File:Oswald Mosley and Diana Mitford (35638188926).png

Oswald Mosley and his wife, Diana Mitford, attempt to march with his Black Shirts to the East End of London on October 4, 1936.

Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet was an English politician better known for leading the British Union of Fascists during the 1930s. Shortly after having founded the New Party After, found failure to be elected MP in 1931, with the party itself becoming more radical and authoritarian, Mosley went on a study tour of Mussolini and other fascists, and returned convinced that it was the way forward for Britain. Back in the UK, he created the British Union of Fascists in 1932. The BUF was protectionist, strongly anti-communist, strongly anti-semitic, staunchly anti-zionist and nationalistic to the point of advocating authoritarianism, characteristics almost identical as National Socialism. The reason why the BUF gained almost 50,0000 members in such a short amount of time was that Mosley was known as one of the best orators in England, using his personal magnetism with fallacies and sweetening the message that he really wanted to send. He instituted a corps of blackshirts, frequently involved in violent confrontations, particularly with Communist and Jewish groups. In October 1936, Mosley and the BUF attempted to march through an area with a high proportion of Jewish residents, in order to trigger them, and violence resulted between local and nationally organised protesters trying to block the march and police trying to force it through, since called the Battle of Cable Street. Then, Mosley and the BUF retired, in something that might seem as an act of gallantry, but actually was a planned scheme. After the outbreak of war, with Mosley planning to adapt an even friendlier position to Hitler’s regime, he and his wife were interned, eventually being released in November 1943, angering much of the public. In 2005, BBC History Magazine selected Mosley as the 20th century's worst Briton [1].

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