In a week when Reform UK held its largest ever rally, I thought I’d take a look at the 1930’s fascist, Oswald Mosley. I can’t think why he came to mind. But he did – so here we are.
I compared Mosley’s speeches to those from the Reform Party’s Birmingham NEC rally at the weekend. So you don’t have to. Quite a surreal experience, switching from the sing-song shouts of Mosley on crackly recordings, to the inane, not-quite soundbites of Anne Widdecombe, Richard Tice, Nigel Farage and a sweaty man apparently called Paul Oakden, (Reform’s chief executive).
Who was Oswald Mosley?
In 2016, Liam Liburd interviewed two survivors of the Battle of Cable Street. In 1938, Mosley took one of his huge marches right through the heart of the Jewish East End. Working class Jewish Londoners combined with Catholics, Protestants and Muslim Somalis to barricade the streets against the fascist march, fighting a pitched battle à la Les Mis, against Mosley’s blackshirts, supporters and the police – and won.
One of the survivors interviewed, was anti-fascist Willie Myers who said of Farage:
“When I close my eyes, I can hear Mosley. The same sort of rhetoric.”
How close is that rhetoric? Let’s take a look. One thing worth noting – I don’t know if Mosley charged admission to his rallies. Farage’s ‘people’s army’ pay £5 a head.
In the 1930s, Mosley founded the British Union of Fascists (BUF). Like many since, he decided that the existing parties weren’t centering him enough so decided to invent his own party.
Even a right-wing newspaper at the time, called Mosley a “posturing egotist”. Familiar. His acolytes wore black shirts, and bruisers in the BUF carried knuckledusters and truncheons at his rallies. So even the mildest heckler got beaten to the ground then dragged out into the street. Usually, hecklers were socialists or communists, sometimes women and often ex-soldiers.
Too many similarities between Farage and Mosley
One obvious difference between Farage and Mosley is sartorial. Mosley had his black shirt and a militaristic uniform specially made that he wore to rallies. At his rallies, Farage stands, handwringing, in his idea of casual wear – looking like Larry Grayson in an ill-fitting double-breasted blazer and slacks. He wants to “Shut that door” – to immigrants.
Farage seems to have swapped informal ‘walkabouts’ for the more controlled environment of rallies, maybe because he attracts the occasional milkshake. The 1930s were less-civilised times. Mosley was once knocked out by half a house brick and frequently declared to the press that nothing would deter his fascism.
At the NEC rally, Tice said: “We have the courage to take the brickbats … we have the courage to say when something doesn’t make sense, when it’s wrong …”
The fearless Reform Party didn’t appear to have the courage to allow black British journalist Femi Oluwole into the NEC, however, as he was turned away from Sunday’s rally by security guards who claimed they were “told” ahead of the event, he wasn’t allowed in – although admitted they didn’t know why this was the case.
The ‘people’s army’
Today, there are no black (or turquoise) shirts (yet) but there is this new phrase being thrown around the ‘people’s army’. What is that? Who knows? It appears to aspirationally comprise the 17 million leave voters – many of them dead or disaffected by now, let’s be honest, but this doesn’t put Reform politicians off.
Former Tory MP, Reform candidate Lee Anderson, tweeted:
“When the establishment & Liberal left told us we were thick & racist for wanting to leave the EU the people’s army defeated them. We all get one ‘X’ each. So march to the polling station and show them what you really think and let the people’s army be victorious once again.”
Lee Anderson has repeatedly posted “We want our country back” and other Reform supporting accounts publish material like this:
Mosley’s racist rhetoric was largely antisemitic. At one speech in 1930, Mosley said:
“Jews must either put the interests of Britain before the interests of Jewry, or they will be deported from Britain.”
As for Reform, public-facing racism is not a part of speeches or rallies, although a number of Reform candidates have already been outed for private racism and Reform has had to drop its support for three candidates, who allegedly called various ethnic groups “savages” or “scum”. A cursory look at social media accounts of some former For Britain or Britain First supporters shows that many are now endorsing Reform in this election.
The rhetoric of revolution
The far right have always understood the ‘sexy’ appeal of ‘revolt’. Reform has a call-to-action soundbite: “Join the revolt”.
