IFL grouping: Arnold Leese is in the centre of the front row
The Imperial Fascist League (IFL) led by Arnold Leese, prided themselves on being Racial Fascists. They had a long running dispute in the 1930s with Sir Oswald Mosley who they considered to be soft on Jews. Leese liked to refer to Mosley as a Kosher Fascist.
Further, they claimed Mosley's first wife, Cynthia, was descended from an American Jewish family. Born Cynthia Blanche Curzon at Kedleston Hall, she was the second daughter of the Hon. George Curzon (later Marquess Curzon of Kedleston) and his first wife, Mary Victoria Leiter, an American department-store heiress.
Lady Cynthia Mosley: she died in 1933, aged 34, after an operation for peritonitis
(image - Wikipedia)
The Vice-President of the IFL was Henry Hamilton Beamish, an antisemite who founded the Judaic Publishing Company in 1918, later renamed The Britons. In 1932 he addressed a meeting of Mosley's New Party, alongside Arnold Leese, on the subject of "The Blindness of British Politics under the Jew Money-Power." After this initial involvement with Mosley he had little else to do with him.
Beamish produced a poster in 1919 denouncing Commissioner of Works Sir Alfred Mond (Alfred Mond, 1st Baron Melchett) as a traitor. This poster resulted in a libel suit filed by Mond, who was successful and was awarded £5000, although Beamish left Britain without paying.
Although no longer living in Britain, Beamish retained his association with the IFL and spoke at their meetings on his visits from abroad in the 1930s.
Below is an extract from the London Jewish Chronicle, dated May 17th, 1935, which Beamish took issue with:-
"At a Blackshirt meeting in the Sheffield City Hall, on Sunday night, at which Sir Oswald Mosley was the speaker, a questioner asked whether it was true that the late Lady Mosley was the daughter of a Jewish mother. This, said Sir Oswald, was characteristic of the form of attack of the Socialists. His late wife's father was the late Lord Curzon, whose ancestors came to England with the Normans, and her mother was an American of 'Dutch descent.' Jews in England, he added, had nothing to fear from Fascism as long as they put the interests of Britain first."As a result of this article Beamish wrote a letter to Sir Oswald Mosley condemning him. The letter was sent to the IFL in London and forwarded to Sir Oswald Mosley by registered post on 21st August 1935. A copy of the letter was published in The Fascist, the newspaper of the IFL, in November 1935.
The letter is reproduced below:
Salisbury, Rhodesia,
July 31st, 1935.
Sir Oswald Mosley, Bart., President, British Union Fascists,
London.
Dear Sir, - I am enclosing an extract of the Jewish Chronicle (London) of May 17th, 1935, which states that at your Blackshirt meeting held at the Sheffield City Hall, in May, you informed your audience that the mother of your late wife was "an American of Dutch descent" In making this statement, I presume that your intention was to convey that your wife was not only Aryan but also Nordic, as the Dutch are most certainly of Nordic stock. I am assuming that the Jewish Chronicle reported you correctly and if so, I most emphatically challenge your statement and my reasons for doing so are, that I was in America when the notorious Jew Levi Leiter (your wife's grandfather) endeavoured to corner the wheat market, or in plainer language did his utmost to force up the price of the people's staple food supply for his own personal gain, and further, that when I was in the East in later years, it was palpable to anybody with any knowledge of Race questions, that Lord Curzon's wife (your wife's mother) was a pronounced Jewess.
Mary Victoria Leiter, Mosley's mother-in-law (image - Wikipedia)
The letter continues:
Presuming that you will not deny that your wife was the granddaughter of the Jew wheat cornerer Leiter, I would like to ask you how you reconcile this with your statement that her mother was of "Dutch descent." I am aware, of course, of the many acrobatic feats you have performed during the last few years within many variegated political parties, but it surely must be clear to you by now, that if Fascism is to obtain the position it so rightly merits, that not only must it be Racial Fascism, but that the leaders must be entirely above suspicion not only with regard to their own Racial purity but with regard to their family connections and particularly their wives as well.
Mussolini has clearly proved that Non-racial Fascism is a failure and he sounded his death knell when he surrounded himself with Jews. I have always realised that the Jew Menace is a Racial question, and when I founded "The Britons" in 1918, all members had to comply with the "blood test" which is merely the equivalent of the "Aryan Clause." I trust you will reply to this letter and if so it will be published together with mine as the matters I have commented upon will interest many people.
Yours faithfully,
H. H. BEAMISH.
The editor of The Fascist then states:
No reply has been received from Sir Oswald Mosley to date. Our readers may therefore draw their own conclusions.
