The Elephant in the Committee Room

All is not well in Tory circles, many have commented to the Dame that the name Mosley isn't going down too well with those old enough to remember, or with a modicum of intelligence to link them. They all agree young Louis is a nice enough chap, and that they are sure he doesn't follow his family tradition from yester-year, however, they simply cannot for the life of them vote for a Mosley. Oh dear. Things have got so bad, even party members who are canvassed are pretending to be out so they dont have to lie on the doorstep!

For those who dont know, where have you been?

The Tatler Book Starlet is the gt.grandson of the 6th Baronet of Ancoats, Sir Oswald Mosley leading light of the British Union of Fascists. Gt.Grandfather was elected to Parliament twice, and even held a post in the Labour Government of 1929-31.  Elected as a Tory in 1918 for Harrow, before crossing the floor to Labour in 1922. He was re-elected in 1926 for Smethick until 1931.  Following disillusionment, caused primarily by the then Labour leader dismissing his ideas for dealing with unemployment, Oswald formed the New Party in 1931 and the conversion to National Socialism began.

Mosley, who was entitled "The Leader" wanted to replace Parliament with executives representing sections of industry, forbid trade outside the British Empire, and reduce the Commons to make it faster and less factionalist. In the mid 1930's the BUF's violent activities and its alignment with the German Nazi Party began to alienate most middle-class supporters.

With lack of electoral success, the party drew away from mainstream politics and towards extreme antisemitism over 1934-1935. Its provocative antisemitic activity in London led to serious, often violent, conflict, most famously at the Battle of Cable Street in October 1936, when over 100,000 anti-Fascists of English, Irish, Jewish and Somali (amongst others) descent successfully prevented the fascists from marching through London's East End.

In May 1940, the BUF was banned outright by the government, and Mosley, along with 740 other fascists, was interned for much of World War II.

After the war Mosley formed the Union Movement, calling for a single nation-state covering the continent of Europe (known as Europe a Nation).  The Union Movement's meetings were often physically disrupted, as Mosley's meetings had been before the war, and largely by the same opponents. This led to Mosley's decision, in 1951, to leave Britain and live in Ireland. He later moved to Paris. Of his decision to leave, he said, "You don't clear up a dungheap from underneath it."

Mosley briefly returned to Britain in order to fight the 1959 general election at Kensington North, shortly after the 1958 Notting Hill race riots. Concerns over immigration were beginning to come into the spotlight for the first time and Mosley led his campaign on this issue. Indeed, many North Ken residents still remember his blackshirts running riot in the streets, and accused them or their supporters of the stabbing of law student Kelso Cochrane, the first recorded racist murder.
His wife, a Mitford, still years after the War was complimentary about Hitler, as was her sister, Unity.
What the hell was the matter with these people. Could they not see evil staring them in the face?

Now of course no one suggests that the young Scipio Louis shares these disgraceful views, nor that he harbours any resentment to those who attack the stance of his predecessors. We cant blame the generations after for the actions, words, beliefs and crimes of those who came before. But it is a family name that will be forever linked with the horror of war, and the millions of people who unimaginably suffered, and were murdered in the most appalling of places driven by the most abhorrent of beliefs.

Interestingly Robert Skidelsky published in 1975 a biography of Oswald Mosley which was widely criticised for being too soft on this extreme right wing politician and Nazi sympathiser.

Hornet learns Lord Skidelsky was sponsoring member for one Louis Mosley according to the Parliamentary records (read it here), so it is even more important the Young Louis confirms that what we all suspect, the clear distance in his own political beliefs to that of his gt.grandfather, despite his association to the person who was refused tenure at John Hopkins University for letting Oswald Mosley off so lightly.