‘What is Happening in Europe?’ Richard Stokes, Fascism, and the Anti‐War Movement in the British Labour Party during the Second World War and After

Abstract

AbstractThis article analyses the political career of the Labour Party MP Richard Rapier Stokes, one of the leading anti‐war agitators in Britain during the Second World War. Stokes was a highly unconventional politician: not only was he more fearful of the threat posed by the Soviet Union than Nazi Germany but he was actually a fascist fellow‐traveller and a member of numerous fascist groups. Campaigning to halt the struggle between Britain and Germany in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Stokes became a prominent figure in extremist politics. Yet, he also came to lead the traditional pacifist element of the Labour Party through the Parliamentary Peace Aims Group that he founded to argue his case. The nature of his political sympathies has not previously been appreciated. After the war, Stokes worked with European anti‐communist groups, comprised largely of fascists, before serving briefly in the cabinet towards the end of the 1945–51 Labour government. This article seeks to reconstruct the career of this neglected figure and integrate him within the literature of both the Labour Party and extremist politics.