The question I wanted to ask was, if Britain at the height of its empire post-WWI turned into an Italian-style fascist state, what would be their aims and goals? They already control a massive empire. Would they try some sort of political union with the dominions? (Canada is probably excepted from this, being independent for all intents and purposes since the 1890s). My first thought is that they attempt to reabsorb Ireland.
Mosley was an admirer of Michael Colins and made his name as a orator giving speeches denouncing British policy in Ireland. So no. An Ulster Fascist movement was included on the roll call of affiliated movements, but that's about the extent of the BUF's concern with Ireland. After the War, Mosley out right called for complete Irish unification, but by that point everyone was passed caring.
Mosley had no interest in expansion, or military conflict. That's what makes him such a unusual Fascist. Mosley career is defined by three major beliefs, his obsession that a second world war must be prevented at all costs, the importance of ending unemployment with government intervention and his steadfast belief in a economic reformation of the Empire into a self-contained market. These beliefs, oddly enough, overpowered his ambition (which he certainly had) and left him floundering on the edge of political life when he could have gone far if he'd been willing to compromise with the establishment. Once there, Mosley became convinced that the only way was either Communism or Fascism and decided that Fascism was better. Mosley didn't take many of his policies direct from Fascism or National Socialism, but had them ready-made from his days in the Independent Labour Party and the New Party, something which Britain's already existing Fascisti complained loudly about when he muscled his way onto the scene. What Mosley did take from Fascism was a methodly of organising a movement and a belief that at some point violence was inevitable and a obnoxious popularist anti-Semitism. This is the important thing to grasp about Fascism in 1930's Britain. People like Mosley weren't attracted so much by a coherent message, they looked to European movements to enforce the ideology that they already believed in. Mosley wasn't alone amongst Labour intellectuals in believing that "left" should adopt Fascist methods, he was alone among Labour intellectuals in acting upon it.
However, this isn't to say that a Fascist Britain wouldn't be racist. It would. But it wouldn't admit to it and it wouldn't like to think of itself as governing according to 'racialist' principles. Mosley was always in denial about be a 'racialist' and loudly proclaimed that such a policy would be 'nonsense in a Empire containing all kinds of races'. What this does mean is that a Fascist Empire is not just Churchill on steroids. Mosley was actually quite contemptuous of conquest for conquests sake and Empire for the sake of Empire alone. Mosley saw the Empire in terms of how productive it could be as a economic union and how it would benefit the majority of the British people. If he doesn't think it's economically viable to keep a colony, he'll throw it over broad. Interestingly Mosley advocated that British schools in India should stop teaching "British values" to the Indians, and that instead teach them about the glory of India's past. When a angry questioner complained about the 'innate evils of the Hindu religion' this would supposedly tolerate, Mosley made a non-committal answer implying he couldn't care less.
How far this would go in actual practice is debatable. India's educated elite might have swallowed such a policy gladly before WWI and Amritsar, but they won't take too kindly to it now. Mosley's dark side would most likely come out worst in Africa, where he engaged in grand segregationist fantasies involving "letting the Whites have this bit and the blacks have this bit and they'll all get alone splendidly ". Mosley, for all his 'I'm not a racialist' rhetoric, is unlikely to step in when the colonists start mistreating the natives of their own accord.
As for the Commonwealth, Mosley believed in closer economic ties but actual Union would probably be unnecessary. If you want to be ASB, you could make sure that the affiliated Commonwealth Parties also take power around the same time Mosley does. The BUF paper organisation 'The New Empire Union' consisted of the Australian New Guard, a South African organisation of the same name and the Canadian Union of Fascists. New Zealand's does not seem to have been involved.
If anything (which will involve some ASB intervention at some point anyway, but ignoring that) is going to make Britain fascist in the 1920s, it's Ireland. Hardliners who make Churchill look like Willi Brandt 'marching on Whitehall' and being invited by the King to form a government a la Mussolini that then rigs elections or packs Parliament through other means seems like the most 'British' way forward (royal assent would be vital). Anger over the Anglo-Irish Treaty could be the trigger, and the resulting Fascist state would likely immediately trigger its own baptism by fire by mercilessly occupying all of Ireland.
The story would, to say the least, not end there. I'm inclined to say mutinies would ensue in the Army after deaths in brutal reprisals against IRA activity had hit the thousands or tens of thousands. The result would be a sabre-rattling-induced overthrow of said fascist regime by the elements of the military uncomfortable with bleeding away in Ireland. Democracy would probably be back in place by 1930.
Funny thing about that timeline is that Mosley would probably be a victim of such a 'Fascist' government.
There were more than enough anti-Semitic voices within both the Party and the Catholic Church, which only raised objections to biological racism while maintaining that all Jews were "Christ-killers," used the blood of Christian children in matzoh, were secret Communists, etc. The "Hitler Made Us Do It!" argument holds about as much water as a sieve.
There's quite a lot of sense in it actually.
Your argument would make sense were it not for the popularity of Fascism in Italy Jewish community (who were fervently Nationalistic), Mussolini's repeated praise of said community, and public and bombastic mockery of Hitler and anti-Semitism before he suddenly changed his mind on the matter.
Ignazio Silone explained well at the time. While this isn't to deny anti-Semitism wasn't absent in Italian society or within sections of the Party, it does go a long way to debunking the noble lie that Fascist anti-Semitism was inevitable because Fascism was EVUL. Bigotry was made inevitable by the cynical posturing of that blundering hypocrite Mussolini. He should be blamed, not because that Anti-Semitism was innate to his belief system but because he had the choice to reject it, which is far worse.
Fascism is fixated on the idea of racial/ethnic/national purity. Blood and Soil. It is neo-Spartanism at its core, believing that none but the Strong deserve to exist and explicitly invoking "Master Race"/"Chosen People" nonsense from its outset.
Neither Franco's Spain nor any noteworthy LA corporatist movement can be accurately compared to fascism.
By this logic, the original Fascisti were not Fascists, as the original idea of Fascism was simply that National Feeling mattered more than Class and that the Italian Revolutionary left should take account of this. This is one of the bizarre dead-ends that occur in contemporary Fascist studies. We use a word from Italy, but define it using the traits of National Socialism. Then we get confused because Italian Fascism doesn't meet the correct conditions of Fascism. "Fascism" involves all invasive totalitarian state, but Italy totalitarianism wasn't as extreme as Germany's. "Fascism" involves highly organised mass rallies, but Italian Fascist rallies were always rather chaotic. "Fascism" involves a blood and soil ideology, but such an ideology was absent in early Italian Fascism.
All this because Marxists and there friends were offended by the phrase 'National Socialism' and wanted it used as little as possible, blanketing everything under the term 'Fascism'.
Agreed. It's very strange: Mosley often used explicitly English (not British) rhetoric in his speeches despite many high-ranking BUF members being either Scottish or, like Mosley himself, Anglo-Irish.
It is to be expected to a degree. "Englishness" was still the norm and Scottish and Welsh Nationalism were still little more than a few like-minded individuals writing romantic fiction (Welsh Nationalism, interestingly enough, was strongly influenced by French Integralism another form of "Fascism"). However, Mosley's tone on Scottish and Welsh nationalists was surprisingly soft in the '100 Questions' (basically a massive Fascist FAQ), in which he stated that the BUF was sympathetic to Welsh and Scottish Nationalists insofar as Welshmen should be in charge of things in Wales and Scots in Scotland, but that they shouldn't try to break up the UK.