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Europe a Nation was a policy developed by the British fascist politician Oswald Mosley as the cornerstone of his Union Movement. It called for the integration of Europe into a single political entity. Although the idea failed to gain widespread support for the Union Movement, it proved highly influential on European far-right thought.
The idea of a united Europe began to develop in the final days of the Second World War. Concepts such as Nation Europa and Eurafrika , both of which looked for an ever-closer union between European countries, gained some currency in the German far-right underground in the immediate aftermath of the war. Mosley, who towards the end of the war had learned to read the German language, read a number of pamphlets discussing these ideas and was strongly influenced by them. [1] Another important influence was Benito Mussolini's manifesto of the Italian Social Republic, which included a call for the establishment of a European Community. [2] [3]
For his part, Mosley would later claim that he had first advocated something akin to Europe a Nation in speeches as early as 1936. [4] In Mosley's essay The World Alternative published in 1936 he wrote "We must return to the fundamental concept of European union which animated the war generation of 1918," and he proposed "the union of Europe within the universalism of the Modern Movement." It was not, however, British Union of Fascists policy at any time.[ citation needed ] In Mosley's book Tomorrow We Live published during 1938 he declared that BUF policy was in favour of a "united Europe" and a "New Europe".
Mosley first presented his idea of Europe forming a single state in his book The Alternative in 1947. [5] He argued that the traditional vision of nationalism that had been followed by the various shades of pre-war fascism had been too narrow in scope and that the post-war era required a new paradigm in which Europe would come together as a single state. [6] He rejected any notion of a federal Europe, instead calling for full integration. [7] Indeed, Mosley insisted that a supranational European state was essential to the plan. [8] The policy was presented to the wider electorate in October 1948 when Mosley called for elections to a European Assembly as the first step towards his vision. [2]
The notion also had an important geopolitical dimension as Mosley saw it as the only defence against Europe becoming the scene of the power struggles between the United States and the Soviet Union in the Cold War. [9] He contended that the racial kinship between the peoples of Northern Europe, whom he defined as the Germans, British, Scandinavians, northern French, West Slavs and East Slavs would be the basis for unity, whilst also declaring his admiration for the contributions of the South European peoples. [10]
He was opposed to both the United Nations and its predecessor the League of Nations, dismissing both as part of a Jewish plot to undermine nationalism. [11] As such, Europe a Nation was to include an anti-Semitic dimension, with the entire Jewish population of Europe to be expelled to Palestine, where they could decide their own fate. [12]
Africa, most of which was still in the hands of the European colonial empires, was to be retained by the united Europe as a giant colony, with apartheid implemented on a continental basis, effectively excluding Blacks from Europe. [2] Notions of any indigenous rule in Africa were excluded altogether from the idea. [13] With autarky a central aim of Europe a Nation, Africa was to be exploited by the new state for its mineral and food resources. In this aspect, Mosley was heavily influenced by the works of Anton Zischka. [14]
Mosley subsequently built upon the policy by calling for the European state to have its prices and incomes regulated by a "wage price mechanism", whilst also calling for "European Socialism", a syndical style organisation basis for the continent's industry. [15] Effectively though the vision he presented was one that was highly steeped in corporatism and elitism. [16] Elections were to be corporatist in nature with an occupation-based franchise (previously a British Union of Fascists policy) whilst "European Socialism" was to include an effective free hand for business leaders but the co-ordination of workers in bodies called "labour Charters", a policy borrowed from Fascist Italy. [16]
Mosley summed up the arguments himself by stating that 'no lesser degree of union than that of an integral nation can give the will and power to act on the great scale.... No lesser space than all Europe, and the overseas possessions of Europe in a common pool, can give the room within which to act effectively'. [17] However Europe a Nation drew heavily on the existing heritage of fascism and indeed Graham Macklin has argued that it "merely adapted and enlarged the parameters of his fascist panacea to suit the times, and is thus easily recognisable as 'Fascist'". [18]
Mosley expanded upon his ideas for a single integrated European nation state and a European government in his book Europe: Faith and Plan published in 1958.
Within the UK, the notion of Europe a Nation largely failed to attract the younger far-right activists, most of whom deserted Mosley in favour of the League of Empire Loyalists (LEL) and other more minor and more extreme groups. [19] A.K. Chesterton, who went on to lead the LEL, was a strong critic of Europe a Nation from 1947 when The Alternative was first published, preferring to emphasise British nationalism. [5]
The policy also failed to capture the minds of the British electorate, with the Union Movement enjoying comparative success in voting terms only when they emphasised more basic anti-immigrant rhetoric. [13] Even Alexander Raven Thomson, one of Mosley's closest lieutenants and noted for his sycophantic attitudes towards his leader, eventually told Mosley in 1950 that Europe a Nation held little attraction to British voters. As a consequence, the Union Movement briefly downplayed the idea, although Thomson's preferred alternative, neo-Nazism, was soon abandoned as well when it proved equally unpalatable to the electorate. [20]
Within the wider European far-right, however, Europe a Nation did gain some wider currency. Fritz Rössler, at the time going by the alias Dr. Franz Richter, became an enthusiastic supporter of the idea and attempted to make it Deutsche Reichspartei policy. He failed in this attempt and was expelled from the party, decamping to the Socialist Reich Party instead. [21] For a time it also had the support of Adolf von Thadden, who helped Mosley to organise the National Party of Europe, a largely failed attempt to build a continental Europe a Nation political party. [22] Ultimately however the plan's main supporter in Germany proved to be Arthur Erhardt, who established the journal Nation Europa to support far-right pan-European nationalist ideas, to which Mosley was a frequent contributor. [23]
Outside Germany it also gained some currency within the Italian Social Movement, although by the early 1950s that wing of the party lost influence, the Italian nationalist arm gaining supremacy. [24] Similar ideas would later be developed by Jean-François Thiriart and others interested in Europeanism [25] whilst Europe a Nation was also an important influence on the thinking of Alain de Benoist and in particular the work of the think tank Groupement de recherche et d'études pour la civilisation européenne which he established in 1968. [26]
Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet was a British politician during the 1920s and 1930s who rose to fame when, having become disillusioned with mainstream politics, he turned to fascism. He was a member of parliament and later founded and led the British Union of Fascists (BUF).
