April 11, 2019 • 48 mins
In Part Two, Robert is joined again by Katy Stoll and Cody Johnston to discuss Oswald Mosley.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
M We're back Behind the Bastards podcast, Bad People talk
about Him. I'm Robert Evans. There's a part two of
our episode on Oswald Moseley. So don't listen to this
unless you listen to the episode one fucking Maniac. Guess
you're unless you're a maniac, in which case I enjoy
watching all the episodes in reserve reverse order for no
(00:22):
good reason. If you play them backwards, I will tell
you to do drugs and worship the devil. But I
did that. I tell you that you're supposed to play
backwards while you're watching. Either way, do do drugs and
worship the devil. That's just common force, which did my
(00:44):
guests today, as with last time, Cody Johnston Katie Stole,
did not mix up your first names this time. Yes, Hi, sorry,
thank you? No, No, I mean I. It was awful.
It was an awful traumatic I don't want to relive
it with the nine eleven of of this podcast episode.
But we've moved on. We will never forget, but we're
(01:05):
moving on like we did from nine eleven into into
an eighteen year long, six trillion dollar war. This is
the second year this this this episode is the second
year of the eighteen year when we're all still kind
of on board. We'll get it, we'll get it. Yeah, Yeah,
I'm excited for the point where we all watched three
hundred and take like a message about the war on
(01:27):
terror away from it. But this conversation, this has gotten
off track. We've got the coffee mate back on the table.
One pump, one cream, obviously, I just I feel so
guilty that it wasn't on the table before. Yeah, I
mean I felt it, but I didn't want to. Let's
re record the last episode. Let's let's do it. Let's
(01:48):
re record the last episode. Just pretend we mentioned one pump,
one cream, an awful lot. Well, we're always thinking about it.
We're always thinking about it. The thing is is that's true.
I think about it a lot now because one pump
is in fact one cream, doesn't have very good stain.
One pump is one cream. One puppets one cream. You
know who wouldn't have agreed with that? Oh a little fascist.
(02:11):
Oh it was actually six ft two, don't say it
named Oswald Mosley six ft to Oswald. Tommy Mosely didn't
think that one pump was one cream. I don't think
he did. I don't think he did. I was on
board with this guy, but now I'm having some second thoughts.
Now you're questioning his well I liked. I mean, like
Britain first, you know, you gotta put your people the
(02:32):
first absolutely, And I was listening it was like, it
sounds like this guy is probably gonna be on board
with one pump. One's great piloting except for that one time.
But he's trying to impress his mom. I think she
would have been more impressed if one of his pumps
had equaled one cream. But I think she wants a
f I think she wants a few more pumps before
(02:54):
they're British. Oh that's true. Appointed, Yeah, Well, because you
know the women are supposed to lie down to think
of England, right, isn't that the phrase? So if one
pump is one cream, that's what Actually, that's less thinking
of England. I'm very confused. Now, one pump, one cream,
one nation, what nice? Right? Nice one nation cream, first cream,
(03:17):
first growth. Guys really starting out top. But one day
we're gonna get invited onto Cometown. I don't know what
that podcast, but I know there's a podcast called come
to It's terrible uh, it sounds like something we're great.
It could be really don't know. It could be great.
(03:39):
They could be talking about one pump one cream right now.
They could be, and if so, I support them. I
was tapping my favorites on the table. It doesn't translate
to the audio media performance right here. It does make
me feel more confident, though. Yeah, I'm sure everyone's loving this.
What do you Sophie's otten up from her table. She's
(04:02):
showing me a laptop of the Come Boys full description.
That's the cometown of fall Okay, all right? As up?
I bet they make a hundred thousand dollars a month.
They deserve it creams. I wonder how many pumps are
(04:25):
in this nestly coffee, Mate, There's only one way to
find out. I think we figured out a great idea
for bonus content. We're canceling this episode. We're just gonna
find out. You can learn about Mosley later. Looks like
it's about three hundred three hundo. Sounds better if you
say hondo thirty days after opening. I feel like it's
been more than thirty days since we were no. But
(04:48):
we don't know why it was opened. We don't know
what it was opened. So back to Oswald Mosley Oswald
tom mos six. Anti Semitism was obviously the cornerstone of
German fascism, but it was not nearly as prominent in
Italian or Spanish fascism. Those sorts of attitudes were still
quite common in both countries, but it was more the
(05:09):
result of centuries of bigotry rather than the highly evolved
elimination is anti semitism practiced by the Nazis. Mosley, in
public at least declared that anti Semitism was completely separate
from fascism. He refused to let the BUF distribute anti
Semitic propaganda, which led to one of his further right
opponents in the Imperial Fascist League to declare the British
Union of Fascists the British Junion Fascists. Oh dig, but
(05:35):
did you get it? Because it's his union, but he
made it. Why did it even get that part? React again? Yes,
I feel like that's what it deserves. Yeah, let it.
In ninety three, mostly give a statement to the Jewish
Chronicle in which he swore that quote anti Semitism forms
(05:57):
no part of the policy of this organization, and anti
semit propaganda is forbidden. But while the propaganda was forbidden,
anti Semites themselves were very much allowed in the b UF.
One of their most notorious speakers was also one of
England's most notorious racists. William Brooke Joyce was an Anglo
Irish firebrand who got his political start working as a
courier for British Army intelligence against the Irish Republican Army
(06:20):
In the mid twenties, he became a conservative political activist.
During a nineteen meeting for a candidate he supported, Joyce
claims he was slashed across the cheek by a Jewish
communist with a razor blade, leaving a prominent scar that
he'd have for the rest of his life. Joyce's biographer
talked to his first wife, who claimed, quote, it wasn't
a Jewish communist who disfigured him. He was knifed by
(06:40):
an Irish woman. Good on you, Irish woman. He probably
deserved it. Yeah, I mean, you know, I a lot
of problems with the IRA, but in in nineteen thirties,
not the guys on the wrong side of the conflict.
Different story later on. But that's another behind the bat
(07:03):
that's another behind the bastards. Yeah, Joyce would later gain
prominence in life as Lord Haha, broadcasting pro Nazi propaganda
from Germany into England during the course of the war.
He was executed in nineteen forty six for these crimes,
but during the nineteen thirties he was a member of
the b UF and its first prominent anti Semite. According
to the Death of British Fascism quote, BUF policy initially
(07:24):
forced Joyce to temper his violently anti Semitic views. Moseley's
position on anti Semitism was clear it was irrelevant to fascism.
Despite this handicap to Joyce's ideology, his talent for incisive
rhetorics soon made him the most renowned speaker in the BUF,
after Moseley himself. So Joyce was made the BUFS propaganda
director in nineteen thirty four. He gradually started to pepper
(07:44):
in more and more anti Semitism with his pro fascist rants.
He repeatedly stated that the core of all Britain's problems
was Jewish people. He ranted about quote a two pronged
Jewish advance by means of capitalism and communism towards world domination.
M Yeah, there we go. We only need one well
and you know, capitalism and communism are clearly two prongs
(08:05):
of the same four, the third prong of which is bitcoin.
They didn't have a term for it that they didn't have.
They hadn't figured it out. It was still waiting to
get mined at a numbers. We hadn't discovered bitcoin, We
hadn't discovered communism, capitalism work. I feel like we figured
(08:27):
that out now. Joyce was far from the only inveterate
racist in the British Union Fascists. Many of Mosley's earliest
followers were supper anti Jewish. I spelled it that way
you do when pump is one cream. Now. When he
was questioned about this, Mosley would claim that these men
were allowed in the BUF because he knew that, in
spite of their bigotry, they wanted to move past that
(08:48):
into a bigger and better fight. How do you reason
with that? Nonsense? That's nonsense. I mean, reasoning might be
a strong word for what you do with it. Think, Think,
it really leads to the better things. I guess that's
how you reason it. Nonsense. Yeah, you might reason it
with like I don't know, I mean on the phone,
(09:10):
I want to talk to respond to it. But Yeah,
where's your justification? Right? Like, it's just nonsense and I
want to have I think they needed talking to. I
think you're you're gonna give it talking to anti semitism.
I think I think I would like to talk to
anti semitism from on the horn. Let's see what we
can get hello, concept of anti semitism. Cody, Cody would
(09:32):
like to talk to you. He's on speaker, Um, what
come on, what are you doing? They're trying to give
a way to be the voice of anti Semitism without
just like saying anti semitic propertly. Yeah, yeah, it's a
problematic problem. You probably just move on from this bit. Sure,
my point being that's nonsense, it's it's it's not point
(09:55):
taken well. Mosley continue to assert that anti Semitism had
no place in his party. The realities in this street
were quite different. British Jews and fascist activists clashed constantly
in the back alleys and by ways of London. In
April nineteen thirty three, London police arrested seven b UF
members and six Jewish people for disturbing the piece. The
fascist had been out selling copies of black shirt in
a new in a Jewish neighborhood. They had been attacked
(10:17):
by a group of local Jews who knew damn what
what was going on in Germany and didn't believe a
word of Mosley's were non fascist line. Everyone involved was arrested,
but nobody was charged. This barked another street fight a
week later, when twelve members of the BUF returned to
the same street corner to hawk their racist wears. Three
of the fascists were injured and one was hospitalized. Eight
Jews were arrested. The officer who booked them noted that
(10:39):
the fascist had been extremely provocative prior to the fight.
Incidents like this and even bloodier than this, grew more
common as the BU of expanded and slid further towards
outright racism. Although it sounds to me like the anti
fascists here, the violent ones, it does. It sounds like
these guys were just handing out some anti Jewish propaganda
in a Jewish neighborhood of an ideology that was leading
(11:01):
to Jewish people being put in camps in another country
not very far away, and then these violent people decided
to attack them. Yeah, the first part of what you said,
I mean, you use too many words to just describe
its free speech, free speech. They were doing a free speech.
They were doing a free spee were doing a free
speech and these months shut up like and hated their
(11:22):
free speech for no reason. Yeah, they did the hate
speech they did. They did hate speech against their free
speech because they see what they were saying. I never
thought i'd I'd be supportive of fascism, but here we are.
It's just, you know, free speech. We don't need to
analyze the question of free speech anymore than that. And
there's no way in which advocating for an ideology that
(11:42):
led to six million people being burnt alive in in ovens,
uh and gas to death and such, there's no there's
no way in which that is. Advocating for that speech
is comparable to yelling fire in a crowded theater. No, no, no,
I in no way, shape or form. I couldn't. I
couldn't even like, uh describe it in a way that
that could be argued. Yeah, let's read the next pair.
