If the Third Reich took over Britain, who would have led the colloborationist Gov?

As someone whose had the horrid curiosity to pay for access to the archives of Action and the Fascist Weekly online, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the entirety of the BUF from Mosley downwards is irredeemably and entirely Nazi sympathising and that the distinction between Italian and German fascism that people find so important nowadays for various reasons was simply something not many people made in the period, especially not in the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists.

 

I haven't accessed these primary sources and so can't comment. What was the basis then for the National Socialist League splitting from the BUF and how was this commented upon?

 

Mosley had a big of a big fish in small pond mentality that meant he often drove away the kind of people a Mussolini or Hitler would have kept close. This didn't just happen with Joyce and his National Socialist League but also with AK Chesterton defecting to the Nordic League and Beckett founding the British Peoples Party.

A quick scan reveals that Joyce's departure was simply not acknowledged. The last mention of Joyce is an article by him on March 7, after that, nothing.

Of course, Joyce did indeed think Mosley too moderate, but this was as much to do with the questions of insufficiently socialist as of being insufficiently national. Joyce himself while in the BUF actually much the same kind of anti-semitic rhetoric as Mosley did, with the exact same slippery prefixes and disavowals ("not about individual Jews", "it's about finance" etc.).

 

How the United Kingdom deals with the aftermath and the scars of being beaten, occupation, its cultural history looted ( Nelson's Column was to be taken and place in Berlin, among others) and being liberated by the Americans, and the Dominions would be interesting to say the least. (Same for many who fled, and won't come back to England, staying in Canada, America, or Australia.)

Could the monarchy be tainted enough to push for a Republic?

 

Wouldn't be much of a republic seeing it was a Nazi puppet state.

 

Eh,true.

 

Nevertheless you managed to pique my interest. Congratulations!
Would it be called the English or the British Republic?
Who would its cheif executive be called? "Prime Minister" would be tainted to some extent too.
Would the "republic" use Common Law?

 

Not denying they were people of an extremely unpleasant outlook but Mosley did urge BUF members to co-operate with the war effort and didn't either closely engage with German intelligence like Ramsay or broadcast from Berlin like Joyce. The Mitrokhin Archive and other now declassified Cold War sources have demonstrated that it was possible to be very far left while drawing the line at spying for the USSR. The same is no doubt true of the very far right. That fine distinction between sympathy and participation.

 

Regarding Moseley...

...A rat, but a blunt one. His plan if England was invaded was to break out of detention and use his Bisley marksmanship against an invader. If asked to form a government after an invasion, his plan was to get Hitler to get every German serviceman out of the UK before accepting the King's request to form a government. I loathe the BUF and their successors, but the rat was probably sincere. He could have been shot escaping or in battle, which rather makes the argument moot.

Just my two-penn'orth...

 

It likely be Commonwealth then Republic outright, or 'United Republic'. House of Lords likely remained.

Chancellor seem likely to me.

 

A Dead Man?

Assassinating whoever did form a Collaborationist Government was on the Auxiliary Units list of things to do.

 

In the 1960s cult alternate-history film 'It Happened Here", the young filmmakers Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo postulated that Mosley would be the leading collaborationist leader with the 'Immediate Action" fascist party. Comments?

 

Why do people think Lloyd George of all people might do this? Did he ever say something positive about Nazi Germany?

 

I haven't watched that film in years, need to drag it out and watch it again. The two things I remember most is when the nurse tries to volunteer for Instant Action and is told "you don't accept us, we accept you" [or something along those lines] and the appearance of the only operational Jagdpanther left...

 

Lloyd George was shockingly naïve about Hitler for years -- in 1936 he wrote a Daily Express article calling him "The George Washington of Germany" and praised him for his anti-Bolshevism (while also publicly condemning Goebbels' anti-Semitic propaganda).

 

And the typically British response to "Immediate Action" ... "Sounds like a Laxative!?"

 

If the monarch has fled to Canada might the rational to get Edward in be "the king has deserted the English people, leaving his throne vacant" which could then be used to bring him back to fill the "vacant" seat in Buckingham Palace.

 

I like the sound of "Chancellor"!
Should it be called the English or the British Commonwealth? How would its governmental system look?

 

Should Edward VIII be re-installed as monarch, I could also picture George VI and then Elizabeth pulling a Chiang Kai Shek in Canadian exile and claim to be the true monarchy and even broadcasting propaganda by overseas radio....

 

Lord Protector.