Arthur Kenneth Chesterton was a British far-right journalist and political activist. From 1933 to 1938, he was a member of the British Union of Fascists (BUF). Disillusioned with Oswald Mosley, he left the BUF in 1938. Chesterton established the League of Empire Loyalists in 1954, which merged with a short-lived British National Party in 1967 to become the National Front. He founded and edited the magazine Candour in 1954 as the successor of Truth, of which he had been co-editor.
The White Defence League (WDL) was a British neo-Nazi political party. Using the provocative marching techniques popularised by Oswald Mosley, its members included John Tyndall.
Arnold Spencer Leese was a British fascist politician. Leese was initially prominent as a veterinary expert on camels. A virulent anti-Semite, he led his own fascist movement, the Imperial Fascist League, and was a prolific author and publisher of polemics both before and after the Second World War.
The Imperial Fascist League (IFL) was a British fascist political movement founded by Arnold Leese in 1929 after he broke away from the British Fascists. It included a blackshirted paramilitary arm called the Fascists Legion, modelled after the Italian Fascists. The group espoused antisemitism and the dominance of the 'Aryan race' in a 'Racial Fascist Corporate State', especially after Leese met Nazi Party propagandist Julius Streicher, the virulently racist publisher of Der Stürmer; the group later indirectly received funding from the Nazis. Although it had only between 150 and 500 members at maximum, its public profile was higher than its membership numbers would indicate.
The National Fascisti (NF), renamed British National Fascists (BNF) in July 1926, were a splinter group from the British Fascisti formed in 1924. In the early days of the British Fascisti the movement lacked any real policy or direction and so this group split away with the intention of pursuing a more definite path towards a fascist state. The group had 60 members at its creation, and around 500 at its height.
The National Socialist League (NSL) was a short-lived Nazi political movement in the United Kingdom immediately prior to the Second World War.
John Warburton Beckett was a British politician who was a Labour Party MP from 1924 to 1931. During the 1930s, he joined the fascist movement, first in the British Union of Fascists and later as a founder of the National Socialist League. During World War II, he was interned in Britain.
Rotha Beryl Lintorn Lintorn-Orman was the founder of the British Fascisti, the first avowedly fascist movement to appear in British politics.
Edward Jeffrey Hamm was a leading British fascist and supporter of Oswald Mosley. Although a minor figure in Mosley's prewar British Union of Fascists, Hamm became a leading figure after the Second World War and eventually succeeded as leader of the Union Movement after Mosley's retirement.
Alexander Raven Thomson, usually referred to as Raven, was a Scottish politician and philosopher. He joined the British Union of Fascists in 1933 and remained a follower of Oswald Mosley for the rest of his life. Thomson was considered to be the party's chief ideologue and has been described as the "Alfred Rosenberg of British fascism".
The British People's Party (BPP) was a British far-right political party founded in 1939 and led by ex-British Union of Fascists (BUF) member and Labour Party Member of Parliament John Beckett.
The National Party of Europe (NPE) was an initiative undertaken by a number of political parties in Europe during the 1960s to help increase cross-border co-operation and work towards European unity. Under the direction of Oswald Mosley, a pre-war British fascist leader who returned to politics after the Second World War, the group aimed to bring together and merge a number of far-right groups from across the continent, all of which shared at least some commitment to a wider pan-European nationalism. The group failed to achieve its aims as most of its member groups preferred to maintain their independence.
The European Social Movement was a neo-fascist Europe-wide alliance set up in 1951 to promote pan-European nationalism.
Jorian Edward Forwood Jenks was an English farmer, environmentalism pioneer and fascist. He has been described as "one of the most dominant figures in the development of the organic movement".
British fascism is the form of fascism which is promoted by some political parties and movements in the United Kingdom. It is based on British ultranationalism and imperialism and had aspects of Italian fascism and Nazism both before and after World War II.
The Union Movement (UM) was a far-right political party founded in the United Kingdom by Oswald Mosley. Before the Second World War, Mosley's British Union of Fascists (BUF) had wanted to concentrate trade within the British Empire, but the Union Movement attempted to stress the importance of developing a European nationalism, rather than a narrower country-based nationalism. That has caused the UM to be characterised as an attempt by Mosley to start again in his political life by embracing more democratic and international policies than those with which he had previously been associated. The UM has been described as post-fascist by former members such as Robert Edwards, the founder of the pro-Mosley European Action, a British pressure group.
Neil Lanfear Maclean Francis Hawkins was a British writer and politician who was a leading proponent of British fascism in the United Kingdom both before and after the Second World War. He played a leading role in the British Union of Fascists and controlled the organisational structure of the movement.
Robert Row (1915–1999) was an English fascist from Lancaster, a member of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists (BUF) who was detained by the British government under Defence Regulation 18B during the Second World War. After the war, he wrote and edited British fascist publications and remained a believer in Mosley until his death.