(12:06):
The Jewish community in England was divided as to how
to respond to the b UF. Some people obviously preferred
punching fascists to dialogue, but many felt like the violence
was counterproductive. On August fourth, nineteen thirty three, the Jewish
Chronicle called Jewish attacks on BUF activists wicked and stupid.
This condemnation was not enough to change most people's beliefs
that fascism had to be confronted violently in the streets
(12:27):
rather than debated. The b UF's official turning point towards open,
proud anti Semitism was the Olympia Rally, which is the
rally we talked about in the last episode of All
the Disruptors. Moseley gave his first anti Jewish address on
October nineteen thirty four. This marked the very first time
he referenced the Jews and a speech saying, quote, the Jews,
more than any other single force in this country, are
(12:48):
carrying on a violent propaganda against us. Oswald Mosley then stated,
with zero evidence that thirty two of the thirty four
people convicted for violent attacks on fascists had been Jewish.
Moseley claimed that in total, Jewish people were responsible for
fifty percent of all attacks on his men. Now, it's
hard to say how much of this was ideological based
on deeply felt beliefs, and how much of it was
(13:09):
just due to soulless politicking the Death of British Fascism
notes quote. Much of the shift in ideology can be
attributed to an effort to win over the urban working class,
mostly hope to fill a niche in anti immigrant propaganda
present in Britain for decades. Organizations such as the British
Brothers League had gained significant following in urban areas in
previous years. Formed the nineteen o two, the League espoused
in anti Semitic platform seeking to limit Jewish immigration from
(13:31):
Eastern Europe. Its limited success can be attributed to the
traditional friction of the working class with large immigrant populations
during times of scarcity. Perceived competition over jobs, customers, and
culture led to reactions from native Britain's conditions in nineteen
thirty four were ripe for this kind of clash and
mostly hope to capitalize with a new Britain for the
British policy, thereby further marginalizing British Jewish immigrants. Yeah, lot,
(13:58):
but nothing like anything that ever happened afterwards. Britain for Britain,
for British people. Um, did you know that like Jewishness
and immigrants and Marxism are all the same thing? Well,
of course, Cody. But because of the of the famous
Jew Carl Marx, Yes as the creator of the Daily Mails,
(14:19):
as as Uh the off described German Jew as described
by the creator of the Daily Mail, the largest English
and English newspaper in the world. I've I feel confident.
Where I get frustrating is how the left owns the media.
I've I've noticed that you've noticed that the same as
(14:40):
those three things that I mentioned. It is the same
as those three things mentioned. Why don't people realize this?
I WI should if there's like more media like public figures,
who would say the truth about how those four things
are the same. Cody. I have some great news about
a fellow named doctor Jordan Peterson. You are gonna love
(15:01):
this guy and pajamas with lobsters on them for some reason.
Can I buy them? Absolutely? Okay? But what if I
want those lobsters on like an iPhone case? You can
get that along with your cup of leftist tears. Oh
I love soges c D. What a fun time, warm
(15:26):
salty water to own the lips. You know what I
love is that it's never not been this way. Yeah,
that's that's my favorite thing too. That's the best thing.
We all just didn't realize it for a while because
like a a guy who was like sane and good
at passing a sane president. Yeah, and he did sucked
(15:46):
up ship, but we were all like, but when he talks,
he doesn't incite racial hatred and yeah, super low bar.
You can murder so many people. Yeah, like robots, Yeah,
robots doing Yeah sure, why not? Why not? Yeah, anyway,
it was the same then too. Yeah, Mosley consend you
(16:09):
to insist that his attacks on Jewish people were not
done on racial or religious grounds, but instead quote, because
they fight against fascism. Yeah, which is interesting. So he
doesn't hate them because they're Jewish. He hates them because
they're anti fascist. And why did he hate him when
he was younger, I'm curious. Well, his granddad wouldn't let
him in the house. Oh so you're so it's like learned.
(16:34):
It's like a learned behavior. Yeah. So like it's like
it's like a learned behavior in that like you learn
about history first from your parents, and then you hear
about it more from the school, and then you read
about it more and Peterson and then you're walking around
in your lobster for Jamaism if you realize you just
(16:55):
spent like, I don't know ifive hundred bucks on lobsters
for your iPhone. Oh boy. As a fun fact, I
I in the wake of that christ Church shooting. I
you know, I wrote a bunch of articles and did
a bunch of media appearances talking about a chance poll
board and they have been commenting on it, and in
addition to threatening me, they are now very convinced that
(17:17):
I'm Jewish because I have a large nose, which is
obviously doesn't matter what ethnicity my family is, but they're
very convinced of that. Uh as are they of everyone
who was on the documentary that I was on. The
pictures of us all together talking about our our ash
Cannazi feature the circles of circle, of course, there's circles
(17:38):
of yeah, um, I'm angry. I can't make jokes about
it because I'm angry. Yeah, okay, we are. We are
well off the rails here. So now, while all the
street fighting and racings was going on, the bof continue
to expand rather rapidly. It recreated primarily in industrial areas,
often from the vast ranks of Britain's unemployed workers. As
(18:00):
any of his recruits were former Labor Party supporters, as
were Conservatives. Many joined not out of racism or a
specific desire to live under a dictatorship, but because they
were desperate for money. One member later it called quote.
The story was that Moseley was a millionaire and all
you had to do was join the BUF and you'd
be looked after. Yeah. The buf's financial backers were mostly
(18:21):
middle class businessmen and a few wealthy snobs, but most
of them refused to actually take to the streets. The poor, disenfranchised,
and laid off made up the bulk of the street movement.
I found a great Slate article by Martin Pew, author
of Hurrah for the Black Shirts, a book about fascism
in Britain, between the Wars quote. The movement was highly
opportunistic in that it exploited issues which had local relevance,
mostly focused as speaking tours and areas of declining industry,
(18:44):
notably Lancashire and Yorkshire, where the working class conservative tradition
offered potential recruits in cotton towns. He campaigned for the
recovery of Britain's export markets in India. In the Yorkshire
woolen centers he denounced competition by low wage Asian countries
and the boycotting of British goods by Jews, and in
mining districts such as Barnesley. He condemned imports of coal
from Poland while British workers remained unemployed. I mean, do
(19:06):
we need to draw that conclude like I don't see
any conclusions. We need to explicitly make the comparisons. No,
we don't, don't. We don't just that question. You just ask,
this is all the work we need? You want to
let I say we just I say, we just let
people stew with that and break for some of those
(19:27):
sweet sweet almost as much as I love whatever products.
By the way, if you work for a company that
makes an adds the acts like tool, please advertise on
our show, because I would. I would love to do
a plug like an AS transition where I do that.
It would be satisfying to me on like a glottal level. Sure,
(19:49):
if you're an ADS manufacturer, yeah, just like a fun
little congratulations. It is a niche. Yeah, but you know,
congratulations on your customer. Hit him up products. We're back. So.
(20:12):
Martin Pew, author of her her offer The Black Shirts,
also notes that One of the primary things that differentiated
Mosley from his German and Italian fascist counterparts was the
prominent position women held in the b UF. Feminist icon
Oswald Mosley I can see here we go Oswald Mosley
was the fascist equivalent of a oh, feminist icon. I
just wrote that into the script, by which I mean
(20:33):
he was happy to use women's votes to try to
strip power away from women. Smart man. Smart Man. Oswald's mother,
Maud ran the women's section of the b UF. She
was followed in that job by several ex suffragettes who
came to regret supporting their own right to vote for
reasons I can't quite wrap my head around. Women eventually
composed more than a quarter of the b UF. Their
uniform was a black blouse and beret with a gray skirt.
(20:55):
No lipstick or makeup was allowed. In nineteen thirty four,
the Sunday Dispatch decided to hold a beauty contest for
female black Shirts, which again makes zero sense to me.
Nobody entered, mostly positive This was because quote, these were
serious women dedicated to the cause of their country, rather
than aspirants to the gayety theater chorus, which it's weird
to me. That a magazine not associated with the fascist
(21:16):
movement would decide to hold a beauty contest just for
fascist ladies. Like, it's weird. What is going on? That's
all over the place. You can't wear makeup, but we're
gonna we're gonna do a beauty contest. We're not fascists,
but we're going to hold a beauty contest for your ladies.
It's weird. Yeah, the sexiest fascist. But if we have
the sexiest fascist, this is the problem. This right here
(21:36):
with their whole thing. You're all over the place with
the women thing all over the place. Well, I mean
the fascists were consistent because none of them went, none
of them signed up. Like, I'll give that to them,
all right, credits where it's due. They didn't wear makeup, Katie,
but that brought down the amount of sexual harassment. There
was a lot of sexual harassment, but there wasn't because
(21:58):
there's no Thank you very much, Dr Jordan P. Peterson,
great idea. I didn't mean to. I don't think he's
not thanks a funny man. Funny funny man, funny funny guy,
funny funny guy. I like it. Also like that Tommy
put his mom in church. Yeah, well, Tommy's mommy exactly,
(22:22):
look at me mom, Tommy's mommy mud. You know, in
an alternate universe out there, there is an equally incredible
The Who album called Tommy, but it's about os Palely
and it's still amazing. I'm been waiting this whole time
to try to hear me. I mean, it does start
with gotta feeling twenty one is going to be good year,
which is I think when he took off exactly. I mean,
(22:44):
this might be what it is, This might be right.
Maybe that's what it is. That's what Pinball Wizard is,
Pinball brand Wizard. Wo wow. Oh, there's a whole song
about child molest station in that in that rock opera
Is there really fiddle about? It's about his wicked uncle
(23:05):
Ernie molesting it. It's a great songs, great albumatic songs
from that era. In hindsight, it's a fucking fantastic album,
like they deal with it with care. That's my favorite
album about Oswald tom of the five albums about Oh yeah,
there was that was that. There was that nine hour
(23:26):
Coheed and Cambria black Shirt Lady fascists also trained in
jiu jitsu, so they could fight anti fascists who came
to Black Cutt meetings. This was mainly because so many
British anti fascists were women, and it was not considered
decent for male black shirts to beat them up. Many
lady fascists were former suffragettes, as I already noted. One
(23:47):
of them, Mary Richardson explained, quote, I was first attracted
to the black shirts because I saw them the courage,
the action, the loyalty, the gift of service and the
ability to serve, which I had known in the Suffragette movement.
