ABSTRACT
During the 1930s, Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists had failed dismally (Eatwell 1995; Thurlow, 1998). After 1945, most extreme right groups – with the brief exception of the National Front (NF) in the 1970s – fared no better in electoral terms. Various arguments have been proposed to explain this historic weakness of the British extreme right. Many stress structuralist factors, for example the claim that Britain has been less affected than some European neighbours by sudden socioeconomic changes, such as major depression. Another common approach is to focus on political culture, stressing factors like the prophylactic powers of deep-rooted democratic values and the association of Britishness with anti-fascism. Political science ‘institutionalists’ stress more the importance of First Past the Post (FPTP) elections to party system stability (Eatwell 2000; for a broader discussion of theories of extreme right support see Eatwell, 2003). However, the general conclusion was the same – namely, that the British extreme right was doomed electorally.
