Covering the period from the early 1920's to the mid-80's, this is a readable account of British fascism, with a major emphasis on Mosley and the pre-war British Union of Fascists. The book draws on recently released documents to paint a fuller picture of Mosley, his movement and its relationship to the various other far-Right sects which dotted the landscape of the time. The focus of the book is very much on the fascists and their allies, and does not really cover the opposition that these first-generation fascists faced from the Left and the organised working class.
While the author clearly has no time for racial fanatics like Arnold Leese, William Joyce and Colin Jordan (for example), he is more than generous in his treatment of Mosley. While he does not see Mosley as 'the Leader', he credits him with a keen intelligence and an ambition that was ideologically driven rather than propelled by naked opportunism. It's difficult to reconcile this picture of Mosley with the buffoon so aptly described in Trevor Grundy's Memoir Of A Fascist Childhood. Nor is it easy to believe that Mosley's sudden switch to anti-Semitism wasn't motivated by a desperate desire to gain popular support rather than from a deep-seated ideological position.
While Mosley's pre-eminence on the far-Right was unchallenged to any great extent before the Second World War, in the post-war period is was the racial fanaticism of Arnold Leese and the apologists for Hitler who started to dominate the far-Right. Thurlow describes how the mutually competing factions of the anti-Mosley far-Right started to coalesce around Leese and AK Chesterton, eventually forming the core of the National Front and the British Movement.
Again, in the section on the post-war period there is little description of the activities of the anti-fascists, and such significant events as the 1977 battle of Lewisham (at which the National Front were effectively routed), are not even mentioned. However given the focus of this book that is hardly a surprise, and Nigel Copsey's book covers this material in more detail.
In comparison to the sections on Mosley and the BUF, the treatment of the National Front, British Movement and BNP feels positively rushed. There's also a feeling of complacency on display here, as if the far-Right is a spent force and no longer poses the kind of threat that Mosley and his people did in the 1930's. Given the ability of fascism to re-invent itself there should be no room for self-congratulation, particularly when class-based anti-fascism is at risk from the incursions of liberal 'anti-racism' and the likes of the Anti-Nazi League.
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