Oswald Mosley “Patriotic Alternative” and Anti-Semitism

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Introduction

It has been evident for some time that an element of the British far right identifies closely with the European fascism of the 1930s, with these neo-Nazis repeating the slogans and aping the same beliefs of anti-Semitism, anti-immigration and racism.  One such far right group emulating and repackaging the fascism of the 30s is Patriotic Alternative.

To gain inspiration Patriotic Alternative have returned to Oswald Mosley, leader of the interwar British Union of Fascists (BUF), who is remembered for his failed attempts to introduce to Britain a political movement explicitly inspired by the doctrines of Mussolini’s fascist Italy and Hitler’s Nazi Germany.  By modelling himself on these two dictators he would foster a quasi-military atmosphere within the BUF.


Mosley shares a podium with Italy’s fascist dictator Benito Mussolini at a gathering of fascists, Rome, April 1933

After the war, during the 50s and 60s, Mosley with other European fascists would try and fail to instigate a resurgence as neo-fascism.  During the 90s and 00s, the fear of fascism that hung over British politics through the mid-20th century finally faded to almost nothing.  Partly, it was the passage of time: Tory and labour cabinets, and the electorate, were no longer full of people that had fought Hitler who recognised fascisms anti-Semitic ideology.

Mosley himself, and historians have attempted to portray him as a reluctant anti-Semite, a narrative that is entirely erroneous.  This article will discuss Mosley’s links with anti-Semitism and end with Patriotic Alternative’s opposition towards Jews, both of which are at the very core of both the would-be dictator’s and Patriotic Alternatives ideology.

Oswald Mosley and anti-Semitism

Mosley, a charismatic megalomaniac of immense wealth, was convinced he was born to rule, once flaunted as a future leader of both the Conservative and Labour parties, attempted to portray himself as a reluctant anti-Semite, spending the post war years up until his death indulging in self-serving revisionism.  Anti-Semitism and opposition to Jews was at the very core of the would-be dictator’s ideology.

Upon establishing the BUF in 1932 Mosley explicitly renounced unprovoked violence and anti-Semitism, claiming in the autumn of 1934, that the aggression of the Jews themselves had forced him to adopt an anti-Semitic policy.  He would later assert in his 1968 autobiography that his ‘quarrel’ with Jews ‘had nothing to do with anti-Semitism’; instead it had been a reaction towards the Jews, who had ‘jump[ed] to unjustified conclusions’ about the BUF and attacked it, requiring a response on his part.

This has led to a sense, particularly amongst historians, that the BUF’s anti-Semitism was not part of its ideology but an addition that was included as a response to Jewish aggression.  With Mosley often presented as an unenthusiastic anti-Semite, manipulated by BUF extremists who wanted to push the party in an anti-Semitic direction, and a victim of influential hard-line anti-Semites within the BUF.

This image of Mosley is entirely false, Mosley was a generous benefactor and unchallenged leader of a party that preached authoritarian leadership.  Mosley was in direct control of his party’s anti-Semitism, just as he was with every other major facet of BUF policy, with anti-Semitism being an integral part of it from the very beginning of the BUF’s formation.  Mosley deliberately elected to partially conceal his anti-Semitism, which he knew would be a hard sell to the British public, by portraying it as a reluctant but rational and necessary response to Jewish aggression.

Mosley’s anti-Semitism had already manifested itself prior to the formation of the BUF.  In April 1932, before winding down his short lived, proto-fascist New Party (NUPA), which was formed on the 1st of March 1930, before it merged into the BUF, Mosley invited two of Britain’s most radical anti-Semites, Arnold Leese of the Imperial Fascist League and Henry Beamish, founder of the English anti-Semitic and anti-immigration organisation The Britons, to address the party’s NUPA Youth Movement on the subject of “The Blindness of British politics under the Jew [sic] Money-Power”.

It was these youths whom Mosley intended to constitute the core of his new fascist party.  Nicholas Mosley, a harsh critic of his father and author of the Mosley biography “Beyond the Pale: Sir Oswald Mosley and Family 1933–1980”, once noted that Christopher Hobhouse, a member of the NUPA, had said “he saw the (NUPA) Youth Movement turning into something like the Nazi SS.”  Mosley also set up a party militia, the “Biff Boys” led by the then England rugby captain Peter Howard.

