The Imperial Fascist League was founded by Arnold Leese in 1928 after he broke away from Rotha Lintorn Orman's British Fascists.
Unlike its main rival, the British Union of Fascists, the IFL was openly anti-Semitic and had a policy to deport all of Britain's Jews to the island of Madagascar. This island country in the Indian Ocean has an area of 226,000 square miles, and in the 1930s, had a population of about 3 million coloured natives.
Leese travelled to Germany in 1935 and had a successful meeting with Julius Streicher, who promoted the IFL in his newspaper Der Stürmer. The IFL received funding from Nazi Germany paid through the English correspondent for the Völkischer Beobachter, Dr. Hans Wilhelm Thost.
Introduction to the Imperial Fascist League by Arnold Leese.
Imperial Fascist League grouping - standing left to right; Lt. Woods, Capt. Wrigley (Rtd), Tony Gittens. Seated Left to right; H.H. Lockwood, A. Leese, Jack Lovell (Image - Der Stürmer)
This League was formed in 1928 by patriots believing that Democracy is incapable of statesmanship and is a tool to alien money influences. Its members had already put into practice their beliefs when they joined a body which, from the first, repudiated Committee Management, and refused membership to anyone of known Jewish blood. The capital of the organisation was £5, derived from the funds of "The Fascist League," a temporary makeshift which preceded it.
Every true Fascist movement has to undergo a long period of trial, during which Adventurers, Melancholic Intellectuals, Wasters and Careerists have to be gradually identified and eliminated. From the first, Race was recognised as the true basis of politics, the declared object of our Fascist politics being "to preserve British character and to allow it to evolve in accordance with British tradition." From the first, the declared object of our Fascist economics was "to make Finance the servant of industry instead of its master." In pursuit of both these main fundamentals of statecraft, it was recognised that there could be no compromise. In both cases, the enemy, we found, was the Jew; and the more we learned, the more obvious that fact became to us.
This brought the Imperial Fascist League right up against the World Money Power from the beginning. At first, and for years, that Power fought us with the passive weapon of the Gag; all ordinary means of publicity were closed to us except those known by the enemy to be futile, and only the roughest pioneering work could be offered to our recruits, work calling for great personal sacrifices of time and money, exposure to assault and insult, to say nothing of ridicule.
Knowing nothing of journalism, we established The Fascist in March 1929, and sold it on the streets. We sold it in such quantities that we actually made it help to pay the rent of our Headquarters.
During the first five years of our existence, only once did our funds in hand reach the sum of £100. On the other hand, one of the few rules of our organisation is that no liability must be incurred which is not covered beforehand by cash in hand. Consequently, we never were in debt.
A member of The Imperial Fascist League removes a Karl-Marx plaque from a house on Haverstock Hill, London and replaces it with a Union Jack surrounding a swastika, 29/05/1935. (Getty Images)
We did not set out with the idea of toning down our aims and policy to make them popular in the eyes of that very democracy which has proved its incapacity to judge policies or even to appreciate statesmanship. That way, we knew, leads to compromise and untruth. We set out, knowing that we had something to teach, and that practically the whole Aryan population of the British Empire would have to be pupils. High endeavour, on five pounds!
No one but a fool, under these circumstances, would expect rapid progress; but many fools there were, and still are, who taunted us with standing still and doing nothing; these people are Judaised fools, recognising what they think is progress only in display, "demonstrations" of large numbers of like fools, and advertisement in a Jew-controlled Press!
Among our recruits, we found that only one out of every ten has it in him to be a useful pioneer. The other nine belong to that category that hears a Fascist speaker or reads a Fascist pamphlet, gets excited, joins up, samples a bit of work, and then, like the "old soldier" simply fades away. The utter contempt which nine men out of ten had for their own signature on our enrolment forms was something new to us. The majority of these people did their "fading away" without even the decent formality of resigning. The type they represent has always been the nomadic portion of the movement, and although it often has good qualities, it is never the best type. It is unstable; in particular, we find, the Mediterranean racial type of recruit is incapable of a prolonged strain or effort, although his work may be brilliant whilst he is with us. Very early in our experience, we found that this nine-tenths could only be permanently attached as long as the other tenth exerted itself to amuse them, and as we had neither money nor leisure to undertake the manufactured "activities" which would keep them amused, we came to regard it as inevitable that they were only temporary members and that it was an uneconomical form of effort to attempt to keep them. In any case, we knew that when we got the Money, we could, if we wished, always get these men again, for what they are worth, with the rest of the 'mob.'
The real strength of a growing Fascist Movement is permanently with the minority of members in it. It is not just a matter of brains, but of balance and of character. The one-tenth which make up the Inner Circle of the Imperial Fascist League is composed of far-sighted people of Character who, knowing themselves to be right in their support of the League take no notice of "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" and carry on in the face of apparently overwhelming odds because their racial instincts give them no other choice. That is the spirit of the true aristocrat, and we care little from what class our "tenth men" spring; they are Nature's gentlemen, at any rate.
IFL members in Germany for the 1935 Reichsparteitag,
Ben Barrett from West London is on the far right (Image - Der Stürmer)
Ben Barrett from West London is on the far right (Image - Der Stürmer)
The Imperial Fascist League is founded on solid rock as regards both policy and personnel. Every attempt has been made to smash it, the methods included attempted assaults, threats to murder, and attempted murder, in which the dupes of the Mosley Movement had their share. Every method has been used to silence it, including the formation of competing Bastard Fascist Movements, Masonic or Judaic; but all in vain.
The Fascist now goes everywhere, and is soon followed by our other literature. In every Dominion, we have active workers, and all who deal with us know that we cannot be bought and that there is no compromise.
We never stooped to the miserable subterfuge of making ourselves a Limited Company. We stand up to our own obligations and responsibilities without succumbing to this legalised dishonesty.
