The British Union of Fascists (BUF) was founded by Oswald Mosley in 1932. Within a few years, the party had gained thousands of members, and by 1934 Mosley felt confident enough to stage several large-scale public speeches. In April of that year, the BUF hosted a largely successful rally in the (Royal) Albert Hall. The next event in the series took place on 7 June at Olympia, a Victorian events venue that could hold up to 15,000 people.
The event attracted many people who were not members of the BUF but were interested to hear Mosley’s ideas, or curious about this new political movement. It was planned along the lines of Hitler’s Nuremberg rallies and Mosley set out to make it the largest, most spectacular public gathering in the history of British politics.
Fifteen thousand gathered to hear Mosley speak including young men and women in evening dress, middle-class family parties with small children, and a large gathering of workers in their working clothes and, by some accounts, about 150 Members of Parliament.
The proceedings were carefully stage-managed on an impressively theatrical level but instead of swastikas there was a profusion of Blackshirt banners bearing the ‘bolt of lightning’ symbol and Union Jacks fluttered everywhere.
But , when Mosley entered with huge pomp and fanfare and began to speak, he was booed and heckled.
A few incredibly brave antifascists had got in who had obtained tickets in an interesting way. The Daily Mail ran a competition and you could win £1 and a ticket to a Mosley rally if your letter was published in the Daily Mail but for the purposes of this competition your letter had to begin with the words: “why I like the Blackshirts”. Anti-fascists wrote spoof letters, got tickets and forged more.
When Mosley walked up to the platform through a guard of honour with a spotlight on him he had no idea demonstrators were inside as well as outside, but he had 1,000 uniformed, jackbooted, stewards, just in case. #Just three minutes into his speech a protester stood up and shouted “Down with Mussolini, down with Hitler, down with Mosley, fascism means hunger and war” and sat down again. Every three minutes a protester stood up with a similar heckle, until Mosley gave a sign.
The next time it happened the heckler was yanked out of their seat by 15 fascists who beat the living daylights out of him in front of everyone Mosley wanted to impress. It was a chaotic and violent evening – Hundreds of police did nothing to stop the violence. 80 protesters needed hospital treatment. And amid the violence, Mosley made his most anti-Semitic speech to date.
It would be left to Antifascists to mobilise and build to protect themselves, and make the blackshirts pay. One thing was certain- the fascists had revealed themselves. They were a violent, existential threat to the core.
The fascists were beaten back in the 1930s.Mosely's “respectable” support fell away and he never recovered. By May 1940 the entire Blackshirt movement had been proscribed by law and its leaders interned in prison.
I’ve got this sudden feeling of Déjà vu! Reform are revisiting … history repeats. A video from the party’s gathering in Birmingham revealed that those attending were more like a mob than delegates and showed Farageists pulling a woman protester’s hair and grabbing her head, with a man then hitting her with a metal walking stick while their Fuhrer Nigel Farage laughed from the podium.
This visual evidence should be used in the future to show students how and when Fascism has definitively broken out again in the open in British politics. Violence and hatred targeting a female protestor has exposed Reform to be a dangerously corrupt party. Nigel Farage actually encouraged this from the stage, he’s completely unfit for public office.Don't let history repeat itself.
All from from a party that claims to want to protect Women and Children, from a party that wants to remove everybody's protections by leaving the ECHR, and wants to organise in their party colours a separate security force in Essex. If you disagree with them in any way, they want to shut you down.This is fascist Reform.
Two shocking images this weekend:
1. balaclava clad far right thugs in Dover promoted by fascist Tommy Robinson and his side kick Danny Tommo are a real threat stoking fear and hatred in our communities.These people are acting on the rhetoric of Farage and co and the scapegoating of refugees and migrants by mainstream politicians and the media.
The masked Dover protest highlights how Britain’s far right is growing through an underground network, using tactics incredibly reminiscent of the Nazis, if reform gain a foothold , these thugs will be patrolling the streets, checking your ID, your sexuality, your gender, your ethnic background all to decide if you’re entitled to be here or not.
2. Zombie Fascists assaulting young women at Reform Conference for exercising the right of the Freedom of Speech that Reform claim to uphold.
This is the response to an assault by a group of people on a woman who merely heckled. Reform UK Treasury spokesperson Robert Jenrick tells a protester who appeared to have been hit by members at the party's conference to "get a life".and simply says “oh, boo hoo”.
Oswald Mosley said much the same when his Blackshirt thugs beat the shit out of hecklers at the British Union of Fascists Olympia rally in 1934.The parallels are becoming disturbingly close.
It's a fact that fascism is strategic, planned and coordinated and in the UK is funded and controlled by foreign billionaires. Reform UK are their public face. And the police appear to be complicit. Both events caught on Live National TV. We are closer to actual Fascism in England than people realise, it's time to wake up. We are on a precipice and we need to act. Let’s hope this is Farage’s Olympia moment.
You can't reform fascism. it needs to be crushed out of existence and Farage forced out of politics. We must continue to to stand not just against fascism but every manifestation of racism and authoritarianism that feeds it, and work to strengthen an anti-racist and anti-fascist majority in our society.It's never been more important.
Reform consists of the most dangerous people in UK politics. A party that will destroy the UK and will leave our great nation in ruins. They want to normalise hatred and distrust, racism and homophobia, rage and disorder, lies and rampant disinformation campaigns, discrimination and sexism, ignorance and reactionary knee-jerking fascism.
Like Trump, Reform loves under-educated people.Fascism is financed by the rich, its base the lumpenproletariat. Its first victims are its political opponents on the left, then civil society organisations, next minority groups and then everyone who stayed silent and did nothing.Say no to fascism. Say no to Reform. No Pasaran! They shall not pass!
Sigh, Reform supporters using Chumbawamba is nearly as bad as the BNP using If You Tolerate This.
Chumbawamba & Credit To The Nation - Enough Is Enough
No comments:
Post a Comment