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Twentieth Century British History 2002 13(1):38-61; doi:10.1093/tcbh/13.1.38
© 2002 by Oxford University Press
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‘Left-Wing Fascism’ in Theory and Practice: The Case of the British Union of Fascists

Philip M. Coupland1

1 University of Glasgow

In the context of interpretations of fascism as being primarily a reactionary bourgeois movement, the significant working-class membership and quasi-socialist elements of the programme and discourse of the British Union of Fascists (BUF) present a puzzle. A detailed examination of the history of the Fascist Union of British Workers (FUBW), the blackshirt career of ex-socialist Alexander Miles, and the transformation in the fascist movement's leadership illustrates the contradiction between ‘left-wing’ fascist rhetoric and actions arising from the politics of class within the BUF. In this way the period 1933–4 saw the liquidation of the FUBW and the fascist movement purged of many ex-socialists in its leadership such that the BUF came firmly under the control of middle-class ex-officers. Despite this, ‘left-wing’ aspects of fascism continued to be functional in incorporating a significant working-class membership within the BUF as long as its populist rhetoric remained uncontradicted in practice.


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