It's all about service. Some of mosley success with women
voters likely came from the fact that he was rather dashing,
According to a Good Slate article on Mosley's popularity with women, quote,
(24:09):
much of his impact depended on sheer physical presence. As
a labor MP mostly had played up to the admiring
young women and his audiences by smiling at them, caressing
his mustache with one hand while slapping his trouser leg
with the other, and being rewarded with cries of Oh, Valentino,
I'm gonna guess you had to be in the thirties
to get why why women would say that being rewarded
with cries of one pump, one cream. Most of these
(24:34):
lady activists were, of course mothers, and mothers of course
race sons. One of those sons was journalist Trevor Grundy.
He wrote a memoire and nine don't don't comment on
he's not a bad guys. Fine, fine for his name
to be Grundy. Grundy wrote a memoire in n about
his experiences being raised as a Mosley. I the Telegraph
(24:54):
wrote an article about that, and I'm going to quote
from it. Quote. Trevor Grundy recalled how when he was
just a boy after the war, his mother used to
come out on the front step of their house in
Paddington to see him off to school. As he turned
out of the square where they lived, he'd wave back
at her. Each morning, she'd stand to attention and fling
out her right arm in a full fascist salute. I
returned it. P J, She shouted, Mosley followers speak for
(25:16):
parish Judah. I shouted back. I shouted it back, and
then he'd run Satual, flying to catch his bus. Parish PJ. Pajamas, pajamas.
Hate what that stands for. That's not great? Now that
(25:37):
that little anecdotes from after the war. Um, but I'd
like to get after it's after the war, and we'll
get into what became a mostly during world. That does
make yeah, that makes it worse for his mom for sure.
But I'd like to get into a little bit more
about the children of the Mosley Its first. Specifically, I'd
like to talk about their summer camps. If there's one
thing we've learned in this show, it's that fascists love
(26:01):
especially catching frogs. And you know, if you just they
just want a nice, cool coast to camp in. Yeah,
this would be a cool coast, kid, you know, Oh,
the coast in England are pretty cool, cold fucking island, tiffy,
great food, let's go. You're not showing off your bikini
(26:23):
bot there though, No, but I don't have one, SOI makeup,
no makeup, Gray shirts, skirts, that actually sounds fine. A
lovely color. Yeah, now I love color. I mean to say,
I love that color. Now let's talk about their summer camps. Quote.
(26:45):
It was near here on farmland around Pegam and Selsie
that fascist summer camps were set up by mostly followers
during the nineteen thirties. For twenty five shillings a week.
Members in their hundreds would come with their children from
all over England for sea bathing, fellowship and fun. There
was also an educational aspect of the gatherings and even
a jokey camp newsletter. It became part of the folklore
that Moseley's annual visit always brought the sun out. People
(27:06):
would refer to it as Leader Weather. At eight or
nine years old, Diana was brought along by her parents
and a girl in the story what leader Weather Yeah
as a as an interesting cross fascist parallel. When stormy
weather blanketed Western Europe in N four, grounding Allied aircraft
and providing cover for the ver Mocht during the infamous
Battle of the Bulge, the Nazis called those storm clouds
(27:27):
fewer weather, which is the same thing as leader weather.
Leader weather. But these guys think the sunshines. Later, Fascist
just losers in a cult. So yep, leader weather. Those
poor kids, those poor kids, they just wanted to chase frogs.
They just wanted to chase frogs like summer camp. Great,
(27:50):
we gotta be Nazis, p j okay, I like pam
oh no. This brutality and seemed so whimsical right now.
So since we've talked about battles, which we did a
(28:11):
little bit ago before digression, let's talk about another battle,
the Battle of Cable Street. This is one of, if
not the most important moments in the history of anti
fascist activism, and in fact, most modern anti fascists who
know their ship historically will point back to the Battle
of Cable Street as sort of evidence for why their
tactics are effective. After four the BUF grew more and
(28:32):
more aggressively anti Semitic and closer and tenor to the
actual Nazi Party. Oswald Mosley declared a war against organized
Jewelry near the end of that year, and his black
Shirts began a campaign in London's East End. This was
a heavily Jewish part of town, and his goal was
to basically radicalize all the gentiles living near Jewish areas.
For the next two years, violence between black Shirts and
Jewish people escalated, culminating in a plan to march by
(28:54):
Oswald Mosley and three thousand of his supporters across Cable Street.
Locals attempted to head this march off. They gathered thousands
of signatures for a petition asked the local Council to
ban the fascist march. The council refused, and in the
name of free speech, gathered six thousand police officers to
protect the fascists while they marched along Cable Street. I
did put the word free speech in there, so right
(29:14):
that one was that one was six thousand cops three
thousand Nazis perfect. Perfect. Some might say nine thousand Nazis,
but we wouldn't say that, would they actually do. I
(29:36):
there are some fine, particularly in federal law enforcement officers,
who were really concerned about the problem of far I radicalization.
But I also it's my personal belief that it should
not be illegal to espouse Nazi beliefs. It's also my
personal belief that when Nazis march, people should beat the
ship out of them, and cops, if they're decent, people
should be like, yeah, I'm just not going to do anything.
(29:57):
He's got a swastica. Fuck it, he's literally asking for
He's literally asking for this is the one time. That's
one time that excuse. As I was saying it was like,
do I want to say that swaster because the target?
Let let it stay there, black son kind of a target.
I feel like we count that one as a swastica,
(30:17):
which I used to own stuff with that on it
because I thought it because you didn't know because I
was like twenty and we weren't talking about that ship then.
So weird how fascists can easily use fun symbols. It's
a neat design. Yeah. I accidentally made the okay sign
in the picture, and then I was like, funk, I
have to delever. I have a lot of mixed feelings
(30:39):
on that, because like, are we really going to let
them take the fun okay to sign like that? I
wasn't going to, but we're also not going to let
like fascist adjacent grifting pieces of ship use it to
provide cover for themselves. People were saying, okay, I'm sorry,
(30:59):
should I that? Can I penance with one pump in
one mouth? Yeah? It don't do it? Do it? Do it?
It's all going in. Oh, this is going in. Oh No,
he's doing that. He's getting ready for a pump. It
was like a half cream, half a pump. It was
(31:20):
too much hazel nut. It's dribbling down here. He's covered
in hazel nut. It's almost like someone busted hates. That
was horrible. After half a pump too much. Are you're
going to get too much cream? I did not like that. Yeah,
(31:42):
it wasn't great. When is Katie? Don't delete the photo
of yourself doing me? Okay, So anyway, that really disrupted
my train of thought. It's still very strong hazel, that
flavor in my mouth. Okay. The march was intended to
go from the Royal Mint through Shortach, Limehouse Bow and
eventually Bethnal Green. I'm sure I've mispronounced all of those names,
(32:04):
but again colonialism. Mosley would give speeches at a number
of predetermined spots along the route of march. This was
the plan, but it did not quite work out that way.
See the years of brawling and escalating fascist violence. That
taught the serried anti fascists and Jewish activists of London
a couple of things. Since the march was planned well
in advance, they had time to gather their own counter demonstrators.
(32:26):
A vast alliance of Jews, Irish dock workers, trade unionists,
socialists and communists put down their differences and came together
to stop some goddamn Nazis from goose stepping through the
streets of London. On October fourth, nineteen thirty six Oswald Moseley,
three thousand fascists and six thousand cops assembled on Cable Street.
They were met by a force of between one hundred
(32:48):
and three hundred thousand anti fascists. Yeah. The counter demonstrators
commandeered a bus and a tram to use his makeshift
barricades lead through sticks, rocks, furniture, rotten fruit, and human
urine and fecal matter at the badly outnumbered police and
b UF men. The fascists tried to start up a
chant m O s l e y we want Moseley,
(33:10):
and the crowd shouted back much louder so do we
alive or dead? Yeah, solid, solid chance. The police deployed
to push back the anti fascists, meeting their chair, legs
and pipes with good old fashioned British billy clubs and
of course police horses, the ultimate riot control weapon of
the last several centuries. But the anti fascists set a
plan for these as well. Hundreds of local children rushed
(33:32):
up and deployed their marble collections, rolling them under the
feet of the horse cops and effectively impeding the police advance.
The crowd began to chant they shall not pass a
reference to the battle cry of Spanish anti fascists who
battled General Franco's men during that nation's civil war. More
than eighty protesters were arrested seventy three cops were injured.
(33:52):
In the end, local resistance was just far too much
for them to handle. Commissioner of Police Sir Philip Game
asked the Home Secretary for permission to cancel the march,
which was given. The fascists were ordered to disperse, having
never even started their march. The victory in the street
was immediately celebrated by leftist and Jewish newspapers. Here's the
Times of Israel quote battle stop Mosley March, declared a
(34:14):
banner headlines on the labor supporting Daily Harold. While the
Communist Party's Daily Worker let its report with Mosley did
not pass East London routes the fascists, the Jewish chronicle
was barely less exuberant. The people said no, It's story
of events in the East End was headlined. So Max Levittus,
a protester that day who was interviewed about it many
years later, called the Battle of Cable Street quote a
(34:36):
victory for ordinary people against racism and anti Semitism. That
is surely true, but the exact extent of this victory
is a little harder to parse out. Cable Street was
not the end of fascism in Britain or even in
London's East End, and we're going to talk about that
a little bit more after some ads. Ads, advertisements, advertisements.
(34:56):
I do wanna, I do wanna, I do wanna. I'm
really proud of those figuring out the marbles. I love
it so much, so good little treatin leader that's like,
come on, come on, And I imagine him sounding like
a New Yorker, like he's a little New York kid.
He just is in London's East In for no reason
(35:17):
when they start up, and like the it's the hook.
Beautiful should be a movie. If it's not already, it
should be. I don't watch British movies that aren't hot fuzz. Sure, yeah,
that's the one that's That's the only British culture I'm
aware of, understand. I also had one of their pies once,
which was actually a pudding or vice versa. I forgive
(35:39):
fuz pudding, yes, disgusting, Yeah, hot fuzz pudding, hot fuzz.
I guess it could be like peach peach pudding. I
mean I actually I heat pudding. I don't know, no
trying to make hot fuzz pudding sound appetizing. I do
love blood pudding, which is actually just a sausage, basically pudding.
Sticky toffee pudding that sounds like a sticky different thing.
