It could never happen here…
People forget that fascism was very popular amongst the upper and upper middle classes in Britain in the 1930s. It was seen as a useful tool to maintain the wealth and privilege of those classes and keep the workers in check. Everyone knew that Hitler and Mussolini were leaders of a parties that relied upon thugs to suppress their opponents. The street battles in the 1920s and attempted putsch were all well known. Hitler was convicted and jailed. Yet the establishment, the Downton Abbey Upstairs Downstairs set, and the Middle classes who were anti working class saw him as a model for society. Moseley was able to draw on his aristocratic connections and set himself up as Britains Hitler. It is no coincidence that Rudolph Hess flew to Britain on a “peace mission” intending to meet up with those aristocratic supporters. He may have been mad, but he was never executed or even put in a mental asylum. He was locked away where his secrets were secure.
The Royal Family were impressed with Adolph, Edward VIII enthusiastically so. People explain it away by saying “he merely wanted his crown back” yet he would have condemned British Jews to the same fate as their European counterparts. He would have happily sat on his throne “having parties” whilst opposition groups were sent to the camps.
Fascism never went away. The planned coup against the Wilson government with Louis Mountbatten as dictator fizzled out because Mountbatten judged it too difficult to undertake. I bet he considered it though.
Now we are seeing Patel, whose father was a UKIP candidate, enacting the same sort of policies her father was no doubt so enthusiastic about when his family were helping to run Uganda for the Empire.
It could never could happen here though.
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