During the transition from the NUPA to the BUF, Mosley began work on his book ‘The Greater Britain’, in which he would outline the central doctrine of his fascist beliefs.  According to the diary of his close associate Harold Nicholson, a draft of the book contained attacks upon Jews.  Nicholson warned Mosley that the books ‘Nazi note’ would alienate the British public.  Perhaps as a consequence of Nicholson’s advice, Mosley removed from the final version direct references to Jews; but coded criticism remained of the ‘alien elements, which arrogate … power above the state, and ha[ve] used that influence to drive flaccid governments of all political parties along the high road to national disaster’.

Mosley would elaborate further the true meaning behind such references on the eve of the BUF’s formation in September 1932.  While he guaranteed a ‘square deal’ for any Jews who showed themselves to be ‘loyal citizens’ (a clear insinuation that he believed many were not), he warned he would attack Jews if they engaged in subversive activities such as the direction of the Communist Party or … international financial transactions’.  This was further emphasised in Mosley’s first speech as a fascist, during which, The Times recorded, ‘hostility to Jews was directed against those who financed Communists or were perusing anti-British policy’.

Mosley clearly demonstrated in his earliest declarations as leader of the BUF that he had chosen Jews to be associated with the kind of ‘anti-British’ behaviour to which his doctrine opposed, hinting at the consequences that would ensue.

Nonetheless, Mosley would continue to assert that his party was not anti-Semitic, emphasising that he would ‘never attack Jews because they are Jews’.  However, this was to change in November 1933.  In a front page article in Blackshirt, writing anonymously in his party’s newspaper he would reveal that thus far the BUF had avoided anti-Semitism, this had been open to change though should it appear that Jews, as a collective body, were destabilising British interests.  Proclaiming that the boundary had been crossed, stating that ‘Jews have now organised as a racial minority within the state’, using their ‘great money … not for the benefit of Britain, but for their own race’.

Mosley had cast Jews not only as a disloyal group, but a dangerously influential one.  Strengthening his accusations with various ‘revelations’ of this alleged power: their ‘domination’ over the Conservative, Labour and Liberal parties, who ‘dance to the Jewish tune’; their control of Britain’s financial industry; and their ‘corrupt monopoly’ over the media.  These tools had been harnessed in service of an international conspiracy to destroy fascism, with Jews ‘all over the world … organis[ing] against the Fascist revolution’.  In particular, they were attempting to use their vast power to ‘drag Britain to war’ with Nazi Germany.

Mosley was now compelled to make clear the BUF’s stance towards Britain’s Jews: ‘We oppose them.’  This position was further confirmed when, in March 1934, he revealed at a public meeting that Jews had been barred from membership of the BUF on the grounds that he could not ‘invite an enemy to come into my camp’.

In an attempt to conceal his anti-Semitism, Mosley continued to acknowledge the possibility that ‘good’ Jews did exist, with his language becoming accusatory: the presence of such Jews was no longer to be taken for granted, it was now the job of these ‘good’ Jews to ‘come forward’ and prove that they ‘set the interests of Britain before racial passion’.  This was, of course, a completely hypocritical challenge, Mosley had intentionally ignored the fact that the leaders of Anglo-Jewry had already constantly stressed that they did not oppose fascism as an ideology, only any anti-Semitism associated with it, and had gone to great lengths to prevent Jewish involvement in anti-fascist activity.  Mosley knew that such a challenge would be impossible to meet, thereby providing further justification for the policy of anti-Semitism he was now – and had always been – committed to.

What is significant is that Mosley had quite clearly stated his belief that Jews were an ‘alien and anti-national minority’ and therefore his ‘enemies’ well before the alleged wave of Jewish anti-fascism, starting in June 1934, that Mosley would later claim had driven him towards an anti-Semitic position.  The fascist’s interpretation of these events portrayed Mosley as being ‘puzzled’ by this supposed outpouring of Jewish opposition in mid-1934 that he ‘ordered a thorough research’ into the matter. 

