Early Development
The party confined itself to stewarding Conservative Party meetings, and canvassing for the party. In particular they campaigned vigorously on behalf of Oliver Locker-Lampson, whose "Keep Out the Reds" campaign slogan struck a chord with the group's strong anti-communism. The group also indulged in a series of high profile stunts, many of which were more in the vein of elaborate practical jokes than genuine subversion. In one such example five British Fascisti forcibly removed Harry Pollitt from a train to Liverpool, where he was due to address a National Minority Movement event, and attempted to bundle him onto a different train. The five members arrested for the event insisted that they had intended to send Pollitt on a weekend break and even claimed that he had taken £5 in expenses they offered him for that purpose. One of their few policies was a call for a reduction in income tax so that the well-off could hire more servants and so reduce unemployment.
The group changed its name from British Fascisti to British Fascists in 1924 in an attempt to distance itself from the Italian associations, although this move helped to bring about a split in the group with a more ideologically fascist group, the National Fascisti, going its own way. The group's patriotism had been questioned because of the Italian spelling of the name, whilst accusations were also made that they were in the pay of the Italian government. Placing emphasis on their support for the establishment, they even wrote to Labour Party Home Secretary Arthur Henderson in 1924 telling him that the group was at his disposal if he wished to deploy them against picket lines during industrial unrest, an offer to which Henderson did not respond. Blakeney had replaced Garvagh as President that same year, with Garvagh claiming that he lived too far from London to be politically influential enough.
Despite its close association with elements of the Conservative Party the British Fascists did occasionally run candidates in local elections. In 1924 two of its candidates in the municipal elections in Stamford, Lincolnshire, Arnold Leese and Henry Simpson, managed to secure election to the local council. Simpson would retain his seat in 1927 although by that stage both he and Leese had broken from the British Fascists.
Read more about this topic: British Fascists
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