‘Tell me chum, in case I got it wrong. What was it we were fighting during the war?’ The Re-emergence of British Fascism, 1945–58

This article examines the persistence of right-wing extremism immediately after the Second World War. It considers what sort of people supported fascism after 1945 and argues that those who remained active were part of a continuous ideological thread linking the nascent fascism of the 1920s, the British Union of Fascists and the plethora of nee-fascist groups formed between the 1950s and the 1990s. During the 1940s and 1950s the Far Right was fragmented and it was less successful than in other periods. Possible reasons for this failure are assessed and it is concluded that the authorities played a greater role than has previously been acknowledged.