(36:04):
Give it the old sticky toffee pudding. Not uh. Why
do they call people governor because everyone's a governor there? Oh? Oh, colonialism,
colonialism because they controlled so much of the world. Right,
all right, products and we're back, okay. So the Battle
(36:34):
of Cale Street was a major victory for anti fascism
in England, but it was not the end of Oswald
Mosley's movement, or even fascism in the East End of London.
As The Times of Israel noted, quote in the aftermath
of it, Mosley's henchmen issued blood curdling threats. It was
about time the British people of the East End knew
that London's program is not very far away now, warned
(36:54):
high ranking thug Mick Clark. Mosley is coming every night
of the week in the future to rid East London,
and by God, there is going to be a pogram.
A program is when you murder a bunch of Jewish people,
break their stuff. Yeah, Mosley was not in the East
End every night of the week. As a matter of fact,
he flew off to Germany not long after the Battle
of Cable Street to get married at Joseph Gebbel's house.
(37:16):
But gods, yep. Yeah, it's a nice house because it
was stolen from Yeah, of course, you gotta gotta go
to the g house gebelin. Yeah. But Mosley's men stayed
active in the East End. The weekend after the Battle
(37:37):
of Cable Street was witnessed to the worst spree of
anti Semitic violence in the history of modern England. It's
gone down in history as the Program of Mile End.
Two hundred of Mosley's Black Shirts ran around Stepney, an
East End neighborhood, and shattered the shop and house windows
of every Jewish family they could find. They tossed an
old man and a girl through a window. Manchester and
Leeds also saw violent attacks. Some people argue that the
(37:59):
Battle of Cable Street wound up being a propaganda victory
for the fascists. It's hard to say whether or not
that is true, but membership and Mosley's groups surged by
two thousand people in the immediate wake of the battle.
This surge was not evidence of long lived political viability. Though,
six months after Cable Street mostly attempted a major electoral
push for the BUF in the East End. He framed
the decision as a choice between US and the parties
(38:20):
of Jewelry, and yet in spite of all that, local
black Shirts only earned one fifth of the vote. Cable
Street also led to increased regulations on violent political groups.
The police pushed Parliament to class a Public Order Act.
Among other things, it banned the wearing of political uniforms
in public and gave the police the power to ban
marches for political purposes. It also allowed police to arrest
speakers who say directed violent rhetoric towards the Jews or
(38:42):
other minority groups. So you might argue that Cable Street,
while not a decisive defeat of fascism, prompted the government
and police to actually do a damn thing about all
the goddamn fascists marching around in the streets, and that
that helped kill off the movement. Others would argue that
the main effect of Cable Street in the immediate term
was to let the Jews of London know that they
were not alone. Bernard Cops was ten years old during
the battle and a Jew. He would later tell the
(39:05):
BBC quote, my mother said there were only two types
of people in the world, Jews and jew haters. Of course,
when Cable Street came along, the Irish laborers and doctors
came out, and it was them that really made sure
Mosley didn't get through. My mother and father really had
to change their minds after that and accept that others
did come to help us out. So complicated legacy. Yeah,
(39:26):
the British Union of Fascist stopped wearing their black shirts
after Cable Street, but Mosley continued to be a major
part of British political life for years to come. He
diverted his focus away from the Jewish question and rewrote
himself as a defender of peace. Of course, this was
peace with the Nazis, because Oswald really quite liked the Nazis,
but it was more palatable to the broader British public
than straight racial hatred. He developed a brilliant slogan during
(39:47):
this period. You want to guess what that slogan was.
Britain First, that's exactly America first. No, that would not
have that was my second no Britain first UH and
found himself working more and more with Nevill Chamberlain's governments
(40:08):
and its efforts to appease the Germans. The BUF hit
its greatest number of members fifty in nineteen thirty four,
but it continued to remain a force in British politics
until nineteen nineteen thirty nine. Mostly was able to attract
twenty people to a peace rally. Things of course, changed
rather abruptly when England went to war with the Nazi Germany.
The BUF was banned, having never succeeded in gaining parliamentary representation.
(40:30):
The government in turned many prominent members of the BUF
during the war unless they act as an enemy fifth
column inside England. Mosley was initially moved to Brixton Prison,
but eventually upgraded to the nicer Holloway Prison when he
got sick out of Winston Churchill's desire to that he
not die and become a martyr, which may be reasonable.
Guy had a lot of going on of the things
(40:52):
I'll criticize Churchill about whatever. Yeah. After the war, Mostly
attempted to rebrand himself as a normal conservative politician. He
formed the Union Movement and ran for Parliament again in
nineteen fifty nine, right after the notting Hill Race riots.
According to the Telegraph quote, his campaign called for forced
repatriation of Caribbean immigrants and a prohibition on mixed marriage.
(41:16):
Just a Nazi in a slightly more advanced age. He
never again succeeded in gaining significant political standing. When he
died in nineteen eighty, he left behind a legacy of
hatred and bigotry that persists in the UK to this day.
The organization Britain First was founded in two thousand eleven
by former members of the British National Party. It campaigns
against multiculturalism with Christian patrols of Muslim neighborhoods and mosques.
(41:39):
Its name was of course spawned by that rally held
by Oswald Moseley in nineteen thirty nine. In two thousand seventeen,
Britain First campaigners edited together a false video purporting to
show a Muslim man attacking a woman on crutches. They
tweeted this video out and it was retweeted by President
Donald Trump. When President Donald Trump was criticized for this,
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said, there it's a real video.
(42:01):
The threat is real. In March two thousand nineteen, a
piece of ship shot and killed fifty people at two
mosques in christ Church, New Zealand. He published a manifesto
online and noted Sir Oswald Moseley as his number one
ideological influence. Obviously, quite a lot of what he wrote
in that manifesto was calculated nonsense, but not this. Over
and over again throughout the manifesto, the shooter expressed clear,
(42:23):
mostly eight views. He believed white countries should be completely independent,
both economically and in terms of their population. They should
be cut off from immigration from the rest of the world.
His desire was for the white world to remain in
a state of autarchy and end to multiculturalism. And so,
more than eighty years after the Battle of Cable Street,
the ideals of Oswald Mosley live on as the dot
(42:48):
dont done. Yeah, nohing changes again. Sometimes he can trip
some horse cops with marbles. Sometimes, why haven't we been
using that at our demonstrations. It's just like and you
see them, You see them like under the carriage waiting.
(43:09):
They're all huddled there and they got their marbles. We
don't need to have them on horses to trip them.
Up on marbles. Yeah, I could trip up some Nazis
with marbles. Yeah, we need to invest in big Marble.
It made me. One of the first things I thought
it was that video that he retweeted. Yeah, it's like,
oh yeah, Britain first, Britain, first fake Muslim video. Yeah,
(43:31):
that's him. Literally we retweeting propaganda made by a group
inspired by and descended by Mosley. It's really pretty cool.
It's I was gonna say bad, but yeah, it's pretty cool, cool,
pretty pretty smart and cool, smart and cool and good
And I forgot to mention good great stuff. We really
(43:53):
don't learn ship. Um, no, we don't. I had an
argument with my mother in the immediate wake of the
attack where we were talking about, you know, the horrible
murders that had been committed, and she expressed her belief
that the United States should just pull all of its
soldiers back from all of the other places in the
world they are and basically just kind of wall itself
(44:13):
off from the world and be you know, you could
call it a state of autarchy. Yeah, yeah, sort of
like cat yourself off, sort of like that isolate suggested
the interesting I've seen a lot of people arguing that
like maybe he uh, he's like a monster, like did
terrible things, but maybe like the reasons he did it
(44:35):
weren't wrong. Yeah, like maybe we should consider like doing
what he suggests to avoid more terrorist violence like that,
like sort of like like capitulating to terrorists kind of
then what they want they stopped. That's what we always
say about terrorists. We negotiate with We negotiate. The first
thing we do with the terrorists is we negotiate with them.
(44:55):
I remember that from the documentary Air Force One in
the late nineteen nineties. I also have seen I'm talking Mary.
I do think it's I want to know um to
get a little slightly back on topic, uh, I think
it's interesting and terrible that when this happened, the shooting
(45:15):
happened you Like I remember one of the first things
you sent to me was, I was literally just writing
about Mosley. I started writing this like four days before
the shooting, right, like I remember, because we were on
a podcast about George Lincoln, right about Rockwell and all
that kind of stuff. And then and literally you said,
like I wouldn't be surprised if by the time this
is over, something like this happens. And then like I
(45:38):
think a day or know that that night was it?
That night was the night of the third episode? Okay,
is the nightther third episode? It did? And you were
in the middle of writing about the person that inspired him.
Wasn't that book mentioned in the manifesto? To which one?
Was it? The Truman? What was it called? I can't
It wasn't mentioned, but it was. It was a clear
and yeah, and he had you know, the fourth words
(46:00):
written on his rifle, which we trace the descent of
that back to rock Right. It's all, it's all. It's
all there and some in some cases in black and white. Yeah. Um,
my point being that everyone should follow and protect Robert
Evans at all costs. Yeah, well, you know I want
to stay more on point. But I have this beautiful
image in my head of of President Harrison Ford rolling
(46:20):
up in the presidential Memo and they're just a plume
of pot smoke rolling out of it, and then shy
La Buff staggers out, and then and then old Harrison
Ford and his sweatpants just sort of saunters up to
to the Arlington Cemetery take some chocolate off his shirt.
We only dreams to live for, That's my dream. Absolutely,
(46:46):
as do I, Robert, Do you have anything to plug?
I have a Twitter at I right okay? Uh com? Yes, yes,
right okay dot com. I have the website for this
podcast is behind the Bastards dot com. You can find
us on Twitter and Instagram at Bastards pod. Buy a
shirt behind the Bastards to public buy a shirt or
(47:10):
food and water and medical supplies to prepare for the
all you. I have a podcast that's not this one
coming out soon that is called it Can't Happen here
or it could happen here Google and different things something
or other happen here. It's about what happens if civil
war in America, but a second one. It'll be fun.
(47:32):
All you fish opposites out there? Are you fish opposites
out there? Uh? It'll be out by the time this
episode drops. Unless they put this episode up tomorrow against
my express wishes and desires. Don't don't do that, Sophie. Yes, Sophie,
she's the audio engineer today and she does not know
how to engineer audio. So if anyone guess as to
(47:53):
whether or not this episode will ever drop, can you hear?
Can you hear this? Tommy? Can you hear Okay, we
really need to just in the episode. It's done, it's done.