This was carried out by A. K. Chesterton, one of the BUF’s leading propagandists, who would later become the editor of the Blackshirt, a position that would provide him with a pulpit for his increasingly anti-Semitic rhetoric.  Chesterton would later co-found the National Front (NF) in 1967, as a merger between his League of Empire Loyalists and the British National Party.

Chesterton ‘discovered’ that Jews held great power in finance, politics and the media, which they exploited ‘to the detriment of Britain’.  Mosley realised he had ‘stumbled upon the secret of Jewry’s bitter attack on his movement’: they were complicit in all the harmful activity that fascism promised to bring to an end.  Chesterton would bemoan the sad irony that fascism, which simply wished ‘to preach a straightforward doctrine of patriotism and economic reform’, had ‘been driven into a racial policy by the very people who had most to lose from the implementing of that policy’.

When Mosley founded the BUF he had already associated Jews with the types of ‘subversive’ activity he claimed to oppose, and by the end of 1933 he had outlined these accusations in detail.  Therefore, this could not have been a ‘discovery’ that he made in 1934, and it should not have come as a surprise to him that Jews were hostile towards his movement in the summer of 1934, given that he had previously and openly declared his own opposition towards them.  Mosley had always alleged that Jews were aggressors against his party.  At the BUF’s first public event Mosley decried the ‘class warriors from Jerusalem’, claiming they incited trouble in the crowd.  In November 1933 he argued that Jews ‘hate us because we … challenge their corrupt power’; it was ‘the[y], not we, who have forced the struggle’.  Two weeks later the Blackshirt proclaimed that there had been ‘a declaration of war by Jewry against us … long before [now]’.

These statements reveal Mosley’s true intentions.  He had from the very start, intended anti-Semitism to comprise a sizeable component of his ideology and agenda, he knew such explicit prejudice would be unacceptable to the British public and establishment.  Therefore, before revealing his anti-Semitic doctrine, he intended to establish a narrative of events in which he could be seen defending himself from the inevitable aggressive response of Jews, whose great power he had unwittingly challenged for simply pursuing his fascist policies.  Mosley’s early anti-Jewish outbursts, were sporadic enough for plausible deniability, but explicit enough to send a clear message to Jews, which he manipulated for his own ends.

However, to Mosley’s annoyance no such response from the Jews had initially been forthcoming.  Anglo-Jewry however had not missed his anti-Semitic rhetoric, on the contrary, the Jewish Chronicle already detected the ‘Cloven hoof of anti-Semitism peeping out’ of Mosley’s statements.  In November 1933 the Jewish Chronicle published an editorial entitled ‘Sir Oswald Mosley, Anti-Semite’, accusing him of an ‘undisguised call to war on the Jewish people’ and dismissing his disavowals of anti-Semitism as the ‘idlest nonsense’.  The president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the community’s representative body would later declare in July 1934 that, despite Mosley’s public denials, he had long had ‘no doubt as to the ultimately anti-Semitic character of the Fascist movement’.

The Jewish leadership, despite its concerns, urged restraint, advising that to seek conflict with the fascists would bring dishonour on the community and risk inflaming the situation.  This resulted in very few Jews involving themselves in disruptive forms of anti-fascism, with only a handful of scattered incidents during 1933 and the first half of 1934.  This infuriated Mosley, the Jews were failing to play the role he had assigned them, and this frustration became apparent in April 1934, during a major address at the Royal Albert Hall where he announced: ‘When [Jews] talk of declaring war on fascism, my answer is “Get on with it!”’. Jewish reserve would finally end on the 7th of June 1934, a series of organised attempts were made by anti-fascists, mainly consisting of Socialists and Communist opponents, to disrupt BUF events, with Jews being conspicuous among the protesters.  Mosley seized upon this fact to validate his narrative of victimhood in preparation to adopt antisemitism in the autumn of 1934.  This was a cynical and opportunistic political move rather than a genuine response to Jewish aggression is further indicated by Mosley’s deliberate exaggeration of the extent of Jewish involvement


Sir Oswald Mosley inspecting members of his British Union of Fascists in Royal Mint Street, London, in October 1936

In July of that year Mosley would claim that 80% of those arrested for anti-fascist violence were Jews; falling to 50% in October; and in early 1936 it was just 20%.  Not only was Mosley inconsistent in his portrayal of the number of arrests, it was pure fabrication; during this period, as the BUF became more explicitly anti-Semitic, the proportion of Jews involved in anti-fascist activity went up, not down.

