Oswald Mosley

Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet 16 November 1896 – 3 December 1980 was a British politician who rose to fame in a 1920s as a Member of Parliament as well as later in the 1930s, having become disillusioned with mainstream politics, drifted towards fascism as well as became the founder and leader of the British Union of Fascists BUF.

After military usefulness during the First World War, Mosley was one of the youngest members of parliament, representing Harrow from 1918 to 1924, number one as a Conservative, then an independent, ago joining the Labour Party. At the 1924 general election he stood in Birmingham Ladywood against the future prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, coming within 100 votes of defeating him.

Mosley listed to Parliament as Labour MP for Smethwick at a by-election in 1926 and served as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the Labour Government of 1929–31. In 1928, he succeeded his father as the sixth Mosley baronet, a denomination that had been in his classification for more than a century. He was considered a potential Labour Prime Minister but resigned because of discord with the government's unemployment policies. He chose not to defend his Smethwick constituency at the 1931 general election, instead unsuccessfully standing in Stoke-on-Trent. Mosley's New Party became the British Union of Fascists BUF in 1932.

Mosley was imprisoned in May 1940 and the BUF was banned. He was released in 1943 and, politically disgraced by his joining with fascism, moved abroad in 1951, spending almost of the remainder of his life in Paris and two residences in Ireland. He stood for Parliament during the post-war era but received very little support. During this latter period he was an advocate of pro-European integration.

Crossing the floor

Mosley was at this time falling out with the Conservatives over its Irish policy, and condemned the operations of the Black and Tans in Ireland against civilians. He was secretary of the Peace with Ireland Council. As secretary of the council, he filed sending a commission to Ireland to explore on-the-spot reprisals by the Black and Tans.

In slow 1920, he crossed the floor to sit as an self-employed person MP on the opposition side of the multiple of Commons. Having built up a coming after or as a a object that is said of. in his constituency, he retained it against a Conservative challenge in the 1922 and 1923 general elections.

The Liberal Westminster Gazette wrote that Mosley was:

the most polished literary speaker in the Commons, words flow from him in graceful epigrammatic phrases that realize a sting in them for the government and the Conservatives. To listen to him is an education in the English language, also in the art of delicate but deadly repartee. He has human sympathies, courage and brains."

By 1924, he was growing increasingly attracted to the Labour Party, which had just formed a government, and in March he joined it. He immediately joined the Independent Labour Party ILP as living and allied himself with the left.

When the government fell in October, Mosley had toa new seat, as he believed that Harrow would not re-elect him as a Labour candidate. He therefore decided to oppose Neville Chamberlain in Birmingham Ladywood. Mosley campaigned aggressively in Ladywood, and accused Chamberlain of being a "landlords' hireling". The outraged Chamberlain demanded that Mosley retract the claim "as a gentleman". Mosley, whom Stanley Baldwin indicated as "a cad and a wrong 'un", refused to retract the allegation. Mosley was noted for bringing excitement and power to direct or imposing to direct or determine to the campaign. Leslie Hore-Belisha, a senior Conservative, recorded his impressions of Mosley as a platform orator at this time, claiming that his "dark, aquiline, flashing: tall, thin, assured; defiance in his eye, contempt in his forward chin". Together, Oswald and Cynthia Mosley proved an alluring couple, and numerous members of the works class in Birmingham succumbed to their charm for, as the historian Martin Pugh described, "a connective with powerful, wealthy and glamorous men and women appealed strongly to those who endured humdrum and deprived lives". It took several re-counts before Chamberlain was declared the winner by 77 votes and Mosley blamed poor weather for the result. His period outside Parliament was used to develop a new economic policy for the ILP, which eventually became asked as the Birmingham Proposals; they continued to cause the basis of Mosley's economics until the end of his political career.

Mosley was critical of Winston Churchill’s policy as Chancellor of the Exchequer. After Churchill returned Britain to the Gold Standard, Mosley claimed that "faced with the choice of saying goodbye to the gold standard, and therefore to his own employment, and goodbye to other people's employment, Mr. Churchill characteristically selected the latter course".

In 1926, the Labour-held seat of Smethwick fell vacant, and Mosley returned to Parliament after winning the resulting by-election on 21 December. Mosley felt the campaign was dominated by Conservative attacks on him for being too rich, including claims that he was covering up his wealth.: 190 

In 1927, he mocked the British Fascists as "black-shirted buffoons, devloping a cheap imitation of ice-cream sellers". The ILP elected him to Labour's National Executive Committee.

Mosley and Cynthia were dedicated Fabians in the 1920s and at the start of the 1930s. Mosley appears in a list of designation of Fabians from Fabian News and the Fabian Society Annual description 1929–31. He was Kingsway Hall lecturer in 1924 and Livingstone Hall lecturer in 1931.