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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 had learned to read German during the war, was strongly influenced by a number of pamphlets discussing these ideas. [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 1938 book Tomorrow We Live he declared that BUF policy favoured 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 inspired pre-war fascism had been too narrow 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 urging full political integration [7] into a supranational European state. [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 being torn apart by 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 (Germans, British, Scandinavians, northern French, West Slavs, and East Slavs) would be the basis for national unity, whilst also declaring his admiration for the contributions of South Europeans. [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] Indeed, Europe a Nation was to include an anti-Semitic policy, with the entire Jewish population to be expelled to their own nation in Palestine. [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 throughout the continent, effectively excluding Blacks from Europe [2] and from any indigenous rule in Africa. [13] Economic autarky was a central aim, with Africa to be exploited for its mineral and food resources, as proposed by Anton Zischka. [14]
Mosley subsequently imagined the European state as regulating its prices and incomes by a "wage price mechanism" under "European Socialism", a syndical basis for the continent's industry, [15] a vision steeped in corporatism and elitism. [16] As in Fascist Italy, elections were to be corporatist with an occupation-based franchise (a previous British Union of Fascists policy), whilst "European Socialism" was to allow a free hand for business leaders but to co-ordinate workers in "labour Charter" organizations. [16]
Mosley summed up 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] Europe a Nation drew heavily on the heritage of fascism: 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 smaller and more extreme groups. [19] A.K. Chesterton, who went on to lead the LEL, was a strong critic of Europe a Nation from its first publication, preferring British nationalism. [5]
The proposal also failed to convince the British electorate, with the Union Movement enjoying minor electoral success only when they emphasised more basic anti-immigrant rhetoric. [13] Even Alexander Raven Thomson, Mosley's sycophantic lieutenant, concluded by 1950 that Europe a Nation held little attraction to British voters. The Union Movement briefly downplayed the idea, but Thomson's preferred alternative of neo-Nazism was soon abandoned as well. [20]
Within the wider European far-right, however, Europe a Nation gained some wider support. Fritz Rössler, at the time under the alias Dr. Franz Richter, became an enthusiastic supporter and attempted to make it Deutsche Reichspartei policy. He failed 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 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 of Europeanism would later be developed by Jean-François Thiriart, [25] and Alain de Benoist who founded the think tank Groupement de recherche et d'études pour la civilisation européenne in 1968. [26]
Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet, was a British aristocrat and politician who rose to fame during the 1920s and 1930s when, having become disillusioned with mainstream politics, he turned to fascism. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Harrow from 1918 to 1924 and for Smethwick from 1926 to 1931. He founded the British Union of Fascists (BUF) in 1932 and led it until its forced disbandment in 1940.
John Hutchyns Tyndall was a British neo-fascist political activist. A leading member of various small neo-Nazi groups during the late 1950s and 1960s, he was chairman of the National Front (NF) from 1972 to 1974 and again from 1975 to 1980, and then chairman of the British National Party (BNP) from 1982 to 1999. He unsuccessfully stood for election to the House of Commons and European Parliament on several occasions.
Arthur Kenneth Chesterton was a British 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.
The Greater Britain Movement was a British far right political group formed by John Tyndall in 1964 after he split from Colin Jordan's National Socialist Movement. The name of the group was derived from The Greater Britain, a 1932 book by Oswald Mosley.
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 Third Position is a set of neo-fascist political ideologies that were first described in Western Europe following the Second World War. Developed in the context of the Cold War, it developed its name through the claim that it represented a third position between the capitalism of the Western Bloc and the communism of the Eastern Bloc.
The National Socialist League (NSL) was a short-lived Nazi political movement in the United Kingdom immediately prior to the Second World War.
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.
European nationalism is a form of pan-nationalism based on a pan-European identity. It is considered minor since the National Party of Europe disintegrated in the 1970s.
The National Party of Europe (NPE) was an initiative undertaken by a number of far-right political parties in Europe during the 1960s to help increase cross-border co-operation and work towards European unity. Under the direction of Sir 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 New Swedish Movement was a far-right political movement in Sweden that emphasized strong Swedish nationalism, corporatism and anti-communism as well as a cult of personality around Per Engdahl.
The European Social Movement was a neo-fascist Europe-wide alliance set up in 1951 to promote pan-European nationalism.
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 and monthly newspaper.
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.