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Writer's pictureMomin Rahman

Oswald Mosley and the Fascist Ideology


Salutations to all. In this essay, I will explain to you the ideology of fascism which was renovated by the a noble British politician in the name of Oswald Mosley and why he is considered to be my favorite politician of all time. Additionally, I can provide you the basic understanding of Classical Fascism under Mussolini as well. The first interpretation of Fascism was originally started by Mussolini, however many fascist movements occurred within other nations. Notably, the rise of Fascism in Great Britain. Mussolini's Fascism was excellent as a start, but it eventually became a defunct later on in World War Two. After looking upon many minor fascist movements, I evaluated that British Fascism though it being underrated, is an anomaly compared to other fascist movements. It was one of the most influential ideologies that existed after the rise of Classical Fascism and National Socialism. Unfortunately, British Fascism dissolved over time. Despite being the watershed of WW2, it was diminished by the British Parliament as well as the free press. Remember that Mosley and Mussolini had slightly different views of Fascism where one believes in a totalitarian government whereas the other believes in a union. To give you a better understanding of Mosleyite Fascism, I will provide a short biography of Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley and his interpretation of fascism in Great Britain explaining why it would have been beneficial for the United Kingdom.


Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley was born on the 16 November of 1896 in Mayfair, Westminster and was raised by an aristocratic family in which he possessed the title “Sir“ as his household would refer to all male names starting with this. According to many sources, Oswald Mosley’s family can date back to the 12th century where his family was one of the most well respected people of Westminster. When Oswald Mosley was at the age of five, his mother left their family on the account of the sexual habits made by her husband. His childhood was divided to the point where the mother was the only one taking care of Mosley while his father was accused of sexual abuse resulting in a judicial separation (the exact source is unknown about his parents’ separation). When Mosley was nine, he attended the West Down preparatory school and then after, the Westminster College. According to a few sources, Oswald Mosley had no friends and was bullied by other students due to the fact that he was a boxer. However as he turned 14, many students claimed that he was handsome but at the same time denied taking orders from others. One word to describe Mosley in his teenage years would be “stage villain”. It was at this point in time when he started to gain a passion for the military. Provided with that, Oswald Mosley saw his first service in World War One where he joined the 16th Queen of Lancers and fought on the Western Front in France at the age of eighteen. It was even said that Mosley attempted to join the Royal Flying Corps after they needed some observers. Prior to flight, Mosley had given a letter to his mother telling her that she should not be worried about my death as it would be a “most interesting experience”. When he tried to land his plane in Shoreham airport, his right wing was torn off which resulted in crash landing. Mosley’s injuries only consisted of a broken ankle. After his flight, he was sent to the Western Front in France. During battle, he was reckless yet brave at the same time. After the battle, he was unfortunate to see that majority of his comrades during battle died which shifted his view from war to politics after the First World War ended. His injuries even accounted for his shifted position in the military because he was now assigned to stay in office rather than serve on the Western Front. Now I will not go too much into depth on Mosley’s spouse but he first married Cynthia Curzon where they had three children. However, after her unfortunate death caused by peritonitis, Mosley married Diana Mitford and had two children with her.


Mosley’s political standpoint was dispersed. He first became an Independent Tory, and then a Conservative member of the British Parliament. However when those political parties had adapted to the works of free press, they completely ignored Mosley’s nationalist policies. During this time frame, Oswald Mosley had created the New Party in the early 1930s which strongly advocated for national change in order to prevent Great Britain from suffering in the economic depression during that time. In the 1931 elections, the New Party was ultimately crushed which brought Mosley to think of a new idea in the form of nationalism. When World War Two came out, Mosley had sought the idea of renovating the revolutionary nationalist movement in the name of Fascism after becoming convinced by the virtues of this ideology. Fascism was the belief of having “bundle of sticks” together which basically means that the entire nation would be united under an autocracy (some people claim that fascism is just a dictatorship which is not true). Following this, he visited Italy to study the works of Fascism by meeting with Benito Mussolini. Identical to many nationalists, Mosley strongly opposed Bolshevism (for those new to politics, this is the basis of communism which he later on in life considered as his greatest enemy). Another factor that made Mosley become a common nationalist during that time was his hatred on the Jewish population and their dominance in the British finance industries. Basically, Mosley had the belief that this Jewish population was leeching off the British economy resulting in the workers of industries to suffer from the depressing wages. A text to world relation to this issue; the United States during the 1920s and the 1930s were also suffering from an economic depression thanks to commerce and financial institutions that offered too much credit resulting in financial debt. Now in relation to my previous essay, Mosley despised commerce just like how Alexander Hamilton, one of the founding fathers of the United States despised commerce as well. Another issue during the economic depression in Great Britain was unemployment. Out of all issues, Mosley was furious when it came to unemployment and sought the idea that if Great Britain would focus more on its own workers than the yellow/free press, the workers would succeed once again.


In 1934, Oswald Mosley officially founded the British Union of Fascists. It was at this point in time where the true form of Fascism (in my opinion) was existent. As mentioned earlier, this form of fascism was different from Mussolini’s fascism as it was a union rather than a dictatorship. Everything that was mentioned above are all values of the British Union of the Fascists. However, here are a few specific points to mention:


1. Britain should stay out of foreign affairs, there should be no interference with other wars.


2. Mixing up large numbers of people whom are of different faith and tradition will result in a strife in a nation.


3. Both state capitalism and state socialism has failed, a new system called the Third Position was far better than both. The Third Position would benefit both the workers and business owners in an industry which would create the ideal economic system that would reject materialism.


4. Mosley believed that both individualism and collectivism have flaws, there should be a system in the midst of both.


5. Consumerism is not suitable for a prosperous nation. Craftsmanship would be ideal in order for innovations to progress.


6. It is the duty of a nation to protect the environment and its habitants for they are the ones who are truly native to land.


7. Overpopulation is a major cause of climate change.


8. Uncontrolled immigration leads to the shortage of housing. The rate of homeless people can increase


9. Multiculturalism would destroy each other’s ethnic heritage and causes a cultural clash


10. Degeneracy and the yellow press must be removed


11. Only workers of an industry should get paid, just workers and not business owners


To conclude this essay, I would say that Oswald Mosley is by far the well most respected politicians by anyone who is a Third Positionist. His views sought out to protect the British Isles and wanted to prevent Britain from falling into another economic crisis that would last for years. The only disagreement I have with Mosley is the believe that only workers of an industry should be paid, just workers. From this point, I would have to say that both businesses and workers should be treated fairly benefiting from each other. Due to this disagreement, I would not consider myself as a fascist but rather a moderate authoritarian since my views are a mixture of both a fascist and a federalist. My final verdict is that Mosleyite Fascism can work perfectly if it were to be implemented today (excluding the last point mentioned above). In order to reform the Western World, this ideology would ensure that it reunites a nation by ethnicity and will remove the greedy commerce that strives to loot money from individuals. Surely there can be other ideologies that can be better, but it all comes down to if it helps a certain nation by its origin. Therefore, Mosleyite Fascism in my opinion is considered to be a revolutionized version of Classical Fascism.


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