M
M We're back Behind the Bastards podcast, Bad People talk
about Him. I'm Robert Evans. There's a part two of
our episode on Oswald Moseley. So don't listen to this
unless you listen to the episode one fucking Maniac. Guess
you're unless you're a maniac, in which case I enjoy
watching all the episodes in reserve reverse order for no
(00:22):
good reason. If you play them backwards, I will tell
you to do drugs and worship the devil. But I
did that. I tell you that you're supposed to play
backwards while you're watching. Either way, do do drugs and
worship the devil. That's just common force, which did my
(00:44):
guests today, as with last time, Cody Johnston Katie Stole,
did not mix up your first names this time. Yes, Hi, sorry,
thank you? No, No, I mean I. It was awful.
It was an awful traumatic I don't want to relive
it with the nine eleven of of this podcast episode.
But we've moved on. We will never forget, but we're
(01:05):
moving on like we did from nine eleven into into
an eighteen year long, six trillion dollar war. This is
the second year this this this episode is the second
year of the eighteen year when we're all still kind
of on board. We'll get it, we'll get it. Yeah, Yeah,
I'm excited for the point where we all watched three
hundred and take like a message about the war on
(01:27):
terror away from it. But this conversation, this has gotten
off track. We've got the coffee mate back on the table.
One pump, one cream, obviously, I just I feel so
guilty that it wasn't on the table before. Yeah, I
mean I felt it, but I didn't want to. Let's
re record the last episode. Let's let's do it. Let's
(01:48):
re record the last episode. Just pretend we mentioned one pump,
one cream, an awful lot. Well, we're always thinking about it.
We're always thinking about it. The thing is is that's true.
I think about it a lot now because one pump
is in fact one cream, doesn't have very good stain.
One pump is one cream. One puppets one cream. You
know who wouldn't have agreed with that? Oh a little fascist.
(02:11):
Oh it was actually six ft two, don't say it
named Oswald Mosley six ft to Oswald. Tommy Mosely didn't
think that one pump was one cream. I don't think
he did. I don't think he did. I was on
board with this guy, but now I'm having some second thoughts.
Now you're questioning his well I liked. I mean, like
Britain first, you know, you gotta put your people the
(02:32):
first absolutely, And I was listening it was like, it
sounds like this guy is probably gonna be on board
with one pump. One's great piloting except for that one time.
But he's trying to impress his mom. I think she
would have been more impressed if one of his pumps
had equaled one cream. But I think she wants a
f I think she wants a few more pumps before
(02:54):
they're British. Oh that's true. Appointed, Yeah, Well, because you
know the women are supposed to lie down to think
of England, right, isn't that the phrase? So if one
pump is one cream, that's what Actually, that's less thinking
of England. I'm very confused. Now, one pump, one cream,
one nation, what nice? Right? Nice one nation cream, first cream,
(03:17):
first growth. Guys really starting out top. But one day
we're gonna get invited onto Cometown. I don't know what
that podcast, but I know there's a podcast called come
to It's terrible uh, it sounds like something we're great.
It could be really don't know. It could be great.
(03:39):
They could be talking about one pump one cream right now.
They could be, and if so, I support them. I
was tapping my favorites on the table. It doesn't translate
to the audio media performance right here. It does make
me feel more confident, though. Yeah, I'm sure everyone's loving this.
What do you Sophie's otten up from her table. She's
(04:02):
showing me a laptop of the Come Boys full description.
That's the cometown of fall Okay, all right? As up?
I bet they make a hundred thousand dollars a month.
They deserve it creams. I wonder how many pumps are
(04:25):
in this nestly coffee, Mate, There's only one way to
find out. I think we figured out a great idea
for bonus content. We're canceling this episode. We're just gonna
find out. You can learn about Mosley later. Looks like
it's about three hundred three hundo. Sounds better if you
say hondo thirty days after opening. I feel like it's
been more than thirty days since we were no. But
(04:48):
we don't know why it was opened. We don't know
what it was opened. So back to Oswald Mosley Oswald
tom mos six. Anti Semitism was obviously the cornerstone of
German fascism, but it was not nearly as prominent in
Italian or Spanish fascism. Those sorts of attitudes were still
quite common in both countries, but it was more the
(05:09):
result of centuries of bigotry rather than the highly evolved
elimination is anti semitism practiced by the Nazis. Mosley, in
public at least declared that anti Semitism was completely separate
from fascism. He refused to let the BUF distribute anti
Semitic propaganda, which led to one of his further right
opponents in the Imperial Fascist League to declare the British
Union of Fascists the British Junion Fascists. Oh dig, but
(05:35):
did you get it? Because it's his union, but he
made it. Why did it even get that part? React again? Yes,
I feel like that's what it deserves. Yeah, let it.
In ninety three, mostly give a statement to the Jewish
Chronicle in which he swore that quote anti Semitism forms
(05:57):
no part of the policy of this organization, and anti
semit propaganda is forbidden. But while the propaganda was forbidden,
anti Semites themselves were very much allowed in the b UF.
One of their most notorious speakers was also one of
England's most notorious racists. William Brooke Joyce was an Anglo
Irish firebrand who got his political start working as a
courier for British Army intelligence against the Irish Republican Army
(06:20):
In the mid twenties, he became a conservative political activist.
During a nineteen meeting for a candidate he supported, Joyce
claims he was slashed across the cheek by a Jewish
communist with a razor blade, leaving a prominent scar that
he'd have for the rest of his life. Joyce's biographer
talked to his first wife, who claimed, quote, it wasn't
a Jewish communist who disfigured him. He was knifed by
(06:40):
an Irish woman. Good on you, Irish woman. He probably
deserved it. Yeah, I mean, you know, I a lot
of problems with the IRA, but in in nineteen thirties,
not the guys on the wrong side of the conflict.
Different story later on. But that's another behind the bat
(07:03):
that's another behind the bastards. Yeah, Joyce would later gain
prominence in life as Lord Haha, broadcasting pro Nazi propaganda
from Germany into England during the course of the war.
He was executed in nineteen forty six for these crimes,
but during the nineteen thirties he was a member of
the b UF and its first prominent anti Semite. According
to the Death of British Fascism quote, BUF policy initially
(07:24):
forced Joyce to temper his violently anti Semitic views. Moseley's
position on anti Semitism was clear it was irrelevant to fascism.
Despite this handicap to Joyce's ideology, his talent for incisive
rhetorics soon made him the most renowned speaker in the BUF,
after Moseley himself. So Joyce was made the BUFS propaganda
director in nineteen thirty four. He gradually started to pepper
(07:44):
in more and more anti Semitism with his pro fascist rants.
He repeatedly stated that the core of all Britain's problems
was Jewish people. He ranted about quote a two pronged
Jewish advance by means of capitalism and communism towards world domination.
M Yeah, there we go. We only need one well
and you know, capitalism and communism are clearly two prongs
(08:05):
of the same four, the third prong of which is bitcoin.
They didn't have a term for it that they didn't have.
They hadn't figured it out. It was still waiting to
get mined at a numbers. We hadn't discovered bitcoin, We
hadn't discovered communism, capitalism work. I feel like we figured
(08:27):
that out now. Joyce was far from the only inveterate
racist in the British Union Fascists. Many of Mosley's earliest
followers were supper anti Jewish. I spelled it that way
you do when pump is one cream. Now. When he
was questioned about this, Mosley would claim that these men
were allowed in the BUF because he knew that, in
spite of their bigotry, they wanted to move past that
(08:48):
into a bigger and better fight. How do you reason
with that? Nonsense? That's nonsense. I mean, reasoning might be
a strong word for what you do with it. Think, Think,
it really leads to the better things. I guess that's
how you reason it. Nonsense. Yeah, you might reason it
with like I don't know, I mean on the phone,
(09:10):
I want to talk to respond to it. But Yeah,
where's your justification? Right? Like, it's just nonsense and I
want to have I think they needed talking to. I
think you're you're gonna give it talking to anti semitism.
I think I think I would like to talk to
anti semitism from on the horn. Let's see what we
can get hello, concept of anti semitism. Cody, Cody would
(09:32):
like to talk to you. He's on speaker, Um, what
come on, what are you doing? They're trying to give
a way to be the voice of anti Semitism without
just like saying anti semitic propertly. Yeah, yeah, it's a
problematic problem. You probably just move on from this bit. Sure,
my point being that's nonsense, it's it's it's not point
(09:55):
taken well. Mosley continue to assert that anti Semitism had
no place in his party. The realities in this street
were quite different. British Jews and fascist activists clashed constantly
in the back alleys and by ways of London. In
April nineteen thirty three, London police arrested seven b UF
members and six Jewish people for disturbing the piece. The
fascist had been out selling copies of black shirt in
a new in a Jewish neighborhood. They had been attacked
(10:17):
by a group of local Jews who knew damn what
what was going on in Germany and didn't believe a
word of Mosley's were non fascist line. Everyone involved was arrested,
but nobody was charged. This barked another street fight a
week later, when twelve members of the BUF returned to
the same street corner to hawk their racist wears. Three
of the fascists were injured and one was hospitalized. Eight
Jews were arrested. The officer who booked them noted that
(10:39):
the fascist had been extremely provocative prior to the fight.
Incidents like this and even bloodier than this, grew more
common as the BU of expanded and slid further towards
outright racism. Although it sounds to me like the anti
fascists here, the violent ones, it does. It sounds like
these guys were just handing out some anti Jewish propaganda
in a Jewish neighborhood of an ideology that was leading
(11:01):
to Jewish people being put in camps in another country
not very far away, and then these violent people decided
to attack them. Yeah, the first part of what you said,
I mean, you use too many words to just describe
its free speech, free speech. They were doing a free speech.
They were doing a free spee were doing a free
speech and these months shut up like and hated their
(11:22):
free speech for no reason. Yeah, they did the hate
speech they did. They did hate speech against their free
speech because they see what they were saying. I never
thought i'd I'd be supportive of fascism, but here we are.
It's just, you know, free speech. We don't need to
analyze the question of free speech anymore than that. And
there's no way in which advocating for an ideology that
(11:42):
led to six million people being burnt alive in in ovens,
uh and gas to death and such, there's no there's
no way in which that is. Advocating for that speech
is comparable to yelling fire in a crowded theater. No, no, no,
I in no way, shape or form. I couldn't. I
couldn't even like, uh describe it in a way that
that could be argued. Yeah, let's read the next pair.
