In the summer of 1962, Sir Oswald Mosley decided to make a return visit to the East End of London. At his side was his 22-year-old son, Max.

Oswald must have known there would be trouble. When the notorious Blackshirts of his pre-war political party, the British Union of Fascists, attempted to march through the East End in 1936, there were pitched battles with Jewish residents. Scores of people were injured.

This time he was back with his new far-right outfit, the Union Movement, and again threatening to march through an area, Dalston, which at that time had a large Jewish population. The chant of the marchers, according to Time magazine, was “Jews out”.

In the violence that followed Oswald Mosley was knocked to the ground and his son was filmed lashing out. Max was among those arrested, but was acquitted in court after arguing that he had been attempting only to defend his father.

Max Mosley accused by Daily Mail of publishing racist leaflet in 1960s Read more

Fast-forward 56 years, and Max Mosley’s half-forgotten past as a supporter of his father’s far-right movement, and allegations about his “racist and thuggish past”, have been paraded over 11 pages of the Daily Mail and led to a bruising interview on Channel 4 News.

Infamously, the Mail also flirted briefly with support for fascism in the 1930s. But Mosley has found himself on the receiving end of the newspaper’s attentions not because he is his father’s son, nor because of anything he did or did not do during his long years as president of the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile, the governing body of Formula One motor racing. He is in the line of fire because he is a leading combatant in the battle over the future of press regulation after the Leveson inquiry.

He may well have taken no interest in such matters, had the defunct News of the World not exposed his involvement in a sadomasochistic orgy in 2008. Mosley sued the newspaper for breach of privacy, and won. Since then he has financially supported victims of phone hacking, and a charity backed by a Mosley family trust is the principal backer of Impress, the controversial state-approved regulator of the press shunned by the Mail and every other national newspaper.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The ‘Vote Hesketh’ leaflet published by Max Mosley. Photograph: Handout

Mosley and the Mail have been at daggers drawn for years, but the final straw appears to have been Mosley’s threat to use the Data Protection Act to sue news organisations that continue to refer to the orgy, even though it was at the heart of the court case that is itself central to the battle for the future of press regulation.

Under the headline “Man with a genius for forgetting”, the Mail has now taken the battle to Mosley.

The newspaper’s most damning discovery was a leaflet that the Union Movement produced during a byelection in Manchester Moss Side in 1961, when Max Mosley was the party’s local election agent. The leaflet suggested that “coloured immigrants” were spreading tuberculosis, venereal disease and leprosy, and threatening children’s health – and it also bore the words “published by Max Mosley”. Questioned by Channel 4, Mosley conceded that the leaflet “probably is racist”, but insisted he had no cause to apologise.

Both the Mail and Channel 4 have asked Mosley whether he perjured himself when he sued the News of the World. During the case, he told the newspaper’s lawyers that he had no recollection of any such leaflet, adding: “If there was such a leaflet you would be able to produce it.”

Mosley told Channel 4 that he “would not dream” of lying under oath. He also said: “You are entitled as you get older to change your view.”

In his 2015 memoir, Mosley says his father’s politics “had been largely peripheral to my life” until 1959, when Oswald Mosley returned from self-imposed exile in France to stand in Kensington North at that year’s general election.

The previous year this area had been the scene of the Notting Hill disturbances and Oswald Mosley appeared to believe the time was ripe to rebuild the British fascist movement.

According to Oswald’s most recent biographer, Stephen Dorril, Max had set up a Union Movement office in the Notting Hill area. In one photograph taken at the time, Max can be seen with what appears to be a cut on one knuckle of his right hand and a plaster on his left.

Max was disappointed that his father failed to win the seat. “He would have livened up the House of Commons,” he wrote in his memoir.

“I can only describe my father as I saw him,” he added. “He was an excellent if rather distant parent who was always interesting, as well as interested, and I enjoyed his company.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Max Mosley believes he has no reason to apologise for ‘probably racist’ byelection leaflet. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images

“My political instincts from an early age can crudely be described as liberal and slightly left. But in my youth I nevertheless agreed with my father’s ideas. If this appears contradictory it might perhaps seem less so to anyone who reads his books.”

Max Mosley says he left the Union Movement in 1963, the year after the disturbances in Dalston. He says it was in part a response to the introduction of immigration controls. Dorril says the party had failed to make the breakthrough it had hoped for, and he appears to have become disillusioned.

“It seems Max decided to go off and make some money,” he said. “He had party political ambitions but realised that he would be forever tainted with his father’s name. He was a motor racing enthusiast and felt safer in that sport where his name wasn’t a problem.”