The figure of 20% is probably closer to the actual figure, and if it were it is important to remember the relatively small number of Jews involved in disruptive forms of opposition to the BUF in mid-1934; Jews were a minority of both Britain’s anti-fascist movement and the Jewish community. Work conducted by Dr Stephen Cullen involved the examination police arrest records from a sample of 142 BUF meetings, the results of his investigation work found that from 1934 to 1935 only 10 Jews were arrested, scarcely justification for Mosley to declare opposition to all Anglo-Jewry.

Further compelling evidence of Mosley’s true intentions lies buried within his personal papers, a hand written note in the margin of a document ignored by earlier researchers offers an insight into Mosley’s personal unguarded thoughts concerning Jews.  The document, a report by General J. F. C. Fuller, a BUF member, written at some point between the summer and autumn of 1934.  In it Fuller advises Mosley on the party’s Jewish policy.  Fuller warns that, ‘however undesirable the bulk of [Jews] may be’, indiscriminate attacks against them would repel the majority of British people.  The BUF should not, therefore, ‘condemn [Jews] as a race’, but instead should denounce ‘only such sections as are connected with illegal and criminal undertakings’, on the basis of the same rules that ‘apply to all people’.

This was precisely Mosely’s true objectives: denying that he opposed Jews as a whole but highlighting what he claimed were concrete examples of the ‘subversive’, ‘anti-British’ behaviour that was endemic among them, all the while hoping that doing so would provoke a reaction from Jews that he could present as evidence of their hostility towards fascism.  Mosley would write in the margin next to Fullers advice, in his distinctive but unfortunately not easily readable handwriting:

This is a […ull] arg[ume]nt infavour of the strategy of […ing] the onus of aggression onto the Jews.  It may be shown from now [in?] [illegible] that the Jew is the aggressor and the […ter] […ession] may be launched [with?] a good [illegible] of [further?] [support?].

These are not the words of a man being forced towards anti-Semitism by Jewish attacks (or even bemused or incensed by them), but rather a man who sees it as an opportunity to validate a pre-existing anti-Semitic strategy.

This view is strengthened by two further insights into the BUF’s internal workings, provided by senior party members who abandoned Mosley during this period.  Robert Forgan, the BUF’s deputy leader, a position he had held up until 1934 before he left the BUF because of its drift towards anti-Semitism, privately admitted in July 1934 that it had become ‘impossible to work with’ Mosley due to ‘his anti-Semitic utterances and anti-Semitic trend of the Fascist movement’ under his leadership.  Later that year, Charles Dolan, a former national propagandist for the BUF, asserted that Mosley’s previous denials of anti-Semitism had always been ‘for political reasons only’.  These statements could be dismissed as resentment by the defectors to discredit their former leader, when combined with the evidence given above they appear far more credible.

Two years later, Mosley himself would publicly allude to his intended approach to the Jewish question.  Writing under his own name for a front page article in Blackshirt, he made it clear that he was ‘fully aware of the racial differences between Jews and ourselves’ and, as such, promised to ‘take any measures necessary for the reservation of the British race’.  However, he warned his followers that there was a ‘right way’ and a ‘wrong way’ of pursuing such a policy.  ‘Mere abuse’ of Jews, he cautioned, is ‘bad propaganda’, which would make the fascists look like ‘liars and lunatics’ and allow Jews to portray themselves as victims.  The BUF, therefore, had to be ‘cleverer’ and ensure that Jews were condemned for specific, demonstrable anti-British or anti-fascist behaviour.  This clearly demonstrates the carefully crafted intentions behind Mosley’s anti-Semitism, with specific attention given to depicting it in a manner that would not alienate the British public.

Why would Mosley go to such lengths to follow a policy that he knew would hamper his political ambitions.  The answer is that anti-Semitism was an inherent and permanent feature of his fascist ideology, which sought the formation of a homogeneous society through the removal of groups considered to be incompatible to this vision of purity.  Jews did not necessarily have to be the target of his campaign of discrimination.  Jews in 1930s Britain and much of Europe were the most prominent out-group, widely regarded as distinctive from and incompatible with the indigenous culture and society.  This made them an obvious target.

