interviewing members of the Limehouse branch. Furthermore that Linehan has captured these internal divisions within two areas suggests that as a microcosm of the entire nation these divisions must have shared consistent central features throughout Great Britain although obviously not entirely similar.

Those who felt the benefits of the uniform outweighed the negative suggested that the uniform represented integration into the collective fascist subculture and it created both a camaraderie and a discipline that negated class divides. On a practical level, the District Leader of Bethnal Green North East branch cited the uniform as having a functional significance that was repeated in the British Union Quarterly reaction. Simply put the uniform created a visible divide between fascists and anti-fascists thereby simplifying the role of the police. This reaction from A.G. Plaskett is significant because it provides a logic and a greater detail than the Saunders Papers provide. The reaction of Plaskett is also significant because the majority of support for the BUF uniform arose from the Bethnal Green area. It is no coincidence that this was the area where the BUF made the greatest impact thus consequently this was where support for the undress uniform was greatest where it was cited by many contemporary commentators as the one of the myriad primary attractions for joining the BUF, indeed, even Sir Philip Game saw the uniform as possessing a ‘spectacular appeal’. Coincidentally the geographically near Limehouse Branch was also where the opposition against wearing the uniform was at its strongest. A Limehouse Mosleyite noted that, ‘We didn’t think it fitted in with British politics at all, and that it was entirely wrong’. This opinion obviously contrasts with those who commented that they joined the BUF just for the thrill however its merits as a source must be measured. Bearing in mind the commentator was recalling a period from so long ago it is possible that he would be attempting to distance himself from one of the less salubrious public recollections of the BUF. However the commentator goes on to state that he and his group of young ‘intellectuals’ were keen to widen the breadth of BUF propaganda, feeling that processions and marches were not the greatest method to convert new members to the Movement. The commentator then describes alternative propaganda strategies that were developed by the intellectual strand such as door to door canvassing. This does suggest that the motivation of the commentator is to revise his past. Indeed, Linehan goes on to state that the oral testimonies he has collected ‘reveal how a new ideas for fascist propaganda in the local community often emerged from grass-roots initiatives within the branch.’ This illustrates the contrasting nature of municipal fashion. There was no such contrast in the Dorset-West branch, most likely because these contrasts would not necessarily translate onto a different region that had a far smaller amount of BUF members.

As an afterthought what is also worth considering briefly is that the Act would have no personal impact in the sense that it could change the political leanings of a person. Although the concepts of ‘personality type’ are not so readily amenable to analysis it is unlikely that the Public Order Act would have stopped an anti-Semite from being anti-Semitic. It may have prevented Jew-baiting in theory (although it is very contentious that the Act did) one must note that this prevention would not have made any measures to actually change social stereotypes. Thus as much as the response of the government was political, surely the problem was a social issue that needed revision.

It is unfortunate that primary material such as the Saunders Papers from the inter-war period is lacking because this would present the opportunity of comparison. As it is there is no chance to extensively compare the responses of individuals from more branches thereby a void exists in the social historiography of the BUF. However, even allowing for the limited sources, it is comparatively obvious to note the differences of branches and thus the differences of individuals. Hence the response of Robert Saunders differs from the official response from London. Although this is a bit of a facile evaluation it conveys the point even if that point can only be presented tentatively.  

        

3

The Public Order Act, 1936: police enforcement

John Hope inferred to the relationship between the authorities and the British Fascists in the 1920s as something malevolent that transgressed the usual boundaries of investigation and surveillance. Developing this trend but somewhat more cautiously Thurlow stated that following on from the delayed the releases of Home Office files in 1983, 1986 and 1995 respectively, the relationship between the secret state and the BUF in the 1930s is less clear cut than tradition would suggest. When one thinks of the Public Order Act procuring different responses from the different branch municipalities it is a logical conclusion to assume that the police enforcement across the country would not be uniform either. Similarly if individual Fascists responded differently to the Act then equally would the police force. However the controversy that stems from this logic naturally follows on to claims of pro-Fascism and anti-Semitism within the police. This project is not concerned with that directly due to the difficulties in qualifying personal motivation, but in wider terms if it is the case then it does substantiate the idea that the Public Order Act did not elicit a homogenous response from the police of Great Britain either.

