ABSTRACT
The military and security authorities argued successfully that the general internment of enemy aliens was an absolute necessity from a military point of view. Similarly, the detention of members of the British union and the banning of that organisation in the summer of 1940 was at least partly based on the fear that British fascists might operate as a fifth column in the event of invasion. In the light of the general inability of parliamentary opposition to force changes of policy after the formation of the coalition government, it is unlikely that opposition to an extension of formal controls over the expression of opinion would have been an exception. More directly, the fear of industrial opposition was almost certainly another reason why the government’s manpower policy was based on the use of indirect pressure rather than the widespread and naked use of compulsory powers which could have been easily identified and thus more easily opposed.
