Action was a newspaper of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists (BUF). The paper first appeared in 1936. The editor of the paper from 1939 was Alexander Raven Thomson, the BUF's chief ideologue. [1] It ceased publication in 1940 [2] due to the outbreak of the Second World War and the internment of the BUF's leadership. In fact the British government banned the paper. [2] For most of its existence, Action ran parallel to the official mouthpiece of the BUF, The Blackshirt . After the launch of the less hard-line and more intellectual Action, The Blackshirt became more low-brow and finally ceased publication in 1939. [3]
Action took its name from an earlier 1931 newspaper of the same name published by Mosley's New Party.
A later newspaper of the same name was published by the Union Movement from 1966. [4]
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).
The British Union of Fascists (BUF) was a British fascist political party formed in 1932 by Oswald Mosley. Mosley changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists in 1936 and, in 1937, to the British Union. In 1939, following the start of the Second World War, the party was proscribed by the British government and in 1940 it was disbanded.
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 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, modeled 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 Socialist League (NSL) was a short-lived Nazi political movement in the United Kingdom immediately before the Second World War.
Hastings William Sackville Russell, 12th Duke of Bedford was a British peer. He was born at Cairnsmore House, Minnigaff, Kirkcudbrightshire the son of Herbrand Russell, 11th Duke of Bedford and his wife Mary Du Caurroy Tribe, DBE, RRC, FLS, the aviator and ornithologist. He was known for both his career as a naturalist and for his involvement in far-right politics.
Thomas P. Moran was a leading member of the British Union of Fascists and a close associate of Oswald Mosley. Initially a miner, Moran later became a qualified engineer. He joined the Royal Air Force at 17 and later served in the Royal Naval Reserve as an engine room artificer.
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".
Mary Raleigh Richardson was a Canadian suffragette active in the women's suffrage movement in the United Kingdom, an arsonist, a socialist parliamentary candidate and later head of the women's section of the British Union of Fascists (BUF) led by Sir Oswald Mosley.
British fascism is the form of fascism promoted by some political parties and movements in the United Kingdom. It is based on British ultranationalism, and had aspects of Italian fascism and Nazism both before and after World War II.
The Scottish Democratic Fascist Party (SDFP) or Scottish Fascist Democratic Party was a political party in Scotland. It was founded in 1933 out of the Scottish section of the New Party by William Weir Gilmour and Major Hume Sleigh.
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.
Henry Maxence Cavendish Drummond Wolff, commonly known as Henry Drummond Wolff, was a British Conservative Party politician. Drummond Wolff was known for his close ties to the far right.
James Larratt Battersby was a British fascist and pacifist, and a member of the Battersby family of hatmakers of Stockport, Greater Manchester, England. He was forced to retire from the family firm due to his politics and was interned by the British government during the Second World War along with other British fascists. During his detention he came to believe that Adolf Hitler was Christ returned, and after the war wrote The Holy Book and Testament of Adolf Hitler. He committed suicide by leaping into the paddle wheels of a ferry.
The Blackshirt was the official newspaper of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists (BUF) from 1933 until 1936. After the launch of Action in 1936, The Blackshirt declined in importance. An attempt was made to reorganise it as a regional paper in "Southern", "East London" and "Northern" editions. From June 1939 it became the British Union News. Due to the outbreak of war the BUF decided to concentrate all its journalistic resources on Action and Blackshirt ceased publication. The paper also incorporated the short-lived The Fascist Week (1933–34).
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.
The Friends of Oswald Mosley (FOM) is the last vestige of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists (BUF) and its successors, the Union Movement and the Action Party.
The Battle of South Street was a riot that took place on 9 October 1934 in Worthing, Sussex, England. The riot took place as members of the British Union of Fascists and various anti-fascist protesters clashed following a meeting of Fascists at the Pier Pavilion. The riot involved a series of clashes along and close to the length of South Street from the Pier Pavilion and the Royal Arcade at its southern end to the junctions with Warwick Street and Market Street further north.