Abstract
The New Party set out to break the mould of British politics. On its formation, the party foresaw a nation poised on the brink of a ‘grave industrial crisis’, drifting in ‘helplessness and despair to industrial failure and unemployment, followed by wage cuts and an all round reduction in the standard of life’. No salvation was expected from the ‘old parties’. Hamstrung by a decrepit leadership and an outdated parliamentary system designed to prevent rather than facilitate effective government, both the Labour and Conservative parties were accused of offering little more than a string of broken promises. What was needed, Mosley and his colleagues insisted, was a new political organisation armed with a modern solution to a modern problem. It was to this end that the New Party appealed to youth, to those fighting for the working class, and to all those ‘who love their country’, to mobilise each and every ounce of the ‘energy, vitality and manhood’ necessary ‘to save and rebuild the nation’.1
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Notes
The exact reason for the party’s adoption of the marigold is unclear. Among its many supposed meanings, the marigold — Calendula Officinalis — was said to represent prophecy and the future. It was often seen among the symbols of the arts and crafts movement, and was quite probably chosen by Nicolson following discussions with Vita Sackville-West, who was a keen gardener. See K. Greenaway, The Language of Flowers (London: Routledge, 1884). My thanks to Lavinia Hamer for both the reference and the information.
New Party Information Service, The Crisis: Trade, Commerce, Industry, Current Politics and Conditions (London: New Party, 1931).
S. Ball, A. Thorpe, M. Worley, ‘Elections, Leaflets and Whist Drives: Constituency Party Members in Britain Between the Wars’, in M. Worley (ed.), Labour’s Grass Roots: Essays on the Activities of Local Labour Parties and Members, 1918–45 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), pp. 7–32.
Evening Sentinel, 7 March 1931; C. Morgan, ‘The British Union of Fascists in the Midlands, 1932–40’ (University of Wolverhampton, PhD Thesis, 2008), p. 123. Among Mosley’s core supporters was S. T. Dunn, later to become the foremost fascist leader in the city.
J. Lees-Milne, Another Self (London: Faber & Faber, 1984 edition); Evening Sentinel, 15 October 1931.
J. Brewer, Mosley’s Men: The British Union of Fascists in the West Midlands (Aldershot: Gower, 1984), pp. 61–4; Jones, Unfinished Journey, p. 263; ‘Nupa News and Notes’, Action, 26 November 1931, p. 21; Mosley, Rules of the Game, p. 210.
Nicolson, ‘Diary’, 22 July 1931; M. Worley, ‘Who Makes the Nazis? North West Experiences of the New Party, 1931–32’, North West Labour History Journal, 32 (2007), 7–16;
M. McCarthy, Generation in Revolt (London: Heinemann, 1953), p. 156. McCarthy suggests that the Accrington branch comprised disgruntled members of the CPGB and Young Communist League, while the Manchester Guardian (29 July 1931) later reported the formation of a Withington New Party branch.
Telegraph and Argus, 23 April 1931; B. Barker, Free But Not Easy (Matlock: Derbyshire County Council, 1989), p. 37;
D. Turner, Fascism and Anti-Fascism in the Medway Towns, 1927–40 (Rochester: Kent Anti-Fascist Action Committee, 1993).
MSS/127/NU/GS/3/5A-5E, ‘Extract from Notes Written by Mr Michael Jordan’ (Modern Records Centre); J. Hope, ‘Blackshirts, Knuckle-Dusters and Lawyers: Documentary Essays on the Mosley versus Marchbanks Papers’, Labour History Review, 65/1 (2000), 46.
J. Lawrence, ‘The Transformation of British Public Politics after the First World War’, Past and Present, 190/1 (2006), 185–6.
P. Cheyney, ‘Cutting Out the Bunk in Great Britain’, Action, 12 November 1931, p. 5; idem, ‘These are the Days of Political Surprises’, Action, 26 November 1931, p. 5; P. Harrison, Peter Cheyney: Prince of Hokum (London: Spearman, 1954), pp. 209–35.
Hodge, It’s Drafty, pp. 234–5; Daily Worker, 24 March 1931. Rajani Palme Dutt later quoted a Daily Express article (18 May 1931), in which a Major Baker talked of young Oxford students and graduates gathering around the New Party equipped with motor cars and ready to ‘form themselves into flying squads to descend suddenly on a place’. See R. P. Dutt, Fascism and Social Revolution (London: Martin Lawrence, 1934), pp. 266–7.
M. Lewis, Ted ‘Kid’ Lewis: His Life and Times (London: Robson Books, 1990), pp. 224–6.
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© 2010 Matthew Worley
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Worley, M. (2010). A Party of a New Type? New Party Organisation. In: Oswald Mosley and the New Party. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230276529_5
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