The Guardian of the 'Sacred Flame': The Failed Political Resurrection of Sir Oswald Mosley after 1945

Abstract

The message of encouragement, in difficult times, with which Mosley raised the morale of embattled members of the British Union of Fascists (BUF) in 1938, is still remembered as a clarion call by the 'Friends of OM', the last flickering ember of the sacred flame. At no time was it more needed by the faithful than in 1945, but the full story behind Mosley's return to politics, and the extent to which he remained within a fascist perspective, has still to be written. The release of Home Office files on Mosley's political activities between 1945 and 1948, and the papers of Robert Saunders at the University of Sheffield, however, have provided much interesting new material to assess Mosley's attempted political resurrection after the second world war.1 John Hope has argued that the Union Movement acted as a transmission belt between preand postwar British fascism. He points to the significance of the internment camps in the second world war, from which new leaders emerged, who were to play an important role in the revival of neo-fascism in Britain after 1945.2 This is an interesting argument, but fascism was an interwar phenomenon and many were devastated by internment. Only the most committed wished to revive the tradition in a new form of nostalgic, mimetic or neo-fascism after the war.3 Why Mosley tried to adapt his fascism to the new realities, in a political climate well symbolized by the deep freeze of the winter of 1947, is the main focus of this article. The key to Mosley's return to politics, despite his realization that he would be regarded as a political flat-earther, was provided in an interview he gave to