Mosley, in a 1938 speech had precisely the same idea: “We are fighting for nothing less than a revolution in the spirit of our people …”
Something else they have in common is the vision of a political movement, not just a party or policies, but an ‘army’ or ‘movement’. In the early 1930s, Mosley had a messianic sense of being at the start of something:
“This movement is something new in the political life of this country. Something that goes further and deeper than any other movement this land has ever known … This meeting is symbolic of the advance of the blackshirt cause in the first 20 months of its existence. In that time fascism in Great Britain has advanced more than any country in the world … [British people] desire it, a new creed and a new order in our land. A dream which elevates our nation.”
Farage said: “My intention is we build a mass movement the likes of which has never been seen in the modern history of this country. A mass movement for real change. A mass movement that reflects the views of ordinary people of this country …”
And in the words of the terminally beige Tice, at the weekend, more sleepwalking than dreaming:
“Out on the campaign trail there’s an extraordinary thing going on there … When we started there were literally five or six of us … and we did think maybe we were barking up the wrong tree … Here we are today. The biggest political rally in this campaign. We went from 0 % to the mid-teens as this election started …”
Tice – and numerous Reform supporters on social media – have repeatedly used the phrase: “Something is happening out there.” Farage, in his speech, amplified it: “I’ll tell you now, I have no doubt. Something is happening out there …”
‘The revolt’, ‘the people’s army’, ‘the movement’ – that feeling of being ‘at the start of something’ is all rhetoric out of Mosley’s playbook.
Deriding conventional politicians
Posturing egotist Mosley was dismissive of mainstream politicians. In a 1939 speech, he said:
“We are fighting for great things and great things are not lightly or easily gained … It is not the character you observe in the little men of the old parties, blown hither and thither by every gust of transient opinion … without loyalty, endurance or staying power … In the true revolutionaries, the first quality is the power to endure; constancy, loyalty to cause and country … manhood …”
Mosley’s ‘little men’ who were ‘blown hither and thither’ is reminiscent of Farage’s description of Starmer at the weekend:
“Keir Starmer has the charisma of a … well, I did use this ten years ago in the European parliament … [waits for crowd response like a geography teacher waiting for an answer. Gets none. They haven’t memorised his every word of the past decade, as he’d expected] … he has the charisma of a damp rag … he flips and flops and changes his mind …”
For Reform, the enemy is the ‘wokerati’. For Mosley, it was the socialists and anti-fascists who opposed him wherever he went.
Farage’s poor oration abilities
It was hard to stay awake during Farage’s 47-minute speech – he’s like a failing teacher who was once told they’re charismatic. His vocabulary is simple and unelaborated – not as beige as Tice’s, but close. He is a surprisingly boring speaker. The climax of any rally has to be the closing words. Comparing them, Mosley’s speeches ended like this one of 1938:
“Together in Britain we have lit a flame that the ages shall not extinguish. Guard that flame, my brother blackshirts, till it illumines Britain and lights again the path of mankind.”
Or the end of a 1935 speech:
“This flame still burns. This glory shall not die. The soul of Empire is alive, and England again dares to be great … And I claim that in the ranks of our blackshirt legends march the mighty ghosts of England’s past … and their voices echo down the ages saying ‘Onward!’”
Farage? After another flaccid foray into the culture wars, calculated to thrill the ageing gammonati, or the teenage boys who see him as the living embodiment of uber troll meme, Pepé the Frog, Farage’s speech winds up with a flat call to arms:
“What Thursday is about is the first step … Britain is broken. Britain needs reform … My intention is we build a mass movement the likes of which has never been seen in the modern history of this country. A mass movement for real change. A mass movement that reflects the views of ordinary people of this country. And I believe that we can do this. Do you believe that we can do this? Are you with us on the journey for the next four days? Are you with us on the journey for the next five years? Are we going to change British political history?”
The wrong side of history
But there’s already trouble in paradise. On the eve of general election, candidates like Liam Booth-Isherwood and Georgie David have deserted the Ship of Fools to lend their support to the Tories, citing endemic racism and sexism – contrary to the public-facing shop front of the Reform Party.
Today’s Reform ‘legends’ are maybe already moving ‘Onward’ – but not all of them in the direction the party would like. Mosley’s ‘blackshirt legends’ are long dead and forgotten. Who’d admit to being a blackshirt, years later? What came in 1939 must have rendered those years acutely shameful, for most of them.
Being on the wrong side of history is never great.
More from Pen Hemingway. And check out our Yorkshire Bylines Election Gazette:
