British Brothers' League

Last updated
British Brothers' League
Formation1901
FounderWilliam Stanley Shaw
Dissolved1923
Type Pressure group
Purpose Opposition to immigration
Location

The British Brothers' League (BBL) was a British anti-immigration, extraparliamentary, [1] pressure group, [2] the "largest and best organised" of its time. [3] Described, in the 21st century, as proto-fascist, [4] the group attempted to organise along paramilitary lines. [5]

Contents

History

The group was formed in May 1901 [6] in East London as a response to waves of immigration that had begun in 1880 and had seen a rapid increase in the numbers of Russian and Polish Jews, as well as others from Eastern Europe, into the area. [7] As a result, Captain William Stanley Shaw formed the BBL to campaign for restricted immigration with the slogan 'England for the English' and soon formed a close alliance with local Conservative MP Major Evans-Gordon. [8] Initially the League was not antisemitic and was more interested in keeping out the poorest immigrants regardless of background, although eventually Jews became the main focus. [9] The organisation promoted their cause with large meetings, which were stewarded by guards whose role was to eject opponents who entered and raised objections. [10]

Anti-immigration poster, from 1902 BritishBrothersLeaguePoster(1902).jpg
Anti-immigration poster, from 1902

The League claimed 45,000 members, although membership was actually fairly irregular as no subscriptions were charged and anyone who signed the organisation's manifesto was considered a member, with Tory MP Howard Vincent amongst them. As a result attempts to militarise the group largely failed, although the movement continued to organise demonstrations against immigrants. [9] The Aliens Act 1905, which restricted immigration, was largely seen as a success for the BBL and, as a result, the movement by and large disappeared. [8]

It officially carried on until 1923, albeit on a tiny scale, and was associated with G. K. Chesterton and the distributist movement. [11] Nonetheless, they resurfaced from time to time with new immigrant scares, and shortly before the outbreak of the First World War they received a public donation of ten shillings from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who had been caught up in a growing public swell of Germanophobia as war loomed. [12]

The league also left behind a legacy of support for far-right groups in East London and this was exploited by the British Union of Fascists, the British League of Ex-Servicemen and Women, the Union Movement and the National Front who gained followings there. [13]

References

  1. ↑ Albert Lindemann, Esau's Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews (CUP, 1997)
  2. ↑ J. A. Cloake and M. R. Tudor, Multicultural Britain (OUP, 2001)
  3. ↑ D. Glover, Literature, Immigration, and Diaspora in Fin-de-Siècle England: A Cultural History of the 1905 Aliens Act (CUP, 2012)
  4. ↑ Sam Johnson, '"Trouble Is Yet Coming!" The British Brothers League, Immigration, and Anti-Jewish Sentiment in London's East End, 1901-1903' in Robert Nemes and Daniel Unowsky (eds), Sites of European Antisemitism in the Age of Mass Politics, 1880-1918 (Brandeis University Press, 2014)
  5. ↑ Robert Benewick, The Fascist Movement in Britain (Allen Lane, 1972)
  6. ↑ Richard S. Levy (ed) Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution, Volume 1 p86 (2005)
  7. ↑ Benewick 1969, p. 25.
  8. 1 2 Barberis, McHugh & Tyldesley 2000, p. 175.
  9. 1 2 Benewick 1969, p. 26.
  10. ↑ Robert Winder, Bloody Foreigners: The Story of Immigration to Britain, Abacus, 2013, p. 258
  11. ↑ Dorril 2007, p. 350.
  12. ↑ Winder, Bloody Foreigners, p. 264
  13. ↑ Thurlow 1987, p. 108.

Bibliography

  • Barberis, Peter; McHugh, John; Tyldesley, Mike (2000). Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations: Parties, Groups and Movements of the 20th Century. A&C Black. ISBN   978-0-8264-5814-8.
  • Benewick, Robert (1969). Political Violence & Public Order: A Study of British Fascism. Allen Lane. ISBN   978-0713900859.
  • Dorril, Stephen (2007). Blackshirt: Sir Oswald Mosley and British Fascism. Penguin Books. ISBN   978-0-14-025821-9.
  • Thurlow, Richard C. (1987). Fascism in Britain: A History, 1918–1985. Blackwell. ISBN   978-0-631-13618-7.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.