A fascist Britain - what would be their agenda?

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.
 

Morty Vicar

Banned
Fascism, as I understand it, wishes to expand the state for the sake of the state, or something like that. People often have different opinions on what it actually means to be a fascist, aside from the usual racially-motivated political spree.

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.

If this is ASB, I apologise, but I'm more interested in what happens after they become fascist in, say (for a random number), 1926, more than how they might become fascist (of course, it could be because of economic woes or whatever if one needs a very simplistic explanation). Just as a note, I have heard of Edt's timeline with Oswald Mosley becoming PM. I haven't read it because I'm not big on reading and there are a lot of words. :p

Anyway, moving on: Thoughts?

I apologise for not reading through the whole thread, or if I'm bumping a dead thread!

But my thoughts anyway, as this falls within my interests..

In 1926, were Britain to become a Fascist State, the most likely scenario is through Oswald Mosley and the BUF. However he was not particularly anti-Irish as such, I have read somewhere he was of Irish Catholic heritage but I cannot confirm. He certainly lived in the Free State later in his life. So the invasion of Ireland is unlikely imo, although they may have sought some sort of political links with the pro-treaty Blueshirts of Eoin O'Duffy. Another possibility is if VIII had not married Wallis Simpson, and been forced to abdicate. In 1937 he visited Germany and quite possibly would have influenced the Government into an alliance or at least a peace treaty with the Nazis. Without the anti-Nazi propaganda of the war (and the truth of the holocaust revealed during the wars final stages in Germany) Britain may have moved to the right significantly.

Either way if Britain were Fascist, the question remains whether they would have joined the Axis, or like Spain remained neutral. If they did join the Axis, they would certainly have invaded France first, as a passage through Europe to aid the Nazis. They would also have been a focus for attacks from the USA, who knows they could have reconquered some of their previous thirteen colonies (*awaits outraged Americans disagreeing wholeheartedly!*) this would probably only be possible with the help of Canadian territory and armed forces.

But the bottom line is the scenario is almost unthinkable. Even pre-Spanish civil war and pre-Holocaust a great many people were opposed to Fascism, the minority who supported it were members of the aristocracy, who certainly had political power but not enough support arguably to win elections. The tories have always had fascist elements within the party, its feasible they could have moved further to the right. But with conservative party members such as the Indian Mancherjee Bhownagree I can't see the racist element of German and Spanish, and arguably Italian Fascism coming to the fore. Britain after all is itself a mix of nations or peoples. Perhaps if the Nazi alliance was made some sort of pseudo Anglo-Saxon or Celtic Aryanism bull could be fed to the populace..?
 
It would sure suck to be Scottish, Irish or Welsh too. A better rank than non-whites for sure, but forced integration and assimilation of anything ethnical remaining ain't too nice.

Certainly not. Mosley himself gave speeches in Scotland talking about administrative devolution and the Scottish Spirit an that; Scottish nationalists who weren't far-leftist Of The People types tended to be very imperial and some of them would certainly be sympathetic to some sort of fascist regime. And indeed British imperial nationalism had a conspicuous place for the Scots.

The actual BUF performed poorly in Scotland because it tried to be all things to all men on the religious question and so lost ground to various pseudo-fascist street-gangs that were willing to be openly anti-Catholic - although insofar as these had any politics, which was not far, they were often pretty fascist. King Billy of Brigton was some sort of muddled fascist sympathiser. But there is no reason whatever for it to be anti-Scottish after somehow coming to power and indeed whatever handwave gives it electability should probably make it a big force in Scotland - perhaps by learning from the Unionists and establishing a local franchise that sells itself as the Party of (Protestant) Scottish concerns.

Whether we've got anything terribly 'ethnical' in our nationality is an interesting question, but I see no reason why a fascist regime would interfere with the principle bastion of Protestant nationalist feeling at this time (and though Catholics could feel Scottish, but Scottishness was considered by nearly everyone a Protestant identity), Presbyterian churches. And as we know Mosley was in favour of administrative devolution so I don't see why he'd have made any systematic attempt to put Scottish law or education onto the English model.

Many of the great promoters of the Scots and Gaelic languages during the literary renaissance were socialists, of course, and the stigma would certainly rub off on Lallans. Gaelic is not actually such a sure thing. There was cross-political enthusiasm at the time for saving the Highlands by means of hydro-electric power, which sounds like the sort of thing a fascist regime would go on for: the use of the new to save the old and see off the pernicious effects of modernity on proper hierarchical rural warrior-people. Probably they would do fuck all about the language, as British governments are accustomed to doing; but still promote a suitably scrubbed-up Gaeldom, as British governments since Scott are accustomed to doing.

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.

