Francis Beckett

Britain can be as prone to fascism as any other nation

There’s nothing about the British psyche that guards against extremism, but our demagogues have been too busy fighting each other to make much impact

Oswald Mosley holds forth. Credit: Getty Images 
issue 11 April 2020

It’s easy to dismiss the fascistic ideologues who populate Graham Macklin’s book as reactionary cranks of no significance. It’s also a mistake. Fascists have edged uncomfortably close to the mainstream of British politics ever since the British Union of Fascists was founded in 1932 by Oswald Mosley, who two years earlier had been a government minister.

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