Jews were generally connected with the aspects of economic, political and cultural ‘decay’ that fascism wanted to sweep away: socialism and communism; liberal democracy; immigration and ethnic mixing; the internationalisation of trade, production and finance; modern art, music and other novel forms of culture; ‘unproductive’ middleman professions.  Thus Jews became the personification of the ‘alien’ influences fascism so passionately opposed, and the removal from Britain of their presence became the necessary requirement for Mosley’s envisioned national rebirth.

This combination of Mosley’s fascist beliefs and his anti-Semitism, which had already been insinuated in his early anti-Semitic declarations, was definitely outlined during his two speeches in the autumn of 1934 to officially declare his ‘new’ anti-Jewish policy.  First, he laid out how Jews, a minority that ‘owes allegiance not to Britain, but to another race in foreign countries’, were ‘undermining the prosperity of Britain … more than any other single factor’, ‘destroy[ing] the foundations of our national life’ and ‘rob[bing] us of our heritage’.  Fascism could ‘not tolerate those who sabotage the nation’ in this way.  Consequently Mosley made the removal of Jewish influence an integral aspect of his mission to purify and resurrect Britain. 

In a typically fascist rallying call, he appealed to Britain’s ‘epic generation’ to lead ‘a new spiritual revival of British manhood against [these] aliens’, to overturn their ‘decadent, rotting, reeking’ system of ‘corruption and decay’, ‘to sweep away, to destroy, and then to build again’.  This was for Mosley a zero sum game between Jews and the true people of Britain: by put[ting] them down … we shall put the nation up’.  Reporting on his own words, Blackshirt briefly summarised the leader’s message: two ‘forces are arrayed – the one hand the great cleansing spirit of Fascism, and on the other, organised Jewry, representing unclean, alien influence on our national imperial life’.

Mosley would eventually be detained on the 23rd May 1940 and later interned under the Defence Regulation 18B together with other active fascists in Britain, this resulted in the BUF’s removal from Britain’s political stage.  Mosley, along with his wife Diana would live for most of the war in a house in the grounds of Holloway prison, until their release in November 1943 and detained under house arrest and police supervision.  The war ended what remained of Mosley’s political reputation and ambitions.

In later life Mosley would distance himself from his anti-Semitic language and political activities of the 1930s, many historians would later give the impression that Mosley regarded anti-Semitism as peripheral to, indeed a distraction from, his central fascist mission.  This view is indefensible, splitting hairs over the extent to which Mosley genuinely believed his own anti-Semitism is to miss the point.  As Mosley began his ideological journey towards fascism over 1932, he came to realise that purging Britain of ‘alien’ influences was an essential component of his ultra-nationalistic, exclusionary doctrine, and Jews would be the inevitable objective of this campaign.  Whether Mosley really thought that Jews were responsible for the problems he attributed to them, or instead he cynically chose them as the most suitable, is immaterial.  In either case, anti-Semitism was absolutely at the core of his ideology.

Patriotic Alternative

On the 7th of September 2019, Patriotic Alternative launched itself at its inaugural conference as a new far right white nationalist group, announcing themselves as a ‘party for the indigenous people of these islands’.  As an aspiring political party, Patriotic Alternative are awaiting the outcome of an application to the Electoral Commission.  Patriotic Alternative’s leader Mark Collett and deputy leader, Laura Towler, have a history in perpetuating old fascist canards and conspiratorial anti-Semitism.

Like Mosley, Collet possess allusions to grandeur and believes he is born to rule.  In an episode of the Channel 4 current affairs documentary Dispatches, Young, Nazi and Proud, broadcast in 2002, he aired his views about ethnic minorities and Jews, declaring his admiration for Hitler, stating “Hitler will live on for ever and maybe I will”.

Collet’s far-right activities over the past two decades are infamous, a neo-Nazi and white nationalist with close ties to other white supremacists, he once held the position of director of publicity and was once touted as a future leader of the BNP.

