Mosley and British Politics 1918-32. Oswald’s Odyssey.By David Howell.

Abstract

There is no shortage of studies of Sir Oswald Mosley’s politics. Indeed more books, articles and essays have been written about him than about most cabinet ministers, and even most prime ministers. Given the perennial interest in ‘political extremism’, it is perhaps understandable that an abundance of studies exists and continues to appear for Mosley’s period as leader of the British Union of Fascists from 1932. But numerous studies have also commented on his earlier political career, and these have not been concerned simply to locate the sources of his fascism. Beginning in the 1960s with still useful articles by W.F. Mandle (not listed in the bibliography of this book) and more especially with Robert Skidelsky’s pioneering book on the second Labour government from 1929 to 1931, there has been much interest in Mosley’s fertile production of what might be termed ‘proto-Keynesian’ policies for reducing unemployment, his corporatist plans for institutional reform and economic reconstruction, and his imaginative attitudes towards the party-political system. His movement from military service to election as a Conservative MP in 1918, flirtation with the Liberal party and passage through the Labour party on the way to fascism has attracted the attention of those studying the restlessness of the ‘war generation’ of ‘young’ politicians. His period as a Labour minister from June 1929, his resignation in May 1930, his creation of a ‘New Party’ in March 1931 and its electoral obliteration in the general election of October 1931 has been traversed in numerous studies (including this reviewer’s) of the agonies of the Labour government and the drama of the creation and perpetuation of the National coalition government. Matthew Worley has recently published as many as four articles, a special journal issue with nine contributors, and a monograph on the 9-month span of the New Party. So what can be added about Mosley’s pre-fascist career?