The English have never been so aware of Britishness as our other peoples and you see everywhere in English culture the offhand assumption that when Britain is talked about, England is meant, or possibly vice-versa. This error is one made by Englishmen everywhere, many of whom I greatly admire and who are not fascist at all: Eric Hobsbawm's splendid long 19th C, for example, mentions Scotland where something is Scottish but otherwise uses England and Britain interchangeably. There doesn't appear to be any cure except sending them to live in Scotland for a spell, and even then Edinburgh and St. Andrews hardly work. :D

All that said, Mosley did use specifically Scottish rhetoric - politically as well as emotionally - when he addressed Scots, which was seldom, because of his movement's lack of success here.
 
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Either way if Britain were Fascist, the question remains whether they would have joined the Axis, or like Spain remained neutral. If they did join the Axis, they would certainly have invaded France first, as a passage through Europe to aid the Nazis. They would also have been a focus for attacks from the USA, who knows they could have reconquered some of their previous thirteen colonies (*awaits outraged Americans disagreeing wholeheartedly!*) this would probably only be possible with the help of Canadian territory and armed forces.

Mosley probably had the word "Neutrality FTW" on his underwear. His policy in a nutshell was 'to let the world go hang' as he put it in an interview with William Buckley. His big idea was to surround the Empire with minefields and coastal forts, build up a massive airforce and Europe go fuck itself. This is rather ironic, given the supposedly passionate Pan-Europeanism he expressed after the war.

Nothing sort of an actual attack on British territory will get Mosley into any war, unless you get the Soviet Union to utterly stomp Germany without Allied aid. This extreme anti-War feeling isn't very well expressed in the Mosley TL's we have here, one of the major weaknesses in otherwise interesting scenarios.
 
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In 1926, were Britain to become a Fascist State, the most likely scenario is through Oswald Mosley and the BUF.

I don't think it is the most likely scenario, as at this time Mosley is still a Labour MP and won't even found the BUF until 1932. /pedant
 
"Englishness" was still the norm and Scottish and Welsh Nationalism were still little more than a few like-minded individuals writing romantic fiction.

This is only true if the label 'Scottish nationalist' (wee n) is monopolised for people believing in Scottish independence generally and the SNP and its predessesor-parties in particular. To do so misses importantant elements of politics and culture in Scotland at the time, where 'Englishness' was certainly not any norm insofar as next to no Scottish person would ever identify himself as English. And indeed, if you went up to everybody who held a card with one of the SNP's ancestors and asked 'Are you in favour of breaking up the British Empire?' you would get a great many firm negatives. 'Sovereignty' and 'independence' of course meant rather different things then.

The Unionist party, the autonomous wing of the Conservatives north of the border, succeeded after WW1 in becoming Scotland's largest party and part of how they did this was through a claim to represent (Protestant, middle-class) Scottish concerns against the heartless centralistic socialism of Labour and so on. The stuff about 'let Scots run things in Scotland' or 'administrative devolution' was very widespread at the time, and was reflected by the placing of the Secretary of State for Scotland on the cabinet in '26 and the increasing consolidation of Scottish government departments under the Scottish Office, which got a nice fascist-looking HQ for itself in Edinburgh where my dad used to work.

And then you have the very Scotland Flourishing in Empire tone of '38 Exhibition, and, in the war, Thomas 'Here come sthe king of Scotland!' Johnston and his Scottish Council.

John Buchan, a Scotsman and a very imperial figure, said at this time that 'all Scots are nationalists'. And while we're on authors, one would hardly call McDiarmid an author of romantic fiction, whatever else he can be called. That description of Scottish nationalism applies best to the time from Scott to the NAVSR.
 
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Morty Vicar

Banned
Mosley probably had the word "Neutrality FTW" on his underwear. His policy in a nutshell was 'to let the world go hang' as he put it in an interview with William Buckley. His big idea was to surround the Empire with minefields and coastal forts, build up a massive airforce and Europe go fuck itself. This is rather ironic, given the supposedly passionate Pan-Europeanism he expressed after the war.

Nothing sort of an actual attack on British territory will get Mosley into any war, unless you get the Soviet Union to utterly stomp Germany without Allied aid. This extreme anti-War feeling isn't very well expressed in the Mosley TL's we have here, one of the major weaknesses in otherwise interesting scenarios.

You're right but Mosley seems the type for whom power of dictatorship might go to his head. He was very keen to avoid World War as such, but the Spanish Civil war would seem almost small fry to a great ego at the head of the British Empire. As for WW2, he may be keen to help Germany so as to 'get it all over with' in some twisted sense, its all ASB but stranger things have happened irl..

I don't think it is the most likely scenario, as at this time Mosley is still a Labour MP and won't even found the BUF until 1932. /pedant

:eek: oops! I'll pretend it was a typo and I meant 1936! :p
 
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