        The dilemma that the Public Order Act presented is that apart from the fourth section that pertained to the banning of processions the Act was fairly ambiguous and reliant upon either the Attorney General for a successful prosecution or down to the discretion of the police or the courts. Inevitably then there would be issues of uncertainty within the police. Ultimately it would have to be the police who would have to make a decision on whether to intervene because they were the only presence on street level. That the Act was passed so quickly through the appropriate channels despite the fact that it was such a departure from traditional British liberalism, and that Sir John Simon was so against ‘this dressing up in fancy uniforms and this aping of military organisation for political purposes’ would suggest that the Public Order Act would be strenuously enforced. This did not turn out to be the case. Pugh notes that in January 1937 six people were convicted for wearing the uniform and offending against section one of the Act. The implication is that this was a strict enforcement. Unfortunately what Pugh fails to comment upon is where these convictions occurred which must suggest to the historian that they occurred throughout the country. If this is the case then six convictions is a comparatively paltry figure that smacks of tokenism. The Act hardly needed a complicated period of instalment as two of the sections were basically derived from old laws. Pugh’s retort that it would have been unfeasible for the authorities to prosecute every Fascist wearing the Blackshirt uniform after January 1st is true but surely a higher conviction rate would not have been unreasonable. And in any case the BUF was still issuing internal instructions in 1938 stating firmly to members not to wear the uniform or even colours, in light of this and the instructions sent out during December 1936 it is possible to suggest that not many Fascists would have been wearing their uniforms in public. Pugh’s conclusion for the early chronological leniency in conviction rates is attributed to the fact that the Act was hoped to be more of a deterrent. This is highly spurious logic because Pugh had also stated, in contrast to my previous comment, that too many photos from 1937 and 1938 reveal Blackshirts wearing the uniform in public places. If this is true then surely the police simply could not allow the unabated uniformed meetings that Pugh speaks of. At some point arrests and convictions would have to occur. Another potential explanation that escapes Pugh is that perhaps the various photos he speaks of were meetings that had received the seal of approval from the local authorities. Furthermore, it is also possible that a low conviction rate could be attributed to the fact that particular magistrates did not want to have to define a uniform when parliament hadn’t. This view is supported by an assertion that Lewis makes regarding the second ever case following the inception of the Act to come before the courts, in Hull, whereby the magistrate stated that he did not want to be trapped into defining the limits of what a uniform constituted. Irregardless it seems that Pugh is swimming in ill-defined muddy intellectual waters. Interestingly, as an afterthought, the typical Fascist complaint during this period was that they were being discriminated against while Green Shirts were not being prosecuted. Obviously there is a disparity between this opinion and the current historiography.

        The most significant section of the Act was the third section that gave the Chief of Police of any locality the chance to suppress any marches or processions that aroused suspicion. When one recalls the troubles at Cable Street, which the Act quickly followed, one would expect this section to have been enforced without compromise. Some 110 Fascist marches and 3,094 meetings took place within London during the first ten months of the legislation. The re-routed Bermondsey march still took place, its initial route from Limehouse to Trafalgar Square having been banned, and incurred trouble equal to or as worse as Cable Street. This is surprising, mainly because of the amount of police, 2500, involved in protecting the Fascist marchers as the whole point of the Act was to allow a lessened police commitment. It is equally surprising when it is considered that in 1937 Sir Philip Game stated that he wanted a complete ban on all political processions in the Metropolitan area. This simply did not happen bar the banning of marches after the sunset in Hendon, Battersea, East Ham and Peckham. What has been exposed to this point is that the Act was not particularly well enforced which provides a stark contrast to the political anxiousness of the BUF shown in the first chapter.

        Ultimately as the police were the only natural extension of the authorities on the streets the onus lay on the police to decide whether to arrest offenders or not. Thus due to the arbitrariness of the legal enforcement the argument arises that the police could be labelled anti-Semitic or worse, in league with the Fascists. The third section avoided this problem by endowing the final decision to prohibit the march was between the appropriate local authority and the Home Secretary. However as aforementioned this section was not firmly adhered to either. Lewis contests that even when processions were banned the Fascists still held rallies and meetings in the same district. What is clear then is that the authorities were not massively motivated to enforce the Act consistently, thus a parallel develops; the political response of the BUF to the Act and the response of the authorities to the Act, and then the individual response, both the Fascist and the policeman. This is illustrated particularly aptly through a 1936 letter from Sir John Simon to the Metropolitan Police stating that individual street policeman must be as conscientious as the senior officials at Scotland Yard in the prevention of offensive, racist language.