(12:06):
The Jewish community in England was divided as to how
to respond to the b UF. Some people obviously preferred
punching fascists to dialogue, but many felt like the violence
was counterproductive. On August fourth, nineteen thirty three, the Jewish
Chronicle called Jewish attacks on BUF activists wicked and stupid.
This condemnation was not enough to change most people's beliefs
that fascism had to be confronted violently in the streets
(12:27):
rather than debated. The b UF's official turning point towards open,
proud anti Semitism was the Olympia Rally, which is the
rally we talked about in the last episode of All
the Disruptors. Moseley gave his first anti Jewish address on
October nineteen thirty four. This marked the very first time
he referenced the Jews and a speech saying, quote, the Jews,
more than any other single force in this country, are
(12:48):
carrying on a violent propaganda against us. Oswald Mosley then stated,
with zero evidence that thirty two of the thirty four
people convicted for violent attacks on fascists had been Jewish.
Moseley claimed that in total, Jewish people were responsible for
fifty percent of all attacks on his men. Now, it's
hard to say how much of this was ideological based
on deeply felt beliefs, and how much of it was
(13:09):
just due to soulless politicking the Death of British Fascism
notes quote. Much of the shift in ideology can be
attributed to an effort to win over the urban working class,
mostly hope to fill a niche in anti immigrant propaganda
present in Britain for decades. Organizations such as the British
Brothers League had gained significant following in urban areas in
previous years. Formed the nineteen o two, the League espoused
in anti Semitic platform seeking to limit Jewish immigration from
(13:31):
Eastern Europe. Its limited success can be attributed to the
traditional friction of the working class with large immigrant populations
during times of scarcity. Perceived competition over jobs, customers, and
culture led to reactions from native Britain's conditions in nineteen
thirty four were ripe for this kind of clash and
mostly hope to capitalize with a new Britain for the
British policy, thereby further marginalizing British Jewish immigrants. Yeah, lot,
(13:58):
but nothing like anything that ever happened afterwards. Britain for Britain,
for British people. Um, did you know that like Jewishness
and immigrants and Marxism are all the same thing? Well,
of course, Cody. But because of the of the famous
Jew Carl Marx, Yes as the creator of the Daily Mails,
(14:19):
as as Uh the off described German Jew as described
by the creator of the Daily Mail, the largest English
and English newspaper in the world. I've I feel confident.
Where I get frustrating is how the left owns the media.
I've I've noticed that you've noticed that the same as
(14:40):
those three things that I mentioned. It is the same
as those three things mentioned. Why don't people realize this?
I WI should if there's like more media like public figures,
who would say the truth about how those four things
are the same. Cody. I have some great news about
a fellow named doctor Jordan Peterson. You are gonna love
(15:01):
this guy and pajamas with lobsters on them for some reason.
Can I buy them? Absolutely? Okay? But what if I
want those lobsters on like an iPhone case? You can
get that along with your cup of leftist tears. Oh
I love soges c D. What a fun time, warm
(15:26):
salty water to own the lips. You know what I
love is that it's never not been this way. Yeah,
that's that's my favorite thing too. That's the best thing.
We all just didn't realize it for a while because
like a a guy who was like sane and good
at passing a sane president. Yeah, and he did sucked
(15:46):
up ship, but we were all like, but when he talks,
he doesn't incite racial hatred and yeah, super low bar.
You can murder so many people. Yeah, like robots, Yeah,
robots doing Yeah sure, why not? Why not? Yeah, anyway,
it was the same then too. Yeah, Mosley consend you
(16:09):
to insist that his attacks on Jewish people were not
done on racial or religious grounds, but instead quote, because
they fight against fascism. Yeah, which is interesting. So he
doesn't hate them because they're Jewish. He hates them because
they're anti fascist. And why did he hate him when
he was younger, I'm curious. Well, his granddad wouldn't let
him in the house. Oh so you're so it's like learned.
(16:34):
It's like a learned behavior. Yeah. So like it's like
it's like a learned behavior in that like you learn
about history first from your parents, and then you hear
about it more from the school, and then you read
about it more and Peterson and then you're walking around
in your lobster for Jamaism if you realize you just
(16:55):
spent like, I don't know ifive hundred bucks on lobsters
for your iPhone. Oh boy. As a fun fact, I
I in the wake of that christ Church shooting. I
you know, I wrote a bunch of articles and did
a bunch of media appearances talking about a chance poll
board and they have been commenting on it, and in
addition to threatening me, they are now very convinced that
(17:17):
I'm Jewish because I have a large nose, which is
obviously doesn't matter what ethnicity my family is, but they're
very convinced of that. Uh as are they of everyone
who was on the documentary that I was on. The
pictures of us all together talking about our our ash
Cannazi feature the circles of circle, of course, there's circles
(17:38):
of yeah, um, I'm angry. I can't make jokes about
it because I'm angry. Yeah, okay, we are. We are
well off the rails here. So now, while all the
street fighting and racings was going on, the bof continue
to expand rather rapidly. It recreated primarily in industrial areas,
often from the vast ranks of Britain's unemployed workers. As
(18:00):
any of his recruits were former Labor Party supporters, as
were Conservatives. Many joined not out of racism or a
specific desire to live under a dictatorship, but because they
were desperate for money. One member later it called quote.
The story was that Moseley was a millionaire and all
you had to do was join the BUF and you'd
be looked after. Yeah. The buf's financial backers were mostly
(18:21):
middle class businessmen and a few wealthy snobs, but most
of them refused to actually take to the streets. The poor, disenfranchised,
and laid off made up the bulk of the street movement.
I found a great Slate article by Martin Pew, author
of Hurrah for the Black Shirts, a book about fascism
in Britain, between the Wars quote. The movement was highly
opportunistic in that it exploited issues which had local relevance,
mostly focused as speaking tours and areas of declining industry,
(18:44):
notably Lancashire and Yorkshire, where the working class conservative tradition
offered potential recruits in cotton towns. He campaigned for the
recovery of Britain's export markets in India. In the Yorkshire
woolen centers he denounced competition by low wage Asian countries
and the boycotting of British goods by Jews, and in
mining districts such as Barnesley. He condemned imports of coal
from Poland while British workers remained unemployed. I mean, do
(19:06):
we need to draw that conclude like I don't see
any conclusions. We need to explicitly make the comparisons. No,
we don't, don't. We don't just that question. You just ask,
this is all the work we need? You want to
let I say we just I say, we just let
people stew with that and break for some of those
(19:27):
sweet sweet almost as much as I love whatever products.
By the way, if you work for a company that
makes an adds the acts like tool, please advertise on
our show, because I would. I would love to do
a plug like an AS transition where I do that.
It would be satisfying to me on like a glottal level. Sure,
(19:49):
if you're an ADS manufacturer, yeah, just like a fun
little congratulations. It is a niche. Yeah, but you know,
congratulations on your customer. Hit him up products. We're back. So.
(20:12):
Martin Pew, author of her her offer The Black Shirts,
also notes that One of the primary things that differentiated
Mosley from his German and Italian fascist counterparts was the
prominent position women held in the b UF. Feminist icon
Oswald Mosley I can see here we go Oswald Mosley
was the fascist equivalent of a oh, feminist icon. I
just wrote that into the script, by which I mean
(20:33):
he was happy to use women's votes to try to
strip power away from women. Smart man. Smart Man. Oswald's mother,
Maud ran the women's section of the b UF. She
was followed in that job by several ex suffragettes who
came to regret supporting their own right to vote for
reasons I can't quite wrap my head around. Women eventually
composed more than a quarter of the b UF. Their
uniform was a black blouse and beret with a gray skirt.
(20:55):
No lipstick or makeup was allowed. In nineteen thirty four,
the Sunday Dispatch decided to hold a beauty contest for
female black Shirts, which again makes zero sense to me.
Nobody entered, mostly positive This was because quote, these were
serious women dedicated to the cause of their country, rather
than aspirants to the gayety theater chorus, which it's weird
to me. That a magazine not associated with the fascist
(21:16):
movement would decide to hold a beauty contest just for
fascist ladies. Like, it's weird. What is going on? That's
all over the place. You can't wear makeup, but we're
gonna we're gonna do a beauty contest. We're not fascists,
but we're going to hold a beauty contest for your ladies.
It's weird. Yeah, the sexiest fascist. But if we have
the sexiest fascist, this is the problem. This right here
(21:36):
with their whole thing. You're all over the place with
the women thing all over the place. Well, I mean
the fascists were consistent because none of them went, none
of them signed up. Like, I'll give that to them,
all right, credits where it's due. They didn't wear makeup, Katie,
but that brought down the amount of sexual harassment. There
was a lot of sexual harassment, but there wasn't because
(21:58):
there's no Thank you very much, Dr Jordan P. Peterson,
great idea. I didn't mean to. I don't think he's
not thanks a funny man. Funny funny man, funny funny guy,
funny funny guy. I like it. Also like that Tommy
put his mom in church. Yeah, well, Tommy's mommy exactly,
(22:22):
look at me mom, Tommy's mommy mud. You know, in
an alternate universe out there, there is an equally incredible
The Who album called Tommy, but it's about os Palely
and it's still amazing. I'm been waiting this whole time
to try to hear me. I mean, it does start
with gotta feeling twenty one is going to be good year,
which is I think when he took off exactly. I mean,
(22:44):
this might be what it is, This might be right.
Maybe that's what it is. That's what Pinball Wizard is,
Pinball brand Wizard. Wo wow. Oh, there's a whole song
about child molest station in that in that rock opera
Is there really fiddle about? It's about his wicked uncle
(23:05):
Ernie molesting it. It's a great songs, great albumatic songs
from that era. In hindsight, it's a fucking fantastic album,
like they deal with it with care. That's my favorite
album about Oswald tom of the five albums about Oh yeah,
there was that was that. There was that nine hour
(23:26):
Coheed and Cambria black Shirt Lady fascists also trained in
jiu jitsu, so they could fight anti fascists who came
to Black Cutt meetings. This was mainly because so many
British anti fascists were women, and it was not considered
decent for male black shirts to beat them up. Many
lady fascists were former suffragettes, as I already noted. One
(23:47):
of them, Mary Richardson explained, quote, I was first attracted
to the black shirts because I saw them the courage,
the action, the loyalty, the gift of service and the
ability to serve, which I had known in the Suffragette movement.