As chairman of the British National Party’s (BNP) youth division, he adopted the Odal, also known as the Othala rune; a symbol used by 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division “Prinz Eugen” a German mountain infantry division of the Waffen-SS which operated in occupied Yugoslavia during World War II.  After the war members of the division were indicted for war crimes with two of its former commanders being sentenced to death by hanging and executed in Belgrade 1947.  The Odal rune has also been used, amongst others, by the White Liberation Movement a notorious neo-Nazi South African organisation, the National Socialist Movement a neo-Nazi organisation based in Detroit Michigan and was one of a number of symbols used by the Christchurch mosque shooter Brenton Harrison Tarrant.



Odal rune used by a Waffen SS Divisio, various neo-Nazi organisations and a far-right terrorist

Collett’s membership with the BNP was to end in April 2010 when he was suspended from the party after being supportive of a leadership bid against the BNP’s then leader Nick Griffin.

Throughout the BNP history it has been synonymous with anti-immigration and repatriation with much of its published material promoting the white genocide conspiracy theory, wild claims about a forthcoming race war and calling for the non-white population of Britain to either be reduced in size or removed from the country altogether.  As a consequence the BNP adopted a policy of voluntary repatriation, stating that any non-whites who refused to leave would be stripped of their British citizenship and categorised as “permanent guests”, while continuing to be offered incentives to emigrate.  This policy was reinforced by the BNP’s ideology of ethnic nationalism, wherein the nation is defined in terms of ethnicity.

The BNP was openly anti-Semitic.  Under leadership of John Tyndall, he believed that there was a global conspiracy of Jews bent on world domination, viewing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as genuine evidence for this.  He believed that Jews were responsible for both communism and international finance capitalism and that they were responsible for the undermining of the British Empire and the British race.  He believed that both democratic government and immigration into Europe were parts of the Jewish conspiracy to weaken other races.  These are similar views and claims held by Mosley during his journey towards fascism in the 1930s.

If any further proof of Collett’s anti-Semitic credentials were needed he was asked during a livestream internet broadcast with white nationalist Jason Köhne (No White Guilt) the following question “If you could only preserve one book for the future white generations which one would you choose?.

At the top of Collet’s list was Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler’s thesis of “the Jewish peril”, which posits a Jewish conspiracy to gain world leadership and contains several passages within the book that are undeniably of a genocidal nature; a second publication was alluded to but not named by the founder of the American Nazi Party, the racist, homophobic and anti-Semite George Lincoln Rockwell who once threatened if he came to power he would gas Jews; and finally My Awakening a book that espouses racist, anti-Semitic, sexist and homophobic attitudes written by the former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Klu Klux Klan David Duke, an advocate of neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.


Towler’s admiration for Mosley

Patriotic Alternative’s deputy leader Laura Towler, by her own admission, has gained political inspiration from Mosley.  Following Mosley’s portrayal in the British crime drama television series Peaky Blinders she felt compelled to support him with open admiration, defending him as the,

the greatest Englishman of the last century…

..what kind of person would I be if stayed silent and allowed my inspiration, a man who risked everything for England, to be vilified..

Inaccurately depicting Mosley as a humble man, by affirming,

He was respectful of all peoples and cultures and, while recognising our differences and therefore that separation is vital, he wanted us to live in peace and friendship, side by side

Resorting to media controlled conspiracy theories Towler then goes on to blame ‘foreign controlled’, ‘anti-white’ and ‘mainstream media’ for Mosley’s vilification.

As previously discussed this could not be any further from the truth, Mosley remains perhaps the most notorious figure in modern British history, remembered for his failed attempts to introduce Britain to a political movement explicitly inspired by the creeds of Mussolini and Hitler, and the violence and anti-Semitism that accompanied it.

