The British Union of Fascists (BUF), later renamed the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists in 1936,[1] was a political party of the 1930s in the United Kingdom. The party was formed on October 1, 1932 by ex-Conservative Party MP, and Labour government minister Sir Oswald Mosley after meeting Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini in January 1932. The party was a union, composed of several smaller Fascist parties including the New Party which Mosley founded a year earlier.



Mosley instituted a black uniform, gaining the party the nickname Blackshirts. The BUF was anti-communist and protectionist. It supported the replacement of parliamentary democracy with a system of elected executives with jurisdiction over their own industries - something similar to the corporatism of the Italian fascists. Although unlike Italy the British Fascist Corporatism would remain a democracy, replacing the House of Lords with elected executives drawn from major industries, clergy and representatives of the colonies. The House of Commons was to be reduced in size to allow for a faster, less 'factionist democracy'. Many of the BUF's members were drawn from aristocratic and military families and included celebrated military scientist J.F.C. Fuller.



The BUF had the most developed political programme and ideology of any fascist movement, laid out in such publications as Tomorrow We Live, and The Coming Corporate State.



Most of the BUFs policies were based around isolationism, an economic policy whereby Britain would trade only within the British empire as would the nations within the empire in a similar manner to the United States of America, the main attraction to this is that it would separate the British economy from the falls and fluxes of the world market Great Depression and prevent the loss of industrial production within Britain from the influence of "... labour the east, paid a third of our wages and working for ten hours a day.", and "Cheap slave competition from abroad." These were referring to the rise of western backed mass production in Indo-China similar to what is said about Chinese labour today.



The position of the BUF on the Jewish Question was initially similar to that of Mussolini, however violent attacks and agitations by numerous Jews (imported in from Eastern Europe), trying to destroy the party and drag Britain into WWII for the interests of their tribe meant increased hostility. They were eventually banned from joining in 1933.



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