        Obviously there would have been occasions when the Fascists would complain against the way they were being treated, for example, at a BUF meeting in Southampton in June 1937 Mosley claimed that he was pelted with rocks during a speech and the police did nothing until the BUF attempted to intervene at which point the majority of those Fascists who had attempted to stop the rock throwing were arrested. This notion of being discriminated against is reiterated in a letter from Robert Saunders to Henry J. Bartlett, the Burton Bradstock Polling District Leader, and dated 14th December 1937. Saunders notes how the Exeter branch had been given a ‘rough time of late’ by the Exeter communists, and that the police have not been particularly responsive. Saunders even goes onto state that due to the inconsistencies of policing ‘We may be fighting them in a test case in the Courts before long.’ What this demonstrates is that there would always be cases when the Fascists would feel, perhaps rightly, that they had been discriminated against.

Contemporary historiography does reveal that by and large that the police response in Great Britain and particularly London, favoured the Fascists, at least in their response to trouble, if not in their political leanings. Lewis supports this when noting that despite the anti-Semitic nature of BUF propaganda only seven prosecutions and three convictions were exacted from the 2,108 meetings that the BUF held in East London between August 1936 and December 1938. However, what this project is trying to sustain is that there could never be a homogenous effect throughout the country, thus it is no coincidence that the two abovementioned arenas of discontent referred to by Mosley and Saunders; Southampton and Exeter, are far smaller, far less ethnically diverse and would have experienced far lass political trouble than London, thus it can cautiously be put forward that this would only increase the chances that the police in these regions would be less favourable to the alien fascism. Therefore just because the police appeared to be less lenient to anti-Fascists in the capital does not mean that this would consequently occur throughout Great Britain.

        Sir Philip Game suggested that police impartiality could never be fully assured because various officers were angered at having to give up their free time to maintain disturbances that the Jews had instigated by their mere presence. That comment does not give credence to the implied impartiality but what it does is illuminate the mentality of certain officers. Even without concrete evidence, that some policeman would have been racist or preferred the Fascists to anti-Fascists is beyond any reasonable doubt, as is the aforementioned fact that London, as the hubris of anti-Fascist activity demanded more policing than the rest of the State. Lewis adds to the suggested relationship between the Fascists and the police, suggesting that they shared a psychological connection due to the uniform of the Fascists, which obviously contrasted with the appearance of the anti-Fascists. Indeed this may have been the case, but it is also true that the uniforms of the Fascists agitated the police, something that even Mosley conceded, hence section two of the Act. Thurlow develops the assertion of Lewis further, noting that although official attitudes were clearly anti-Fascist the attitudes of individual policeman would be harder to assess. The ‘H’ Division in Bethnal Green and the Shoreditch constabulary were notorious for treating Fascists with greater leniency. Whether that could be attributed to a personal preference for racism or anti-Communism is impossible to qualify, for example Thurlow suggests that perhaps various officers were unwilling to enact section five of the Act in case it would lead to greater hostilities.  Another interesting suggestion by Thurlow is that because the Fascists tended to hold their meetings close to Jewish areas then this would obviously incense the local populous, thus it is no surprise then that with regard to section five of the Public Order Act PRO records reflect a higher proportion of arrested anti-Fascists. Lewis consolidates this claim, recognising that a higher arrest rate of anti-Fascists does not necessarily constitute institutionalized racism, ‘If more anti-Fascists and Jews were arrested than Blackshirts, it was, in part because there were many more of them.’ From that point it is a logical adjunct to claim, as Skidelsky does, that the police then, were neither pro nor anti Fascist but instead pro-police. In wider terms this is most likely the case but the usage of Skidelsky’s work as a source must be analysed. Controversially, the aforementioned work can be viewed as Mosley attempting to extricate himself from past misdeeds, thus the balanced view is presented that the police were motivated solely by the objective of their job, i.e. to regulate public order. This fits in with the pro-police stance that the BUF advocated in the 1930s and it also relieves the failure of Mosley to lead the BUF into parliament. If Mosley were to say that the police were pro-Socialist this would be taken as propaganda and reflective of an obvious bias, similarly, if Mosley stated that the police were pro-Fascist then it begs the obvious question as to why the BUF did not achieve any great success in the inter-war period. Skidelsky concludes that because of natural antipathy to both the Fascists and anti-Fascists the police records are the most reliable for analysing public order troubles in the inter-war period, and as larger amounts of anti-Fascists were arrested and convicted this seems to have been predictably manipulated in order to present the BUF in a positive light. Nonetheless, Skidelsky’s characterisation of the police as comparatively indiscriminate is supported by Stevenson who portrays the police as ‘increasingly irritated by the problems posed by the BUF, yet hostile to the organised left’. The Metropolitan Police files that Stevenson employs would appear to consolidate his conclusion.