Towler came to prominence as a far-right activist as editor of the white nationalist website Defend Europa (established in April 2017), an alt-right, white nationalist and anti-Semitic opinion site.  Towler’s duties as editor would be, before submission onto the Defend Europa website, to critical read, improve and refine stories or articles. Defend Europa has a dedicated webpage titled Jews which contains anonymous, poorly written anti-Semitic articles, whose authors are defined as ‘by Defend Europa’.  As editor Towler’s editorial responsibilities would also include the planning, revision and co-ordination of material for publication and submission of pieces onto the Defend Europa website.  As previously discussed, Mosley wrote anonymously, then openly anti-Semitic articles in his party’s newspaper, Blackshirt


Anti-Semitic articles produced by Defend Europa an alt-right, white nationalist opinion site


Anti-Semitic messages uploaded via the Defend Europa News account through an instant messaging service

One piece is titled ‘Is Britain’s New Government the Most Zionist in History?’  The term “Zionist” is often used by far/alt-right affiliates as a euphemism for Jews.  The author of the piece claims that ‘It is my assertion that it is now the most Zionist British government in the United Kingdom’s histor[r]y’.  The author continues to claim that ‘Boris Johnson’s mother is also the granddaughter of Elias Avery Lowe who was a Russian Jewish immigrant to the USA’ and continues to make assertions about Johnson Jewish connections, heritage and mixed race children, ending with the following anti-Semitic conspiratorial accusation.

‘It is not really surprising though when it is reported that around 80 percent of the Conservative MP’s in Parliament are members of CFI [The Conservative Friends of Israel].  We can see from this that the new government Brexit or no Brexit is under the clear dominance of a foreign entity Israel and the main lever of power in the political realm are now firmly in the hands of ardent Zionists who will likely put Israel rather that Britain first which can’t bode well for our people and nation!’

Mosley warned his followers in the 1930s that there was a ‘right way’ and a ‘wrong way’ of pursuing anti-Semitic policy.  ‘Mere abuse’ of Jews, he cautioned, is ‘bad propaganda’, which would make the fascists look like ‘liars and lunatics’.  Therefore, condemnation of Jews had to be specific and demonstrable.  Therefore, he carefully crafted anti-Semitism, with the specific attention to depicting it in a manner that would not alienate the British public.

One old Fascist canard is the anti-Semitic cliché that “the Jews control the media” an d Hollywood.  Historically, it has been traced to discredited early 20th-century publications such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1903) and to Henry Ford’s Dearborn Independent (1919 – 1927).

Below is an example of Towler acknowledging anti-Semitism in the form of a far-right dog whistle concerning ‘a certain group running Hollywood’; dog whistles serve the purpose of attracting a particular intended political audience with a subtly aimed political message intended for, and can only be understood by, a particular demographic group.


Towler’s blatant anti-Semitic far-right dog whistle

Mosley believed that Jews were an ‘alien and anti-national minority’ but would communicate that conviction in such a way as not to alienate the British public.  Like Mosley, Towler is careful not to portray Jews as victims but content to categorise them as an ethnic minority, portraying Jews as not being British.

Towler, as can be seen in the above tweet screenshot, employs the same devices as Mosley, who would assert that his party was not anti-Semitic, emphasising that he would ‘never attack Jews because they are Jews’.  Mosley, in an attempt to conceal his anti-Semitism would acknowledge that ‘good’ Jews did exist, and it was now the job of these ‘good’ Jews to ‘come forward’ and prove that they ‘set the interests of Britain before racial passion’.

Anti-Semitic messages posted by Towler

At Patriotic Alternative’s spring conference in March 2020, Towler would give a speech highlighting one of Patriotic Alternative’s policies, the repatriation of all non-white people from the British Isles.  This is nothing new, when Mosley began his ideological journey towards fascism he desired the purging of Britain of ‘alien’ influences that it became an essential component of his ultra-nationalistic and exclusionary doctrine.  The BNP had a policy of anti-immigration and repatriation calling for the non-white population of Britain to either be reduced in size or removed from the country altogether.  Towler’s conference speech has been repackaged using the same old fascist ideology, making it more palatable with the inclusion of a financial sweetener, but make no mistake, no matter how it is worded, the removal of a community from a country is fascism.

Towler also has an unambiguous, disturbing and insidious warmth for neo-Nazis and fascists that espouse violence, one such individual is Kai Murros, a Finnish radical nationalist writer and advocate of a peculiar synthesis of Maoism and racial nationalism, encompassing pogroms against Jews in a neo-Nazi version of Pol Pot’s Cambodia.

