Perhaps, rather than simply demonstrating how the prejudices of the 30s clash with our own you might demonstrate how Churchill was actually fascist.
Did he ever believe in a one party state?
Did he ever believe in political youth movements?
What was his attitude towards corporatism?
What was his overall attitude towards Jews?
What was his attitude towards individual liberty? culture and the arts?
What was his attitude towards democracy?
Why, to the end of his life did he say 'I have always been a liberal'?
Away with this silliness and bring me cake and fine wines instead
Even for his time, Churchill's racial ideas were becoming outdated. In the Conservative Party he was one of the most vociferous racists. The Tories had already taken a party line of Indian home-rule and had elected some of the first Indian MPs to Parliament. It was not simply the prejudice of the 30s.
One party state, note that even Mussolini never actually supported a one party state. He held back his party to ensure that the state was the dominant partner. Hitler's the one who let the party dominate over the traditional government. Note that Churchill throughout his life hated political bargaining and large, powerful factions. His ideas for restraining the electorate (a return to the propertied franchise) and a corporatist Upper House were supposed to restrict the opinions represented in government to those that would be in the national interest (especially in removing socialist Labour sentiment). Something along the lines of Taisho Democracy, allowing some political debate within the overall national power structure.
Political Youth movements? No, but he supported the army and other civic organizations that could easily been turned to political means. Note that the BUF never had a political youth wing and that Italy's Fascists only gained a functional, significant one after coming to power. And there is the example of youth participation in WW2, but that can be discounted.
As I've already pointed out, he proposed a reorganization of the British state along vaguely corporatist lines. Oh, and in OTL, the Fascists, especially in Britain were never strict ideologues. He wouldn't have to argue for a full corporatist state to be a Fascist.
Churchill's prejudices to the Jews were, as they were towards the Indians, unorthodox for even his time. At one point, he supported an early British Fascisti attempt to revive one of the old statutes of Jewry. (One that would ban them from moneylending and landholding)
Individual liberty? Note that Mussolini's Fascists promised more liberty when forming and coming to power. Their early rhetoric is oddly liberal. Now, as for Churchill himself, he believed in liberty for the Anglo-Saxon people above, pretty much all else. Suggesting that socialists should be hanged, that striking coal miners should be shot and that any and all colonial attempts at independence should be stomped flat are hardly arguments for Churchill being some great defender of individual liberty.
As for culture and the arts, he was a writer and artist himself, and supported it to a degree. But I fail to see what this has to do with Fascism. After all, artist circles all throughout Europe were lovers of Mussolini (not so much Hitler) and Franco. Fascism itself stemmed in part from Futurism, an artistic movement, and the Italian state did support the arts heavily (if with a neo-classical bent)
Democracy? I've already discussed this in the one party state. As said, he did argue for restricting the franchise, which was a hugely reactionary move.
"I have always been a liberal." I believe this should be large-L Liberal, referring to the party and simply showing Churchill's eternal maverick stance. Sorry, but its pretty hard to say he was a liberal in any sense.
opposed the return to the gold standard (QUOTE]
In a thread of utter BS this must be the most hilarious line of all, how, exactly does this make one a fascist?
It is one of the keymark ideas of the Fascist movement in Britain. They were the only political faction actually opposed to the standard (although I believe that Labour switched on the issue later in the period, they were economically orthodox until after WW2)
I think you are all backwards projecting what you know about Churchill as a great war-time leader and as an anti-Nazi to discredit this idea.
You're seeing him as the great wartime hero and defender of democracy, instead of the has-been reactionary and opportunistic maverick he was at the time. You're seeing his later opposition to fascism as aligned with Nazi Germany and against his country. You're seeing him as one the greats of the era.
Why did he come to power? It wasn't his high-minded ideals or anything else. It was the simple fact that he was one of the only ones clamoring for war while everyone else was clamoring for peace. Which hardly excludes him from being a Fascist. Isn't an energetic foreign policy one of the key tenets of Fascism? Colonial policies or at least a need for them would be unique to British Fascism.
Now, if in OTL, Mussolini had remained a socialist and someone came here suggesting he replace, say, D'Annunzio or Balbo as leader of Italian Fascism, we would be hearing all about Il Duce's great commitment to the Italian people, his great opposition to eventual Fascist overlordship, his actions post-WW2 in liberated post-Fascist Italy etc..... The same could be said if, in OTL, Mosley kept his power and trust in government, and someone suggested him as leader of British Fascism. Why, how could that man make common cause with Arnold Leese or Lord Haw-Haw? He was a man of high ideals and commitment to the Labour cause, and always hated the boorish Duce and the insidious Hitler.
