Imperial Fascist League

The Imperial Fascist League was a British political movement founded by Arnold Leese in 1929.

Related Topics:
Arnold Leese - 1929

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The IFL was a small movement with never more than a few hundred members, including its "Fascist Legions" who wore black shirts and were organised for street battles. Initially using the fasces as its symbol the movement became more admiring of Adolf Hitler and after he came to power it adopted the swastika superimposed on the Union Jack as its new emblem.

Related Topics:
Fasces - Adolf Hitler - Swastika - Union Jack

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Like their contemporaries in the British Fascists the IFL sought a version of fascism that would be tailored to British peculiarities. Amongst their ideas was a call for Parliament to be converted into a lower house drawn from the occupations and an upper chamber to consist of the great and the good on an appointed basis. Anti-Semitism was a central theme of the IFL and the party had contacts with the notorious Julius Streicher before the War. The extremism of the League was legendary. Leese accused Mosley of being under the control of the Jews ("the British Jewnion of Fascists"was a favourite retort) , and Leese remains perhaps the only European fascist leader to openly call for the extermination by gas of the entire Jewish race, in print, long before the German Nazis actually put the process into operation.

Related Topics:
British Fascists - Fascism - Anti-Semitism - Julius Streicher - Mosley - Nazis

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The arrival of the British Union of Fascists saw a huge slump in IFL membership as Oswald Mosley was much more highly regarded than the relatively unknown Leese. The two groups were on bad terms and more than once there were reports of battles between their supporters. Eventually the BUF proved too strong a check to IFL ambitions and by the time war broke out they had largely disappeared.

Related Topics:
British Union of Fascists - Oswald Mosley

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