It's all about service. Some of mosley success with women
voters likely came from the fact that he was rather dashing,
According to a Good Slate article on Mosley's popularity with women, quote,
(24:09):
much of his impact depended on sheer physical presence. As
a labor MP mostly had played up to the admiring
young women and his audiences by smiling at them, caressing
his mustache with one hand while slapping his trouser leg
with the other, and being rewarded with cries of Oh, Valentino,
I'm gonna guess you had to be in the thirties
to get why why women would say that being rewarded
with cries of one pump, one cream. Most of these
(24:34):
lady activists were, of course mothers, and mothers of course
race sons. One of those sons was journalist Trevor Grundy.
He wrote a memoire and nine don't don't comment on
he's not a bad guys. Fine, fine for his name
to be Grundy. Grundy wrote a memoire in n about
his experiences being raised as a Mosley. I the Telegraph
(24:54):
wrote an article about that, and I'm going to quote
from it. Quote. Trevor Grundy recalled how when he was
just a boy after the war, his mother used to
come out on the front step of their house in
Paddington to see him off to school. As he turned
out of the square where they lived, he'd wave back
at her. Each morning, she'd stand to attention and fling
out her right arm in a full fascist salute. I
returned it. P J, She shouted, Mosley followers speak for
(25:16):
parish Judah. I shouted back. I shouted it back, and
then he'd run Satual, flying to catch his bus. Parish PJ. Pajamas, pajamas.
Hate what that stands for. That's not great? Now that
(25:37):
that little anecdotes from after the war. Um, but I'd
like to get after it's after the war, and we'll
get into what became a mostly during world. That does
make yeah, that makes it worse for his mom for sure.
But I'd like to get into a little bit more
about the children of the Mosley Its first. Specifically, I'd
like to talk about their summer camps. If there's one
thing we've learned in this show, it's that fascists love
(26:01):
especially catching frogs. And you know, if you just they
just want a nice, cool coast to camp in. Yeah,
this would be a cool coast, kid, you know, Oh,
the coast in England are pretty cool, cold fucking island, tiffy,
great food, let's go. You're not showing off your bikini
(26:23):
bot there though, No, but I don't have one, SOI makeup,
no makeup, Gray shirts, skirts, that actually sounds fine. A
lovely color. Yeah, now I love color. I mean to say,
I love that color. Now let's talk about their summer camps. Quote.
(26:45):
It was near here on farmland around Pegam and Selsie
that fascist summer camps were set up by mostly followers
during the nineteen thirties. For twenty five shillings a week.
Members in their hundreds would come with their children from
all over England for sea bathing, fellowship and fun. There
was also an educational aspect of the gatherings and even
a jokey camp newsletter. It became part of the folklore
that Moseley's annual visit always brought the sun out. People
(27:06):
would refer to it as Leader Weather. At eight or
nine years old, Diana was brought along by her parents
and a girl in the story what leader Weather Yeah
as a as an interesting cross fascist parallel. When stormy
weather blanketed Western Europe in N four, grounding Allied aircraft
and providing cover for the ver Mocht during the infamous
Battle of the Bulge, the Nazis called those storm clouds
(27:27):
fewer weather, which is the same thing as leader weather.
Leader weather. But these guys think the sunshines. Later, Fascist
just losers in a cult. So yep, leader weather. Those
poor kids, those poor kids, they just wanted to chase frogs.
They just wanted to chase frogs like summer camp. Great,
(27:50):
we gotta be Nazis, p j okay, I like pam
oh no. This brutality and seemed so whimsical right now.
So since we've talked about battles, which we did a
(28:11):
little bit ago before digression, let's talk about another battle,
the Battle of Cable Street. This is one of, if
not the most important moments in the history of anti
fascist activism, and in fact, most modern anti fascists who
know their ship historically will point back to the Battle
of Cable Street as sort of evidence for why their
tactics are effective. After four the BUF grew more and
(28:32):
more aggressively anti Semitic and closer and tenor to the
actual Nazi Party. Oswald Mosley declared a war against organized
Jewelry near the end of that year, and his black
Shirts began a campaign in London's East End. This was
a heavily Jewish part of town, and his goal was
to basically radicalize all the gentiles living near Jewish areas.
For the next two years, violence between black Shirts and
Jewish people escalated, culminating in a plan to march by
(28:54):
Oswald Mosley and three thousand of his supporters across Cable Street.
Locals attempted to head this march off. They gathered thousands
of signatures for a petition asked the local Council to
ban the fascist march. The council refused, and in the
name of free speech, gathered six thousand police officers to
protect the fascists while they marched along Cable Street. I
did put the word free speech in there, so right
(29:14):
that one was that one was six thousand cops three
thousand Nazis perfect. Perfect. Some might say nine thousand Nazis,
but we wouldn't say that, would they actually do. I
(29:36):
there are some fine, particularly in federal law enforcement officers,
who were really concerned about the problem of far I radicalization.
But I also it's my personal belief that it should
not be illegal to espouse Nazi beliefs. It's also my
personal belief that when Nazis march, people should beat the
ship out of them, and cops, if they're decent, people
should be like, yeah, I'm just not going to do anything.
(29:57):
He's got a swastica. Fuck it, he's literally asking for
He's literally asking for this is the one time. That's
one time that excuse. As I was saying it was like,
do I want to say that swaster because the target?
Let let it stay there, black son kind of a target.
I feel like we count that one as a swastica,
(30:17):
which I used to own stuff with that on it
because I thought it because you didn't know because I
was like twenty and we weren't talking about that ship then.
So weird how fascists can easily use fun symbols. It's
a neat design. Yeah. I accidentally made the okay sign
in the picture, and then I was like, funk, I
have to delever. I have a lot of mixed feelings
(30:39):
on that, because like, are we really going to let
them take the fun okay to sign like that? I
wasn't going to, but we're also not going to let
like fascist adjacent grifting pieces of ship use it to
provide cover for themselves. People were saying, okay, I'm sorry,
(30:59):
should I that? Can I penance with one pump in
one mouth? Yeah? It don't do it? Do it? Do it?
It's all going in. Oh, this is going in. Oh No,
he's doing that. He's getting ready for a pump. It
was like a half cream, half a pump. It was
(31:20):
too much hazel nut. It's dribbling down here. He's covered
in hazel nut. It's almost like someone busted hates. That
was horrible. After half a pump too much. Are you're
going to get too much cream? I did not like that. Yeah,
(31:42):
it wasn't great. When is Katie? Don't delete the photo
of yourself doing me? Okay, So anyway, that really disrupted
my train of thought. It's still very strong hazel, that
flavor in my mouth. Okay. The march was intended to
go from the Royal Mint through Shortach, Limehouse Bow and
eventually Bethnal Green. I'm sure I've mispronounced all of those names,
(32:04):
but again colonialism. Mosley would give speeches at a number
of predetermined spots along the route of march. This was
the plan, but it did not quite work out that way.
See the years of brawling and escalating fascist violence. That
taught the serried anti fascists and Jewish activists of London
a couple of things. Since the march was planned well
in advance, they had time to gather their own counter demonstrators.
(32:26):
A vast alliance of Jews, Irish dock workers, trade unionists,
socialists and communists put down their differences and came together
to stop some goddamn Nazis from goose stepping through the
streets of London. On October fourth, nineteen thirty six Oswald Moseley,
three thousand fascists and six thousand cops assembled on Cable Street.
They were met by a force of between one hundred
(32:48):
and three hundred thousand anti fascists. Yeah. The counter demonstrators
commandeered a bus and a tram to use his makeshift
barricades lead through sticks, rocks, furniture, rotten fruit, and human
urine and fecal matter at the badly outnumbered police and
b UF men. The fascists tried to start up a
chant m O s l e y we want Moseley,
(33:10):
and the crowd shouted back much louder so do we
alive or dead? Yeah, solid, solid chance. The police deployed
to push back the anti fascists, meeting their chair, legs
and pipes with good old fashioned British billy clubs and
of course police horses, the ultimate riot control weapon of
the last several centuries. But the anti fascists set a
plan for these as well. Hundreds of local children rushed
(33:32):
up and deployed their marble collections, rolling them under the
feet of the horse cops and effectively impeding the police advance.
The crowd began to chant they shall not pass a
reference to the battle cry of Spanish anti fascists who
battled General Franco's men during that nation's civil war. More
than eighty protesters were arrested seventy three cops were injured.
(33:52):
In the end, local resistance was just far too much
for them to handle. Commissioner of Police Sir Philip Game
asked the Home Secretary for permission to cancel the march,
which was given. The fascists were ordered to disperse, having
never even started their march. The victory in the street
was immediately celebrated by leftist and Jewish newspapers. Here's the
Times of Israel quote battle stop Mosley March, declared a
(34:14):
banner headlines on the labor supporting Daily Harold. While the
Communist Party's Daily Worker let its report with Mosley did
not pass East London routes the fascists, the Jewish chronicle
was barely less exuberant. The people said no, It's story
of events in the East End was headlined. So Max Levittus,
a protester that day who was interviewed about it many
years later, called the Battle of Cable Street quote a
(34:36):
victory for ordinary people against racism and anti Semitism. That
is surely true, but the exact extent of this victory
is a little harder to parse out. Cable Street was
not the end of fascism in Britain or even in
London's East End, and we're going to talk about that
a little bit more after some ads. Ads, advertisements, advertisements.
(34:56):
I do wanna, I do wanna, I do wanna. I'm
really proud of those figuring out the marbles. I love
it so much, so good little treatin leader that's like,
come on, come on, And I imagine him sounding like
a New Yorker, like he's a little New York kid.
He just is in London's East In for no reason
(35:17):
when they start up, and like the it's the hook.
Beautiful should be a movie. If it's not already, it
should be. I don't watch British movies that aren't hot fuzz. Sure, yeah,
that's the one that's That's the only British culture I'm
aware of, understand. I also had one of their pies once,
which was actually a pudding or vice versa. I forgive
(35:39):
fuz pudding, yes, disgusting, Yeah, hot fuzz pudding, hot fuzz.
I guess it could be like peach peach pudding. I
mean I actually I heat pudding. I don't know, no
trying to make hot fuzz pudding sound appetizing. I do
love blood pudding, which is actually just a sausage, basically pudding.
Sticky toffee pudding that sounds like a sticky different thing.
