Formation
Chesterton established the group in 1954 on the far right of the Conservative Party, effectively as a reaction to the more liberal forms of Toryism in evident at the time, as typified by the policies of R.A. Butler. Chesterton feared the growth of both the Soviet Union and the United States and concluded that American style capitalism and Bolshevism were actually in alliance as part of Jewish-led conspiracy against the British Empire, a mindset that informed the LEL from the beginning. The wide reaching critiques that this conspiracy theory utilised meant that the LEL won membership from various sectors of right-wing opinion including former BUF activists like Chesterton himself and Barry Domvile, traditionalist patriots like General Sir Richard Hilton and young radicals like John Tyndall, John Bean, Colin Jordan and Martin Webster. Indeed in its early years the LEL succeeded in attracting some leading members of the establishment to its ranks, including Field-Marshal Edmund Ironside, 1st Baron Ironside, Lieutenant-General Sir Balfour Oliphant Hutchison and former British People's Party election candidate Air Commodore G.S. Oddie.
Although the LEL actively supported an independent candidate who was a member at the Lewisham North by-election, 1957 it was not a political party.
Read more about this topic: League Of Empire Loyalists
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