ABSTRACT
British fascism was among the weakest manifestations of fascism in interwar Europe. During the 1920s and in the years immediately following the Wall Street Crash, it was represented by a number of minority parties, highly marginalized in terms of contemporary politics, lacking influence within the existing political system and scarcely capable of achieving significant political impact outside it. Even the British Union of Fascists (BUF), whose formation in 1932 inaugurated a new, more expansive phase under a more effective leader, Sir Oswald Mosley, failed to make a decisive impact upon British politics. Electorally, the BUF failed to elect a single MP or even a single local councillor. As an extra-parliamentary movement it failed to mobilize sufficient support or find a suitable occasion to exercise a major influence on domestic politics during the 1930s. The BUF thus represents an important example of a European fascist movement ‘squeezed out’ as a significant force in both conventional and extra-parliamentary politics.