Despite this what is illuminated overall is that like there could be no single national response to the Act from individual Fascists, neither could there be from policemen either. Because fascism was not homogenous through Great Britain, neither could the police response be. However, much like the problem of lack of sources experienced in chapter two, due to the lack of access to the records of borough and county constabularies it is very difficult to fully qualify that conclusion as being reflective of the entire State, thus any assertions that are reached must be presented cautiously. Ultimately the historian recognises that the attitudes reflected from the Metropolitan Police files do not reflect the attitudes of all the nations’ policemen

Conclusion

The Public Order Act has elicited very little historiographical debate since its inception. This project has not uncovered any new material either, but that was not the motivation of this historian. The emphasis of this piece was to establish that there could be no homogenous response to the Act both from individual Fascists and also the authorities. The first chapter revealed that due to the weak centre-periphery leadership of the BUF there could be no unified political response that bound the entire nation either. It also revealed the changing attitudes of the BUF over time too. The second chapter concerned the individual responses of BUF members and thus was more of a social work. It elucidated how different branches reacted differently to the Act and how that was forced not only by municipal differences but also by a weak central leadership. Finally the third chapter reflected upon a parallel between individual Fascist members and individual police members. There was no uniform response. It also commented upon the enforcement of the Act and how this centred mainly upon London. The conclusion reached, albeit tentatively, was that fascism was not homogenous through Britain, neither then was the Movement’s response to the Public Order Act. A rather obvious conclusion, one might suggest, but one that the objective historian could not attain without research. Speculation is not the ally of the historian. Unfortunately due to a lack of sources this work could not be as broad as it desired, nonetheless, the objective of this topic has been achieved, not to contend or substantiate contemporary work but to engage with a topic of personal interest and extend that onto the historical page.

Bibliography

Unpublished primary sources:

The Blackshirts in Kingston Project, (MS 80) (University of Sheffield Repository)

The British Union Collection, (University of Sheffield Repository) Box 3

The William Joyce Manuscripts, (M6 166) (University of Sheffield Repository)

The Peroni Scrapbooks, (University of Sheffield Repository) Scrapbook 1

The Robert Saunders Papers, (MS119) (University of Sheffield Repository) Vol. I

Printed primary sources:

The British Union Collection, (University of Sheffield Repository) Box 3

1B/2, (b) British Union Quarterly, Vol. I, No. 1, Jan-Apr. 1937, pp.6-12.

1B/7, (MF8) East London Pioneer, Vol. I, No. 4, Jan. 1937.

Secondary sources: books

Benewick, R., Political violence & public order: a study of British fascism (Allen Lane: The Penguin Press, London, 1969)

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Cronin, M., (ed.) The Failure of British fascism: the far right and the fight for political recognition (MacMillan, Basingstoke, 1996)

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Secondary sources: articles

Cohen, P., ‘Police, the Home Office and the surveillance of the BUF,’ Journal of Contemporary History, 1, 3 (1983), pp.416-434.        

Hope, J.G., ‘Fascism and the State in Britain: the case of the British,’ Australian Journal of Politics and History, 39, 3 (1993), pp.367-80.

Stevenson, J., ‘The BUF, the Metropolitan Police and public order,’ in eds. Lunn, K & Thurlow, R., British fascism: essays on the radical right in inter-war Britain (1980), pp.135-149.

Thurlow, R., ‘British fascism and State surveillance, 1934-45,’ Intelligence and National Security, 3, 1 (1988), pp.77-99.

Thurlow, R., ‘State management of the British Union of Fascists in the 1930s,’ in ed. Cronin, M., The Failure of British Fascism (1996), pp.29-52.

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