Towler’s affection for Kai Murros

On the 15th of October 2015, Murros attended as a guest speaker at a London Forum conference.  The London Forum is a loose organisation of far right nationalist and white supremacists, described as “one of the organising hubs” for the far-right in Britain today.  Murros called in his speech for a violent fascist revolution, which would involve brigades of masked blackshirts, stating:

Make it absolutely clear that there are no laws, no agreements, no treaties … that you would not break in order to secure the future of the English people..

The change must be brought from the outside and it must be brought by force.  For this historic task an entirely new type of shock troops should be created: the nationalist Khmer Noir commandos, raised from the ranks of the working class.  Clad in black hoodies, covering their faces with black and white chequered scarves, the young fanatics of the movement will storm the universities, break into classrooms and tear the academics down from their podiums.

The red academics will be forced to admit their crimes against the English people in mass rallies.  They will publicly confess how they have always conspired against the English people, how they have always hated the English people, and how they have always fantasised about hurting the English people. After this the red academics will be forced to face the wrath of the masses.

The parasite intellectuals will be forced at all times to carry signs declaring their evil schemes against the English people.

“… Nationalist cultural revolution requires that you ignite an inferno of rage in the English people.

Fascists over the years have learnt, and it has become clear, that explicitly anti-Semitic posturing is more trouble than it is worth.  Taking up the supposed threat of Muslim immigrants is far more effective, and easier to integrate into nationalist, radical right-wing ideology.  There is nothing new about Patriotic Alternative’s, re-packaged, old fascist canards and anti- Semitic conspiracy theories, Patriotic Alternative will deny that they are anti-Semitic but there are glimpses, when the mask slips, anti-Semitism can be seen at the very core of their ideology, by paying tribute Mosley they are endorsing anti-Semitism.

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10 Comments

  • Any organisation who actually admires Oswald Mosley shows itself up to be a load of retards.

  • Good, informative article. Could do with some proof-reading (e.g. “delusions of grandeur” not “allusions to grandeur”). And stop saying ‘canards’ all the time! 🙂

  • I have not heard about Laura Towler before but I looked at her YouTube channel and she has a very interesting video called “We Were Never asked”. It seems that the political class of the UK never asked the people whether they approved of mass immigration from the third world! https://youtu.be/JDOW2refPPU

    I am sure that the anonymous author of this article, or any of the clever people at resistinghate.org, could easily refute Laura’s thesis. I think that she would be happy to discuss all of her politics with you on a YouTube livestream. She appears to be a friendly person, so there is no need to be shy!

    • Unfortunately for Laura Towler, Resisting Hate do not debate fascists, we deplatform them.
      Should she wish to see an alternative to her views we suggest she speak to anyone in the world except the band of thugs, yobs and racists who make up the people she chooses to associate with.

      • Roanna, I am genuinely intrigued by your reply. From what I have studied of our history, the very concept of liberal democracy, that we are both privileged to be a part of, evolved as a consequence of people who refused to defer to the edicts of authority. Dissent of perceived injustices, is one of the hallmarks of being British, far more than the flag in your avatar.

        During the English Civil war, a perfect demonstration of British contempt for tyranny, Milton wrote:

        “And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licencing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and falsehood grapple; who ever knew truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter.”

        Deplatforming is an UnBritish, cowardly tactic of censorship, deployed only by the worst communist and fascist regimes, who fear that their false doctrines will be exposed in an “open encounter”. If you are so confident of your beliefs, why would you avoid the opportunity of debating your cause with anybody?

        Laura Towler’s group are not “thugs, yobs and racists”! You appear to have got them confused with Antifa and BLM criminals, who violently favour racial privileges for Africans. The Patriotic Alternative, abides by the laws of our land and will never be proscribed. Attempting to shut them down by anonymous gossiping, is not a good look. It will fail to impress increasing numbers of disaffected young ethnic British people, who are happy with their cultural heritage. They believe that becoming a minority ethnic group in their own homeland by 2066 is a dystopian potential future for the UK and must be opposed by lawful dissent.

        The unsigned article does not contain any claims or evidence that the PA are violent, so why won’t you support debating them? Are you afraid that your use of the Union flag might lead to you to sympathise with their cause?

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