(36:04):
Give it the old sticky toffee pudding. Not uh. Why
do they call people governor because everyone's a governor there? Oh? Oh, colonialism,
colonialism because they controlled so much of the world. Right,
all right, products and we're back, okay. So the Battle
(36:34):
of Cale Street was a major victory for anti fascism
in England, but it was not the end of Oswald
Mosley's movement, or even fascism in the East End of London.
As The Times of Israel noted, quote in the aftermath
of it, Mosley's henchmen issued blood curdling threats. It was
about time the British people of the East End knew
that London's program is not very far away now, warned
(36:54):
high ranking thug Mick Clark. Mosley is coming every night
of the week in the future to rid East London,
and by God, there is going to be a pogram.
A program is when you murder a bunch of Jewish people,
break their stuff. Yeah, Mosley was not in the East
End every night of the week. As a matter of fact,
he flew off to Germany not long after the Battle
of Cable Street to get married at Joseph Gebbel's house.
(37:16):
But gods, yep. Yeah, it's a nice house because it
was stolen from Yeah, of course, you gotta gotta go
to the g house gebelin. Yeah. But Mosley's men stayed
active in the East End. The weekend after the Battle
(37:37):
of Cable Street was witnessed to the worst spree of
anti Semitic violence in the history of modern England. It's
gone down in history as the Program of Mile End.
Two hundred of Mosley's Black Shirts ran around Stepney, an
East End neighborhood, and shattered the shop and house windows
of every Jewish family they could find. They tossed an
old man and a girl through a window. Manchester and
Leeds also saw violent attacks. Some people argue that the
(37:59):
Battle of Cable Street wound up being a propaganda victory
for the fascists. It's hard to say whether or not
that is true, but membership and Mosley's groups surged by
two thousand people in the immediate wake of the battle.
This surge was not evidence of long lived political viability. Though,
six months after Cable Street mostly attempted a major electoral
push for the BUF in the East End. He framed
the decision as a choice between US and the parties
(38:20):
of Jewelry, and yet in spite of all that, local
black Shirts only earned one fifth of the vote. Cable
Street also led to increased regulations on violent political groups.
The police pushed Parliament to class a Public Order Act.
Among other things, it banned the wearing of political uniforms
in public and gave the police the power to ban
marches for political purposes. It also allowed police to arrest
speakers who say directed violent rhetoric towards the Jews or
(38:42):
other minority groups. So you might argue that Cable Street,
while not a decisive defeat of fascism, prompted the government
and police to actually do a damn thing about all
the goddamn fascists marching around in the streets, and that
that helped kill off the movement. Others would argue that
the main effect of Cable Street in the immediate term
was to let the Jews of London know that they
were not alone. Bernard Cops was ten years old during
the battle and a Jew. He would later tell the
(39:05):
BBC quote, my mother said there were only two types
of people in the world, Jews and jew haters. Of course,
when Cable Street came along, the Irish laborers and doctors
came out, and it was them that really made sure
Mosley didn't get through. My mother and father really had
to change their minds after that and accept that others
did come to help us out. So complicated legacy. Yeah,
(39:26):
the British Union of Fascist stopped wearing their black shirts
after Cable Street, but Mosley continued to be a major
part of British political life for years to come. He
diverted his focus away from the Jewish question and rewrote
himself as a defender of peace. Of course, this was
peace with the Nazis, because Oswald really quite liked the Nazis,
but it was more palatable to the broader British public
than straight racial hatred. He developed a brilliant slogan during
(39:47):
this period. You want to guess what that slogan was.
Britain First, that's exactly America first. No, that would not
have that was my second no Britain first UH and
found himself working more and more with Nevill Chamberlain's governments
(40:08):
and its efforts to appease the Germans. The BUF hit
its greatest number of members fifty in nineteen thirty four,
but it continued to remain a force in British politics
until nineteen nineteen thirty nine. Mostly was able to attract
twenty people to a peace rally. Things of course, changed
rather abruptly when England went to war with the Nazi Germany.
The BUF was banned, having never succeeded in gaining parliamentary representation.
(40:30):
The government in turned many prominent members of the BUF
during the war unless they act as an enemy fifth
column inside England. Mosley was initially moved to Brixton Prison,
but eventually upgraded to the nicer Holloway Prison when he
got sick out of Winston Churchill's desire to that he
not die and become a martyr, which may be reasonable.
Guy had a lot of going on of the things
(40:52):
I'll criticize Churchill about whatever. Yeah. After the war, Mostly
attempted to rebrand himself as a normal conservative politician. He
formed the Union Movement and ran for Parliament again in
nineteen fifty nine, right after the notting Hill Race riots.
According to the Telegraph quote, his campaign called for forced
repatriation of Caribbean immigrants and a prohibition on mixed marriage.
(41:16):
Just a Nazi in a slightly more advanced age. He
never again succeeded in gaining significant political standing. When he
died in nineteen eighty, he left behind a legacy of
hatred and bigotry that persists in the UK to this day.
The organization Britain First was founded in two thousand eleven
by former members of the British National Party. It campaigns
against multiculturalism with Christian patrols of Muslim neighborhoods and mosques.
(41:39):
Its name was of course spawned by that rally held
by Oswald Moseley in nineteen thirty nine. In two thousand seventeen,
Britain First campaigners edited together a false video purporting to
show a Muslim man attacking a woman on crutches. They
tweeted this video out and it was retweeted by President
Donald Trump. When President Donald Trump was criticized for this,
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said, there it's a real video.
(42:01):
The threat is real. In March two thousand nineteen, a
piece of ship shot and killed fifty people at two
mosques in christ Church, New Zealand. He published a manifesto
online and noted Sir Oswald Moseley as his number one
ideological influence. Obviously, quite a lot of what he wrote
in that manifesto was calculated nonsense, but not this. Over
and over again throughout the manifesto, the shooter expressed clear,
(42:23):
mostly eight views. He believed white countries should be completely independent,
both economically and in terms of their population. They should
be cut off from immigration from the rest of the world.
His desire was for the white world to remain in
a state of autarchy and end to multiculturalism. And so,
more than eighty years after the Battle of Cable Street,
the ideals of Oswald Mosley live on as the dot
(42:48):
dont done. Yeah, nohing changes again. Sometimes he can trip
some horse cops with marbles. Sometimes, why haven't we been
using that at our demonstrations. It's just like and you
see them, You see them like under the carriage waiting.
(43:09):
They're all huddled there and they got their marbles. We
don't need to have them on horses to trip them.
Up on marbles. Yeah, I could trip up some Nazis
with marbles. Yeah, we need to invest in big Marble.
It made me. One of the first things I thought
it was that video that he retweeted. Yeah, it's like,
oh yeah, Britain first, Britain, first fake Muslim video. Yeah,
(43:31):
that's him. Literally we retweeting propaganda made by a group
inspired by and descended by Mosley. It's really pretty cool.
It's I was gonna say bad, but yeah, it's pretty cool, cool,
pretty pretty smart and cool, smart and cool and good
And I forgot to mention good great stuff. We really
(43:53):
don't learn ship. Um, no, we don't. I had an
argument with my mother in the immediate wake of the
attack where we were talking about, you know, the horrible
murders that had been committed, and she expressed her belief
that the United States should just pull all of its
soldiers back from all of the other places in the
world they are and basically just kind of wall itself
(44:13):
off from the world and be you know, you could
call it a state of autarchy. Yeah, yeah, sort of
like cat yourself off, sort of like that isolate suggested
the interesting I've seen a lot of people arguing that
like maybe he uh, he's like a monster, like did
terrible things, but maybe like the reasons he did it
(44:35):
weren't wrong. Yeah, like maybe we should consider like doing
what he suggests to avoid more terrorist violence like that,
like sort of like like capitulating to terrorists kind of
then what they want they stopped. That's what we always
say about terrorists. We negotiate with We negotiate. The first
thing we do with the terrorists is we negotiate with them.
(44:55):
I remember that from the documentary Air Force One in
the late nineteen nineties. I also have seen I'm talking Mary.
I do think it's I want to know um to
get a little slightly back on topic, uh, I think
it's interesting and terrible that when this happened, the shooting
(45:15):
happened you Like I remember one of the first things
you sent to me was, I was literally just writing
about Mosley. I started writing this like four days before
the shooting, right, like I remember, because we were on
a podcast about George Lincoln, right about Rockwell and all
that kind of stuff. And then and literally you said,
like I wouldn't be surprised if by the time this
is over, something like this happens. And then like I
(45:38):
think a day or know that that night was it?
That night was the night of the third episode? Okay,
is the nightther third episode? It did? And you were
in the middle of writing about the person that inspired him.
Wasn't that book mentioned in the manifesto? To which one?
Was it? The Truman? What was it called? I can't
It wasn't mentioned, but it was. It was a clear
and yeah, and he had you know, the fourth words
(46:00):
written on his rifle, which we trace the descent of
that back to rock Right. It's all, it's all. It's
all there and some in some cases in black and white. Yeah. Um,
my point being that everyone should follow and protect Robert
Evans at all costs. Yeah, well, you know I want
to stay more on point. But I have this beautiful
image in my head of of President Harrison Ford rolling
(46:20):
up in the presidential Memo and they're just a plume
of pot smoke rolling out of it, and then shy
La Buff staggers out, and then and then old Harrison
Ford and his sweatpants just sort of saunters up to
to the Arlington Cemetery take some chocolate off his shirt.
We only dreams to live for, That's my dream. Absolutely,
(46:46):
as do I, Robert, Do you have anything to plug?
I have a Twitter at I right okay? Uh com? Yes, yes,
right okay dot com. I have the website for this
podcast is behind the Bastards dot com. You can find
us on Twitter and Instagram at Bastards pod. Buy a
shirt behind the Bastards to public buy a shirt or
(47:10):
food and water and medical supplies to prepare for the
all you. I have a podcast that's not this one
coming out soon that is called it Can't Happen here
or it could happen here Google and different things something
or other happen here. It's about what happens if civil
war in America, but a second one. It'll be fun.
(47:32):
All you fish opposites out there? Are you fish opposites
out there? Uh? It'll be out by the time this
episode drops. Unless they put this episode up tomorrow against
my express wishes and desires. Don't don't do that, Sophie. Yes, Sophie,
she's the audio engineer today and she does not know
how to engineer audio. So if anyone guess as to
(47:53):
whether or not this episode will ever drop, can you hear?
Can you hear this? Tommy? Can you hear Okay, we
really need to just in the episode. It's done, it's done.
M
Behind the Bastards News
Host
Robert Evans
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