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Cook 2000 Towards RADA R Oxford Brookes University – Research Archive and Digital Asset Repository (RADAR) Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy may be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. No quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. You must obtain permission for any other use of this thesis. Copies of this thesis may not be sold or offered to anyone in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright owner(s). Published papers have been removed from the appendix. When referring to this work, the full bibliographic details must be given as follows: Cook, C. P. (2000). Towards a Greater Britain: a political biography of Oswald Mosley, 1918-1947. PhD thesis. Oxford Brookes University. www.brookes.ac.uk/go/radar Directorate of Learning Resources Towards a Greater Britain: A Political Biography of Oswald Mosley, 1918-1947 Colin Peter Cook A thesis submitted as partial fulfilment of the requirements of the award of Doctor of Philosophy awarded by Oxford Brookes University October 2000 Acknowledgements I would like to thank the British Academy for the Studentship award which enabled me to undertake this study. Oxford Brookes University, School of Humanities also generously supported and encouraged this research project. Professor Roger Griffin supervised my research and he has supported and encouraged this enterprise with an enthusiasm and a depth of knowledge which I could rely upon. Richard Thurlow acted a second supervisor and his attention to detail and knowledge of British fascism became a remarkable resource for me. I thank Oxford Brookes University library staff for their efficient and friendly servicing of the encyclopedic collection which I routinely consulted. The Bodleian libraries are a valuable resource and provided me with an efficient service and I would particularly like to thank the staff of the Upper Reading Room for their assistance. The History Faculty Library staff afforded me helpful and friendly access to their collections and I also acknowledge the kind assistance from the staff of the libraries of Nuffield and Balliol Colleges allowing access to the sources in their possession. I would like to thank Lady Diana Mosley who kindly answered all my questions with an enviable efficiency. I would also like to thank John Christian, editor of Comrade, who gave considerable time answering my questions and suggesting others for me to contact. Robert Row, v‘ ho edited Mosley's Action newspaper, wrote a great deal to me in difficult circumstances to help this project and I thank him for this. Many academics and others have provided me with advice and comment which, although they may not have realised it at the time, helped me a great deal - thank you. The Head of Humanities at Brookes University, John Perkins, also deserves a special thank you for trusting me with teaching work which has benefited me greatly and taught me much about teaching and communicating ideas, an experience which has, indeed, helped me complete the thesis. I am indebted to Dr. Hilla Wait of the University of Oxford Philosophy Library who employed me as an assistant at a time important to me personally. I would also like to thank Niki Carter and Daniel Drury and other library staff who endured my 'distractedness' without complaint while I wrote up. I thank Karen Heald and Tom Moore for their help and kindness while I produced the final version of the thesis. Lastly, but not at all least, Jane, Charlotte and Poppy, who deserve the biggest thank you for having to suffer my persistent allegiance to a project about a deeply unpleasant political phenomena. Jane's unwavering belief that I would complete the thesis combined with Charlotte's enthusiasm and love of life and Poppy's marvellously timed arrival, have kept me working with both feet firmly on the ground. It is to them this work is dedicated. contents Abstract one Introduction and theoretical concerns 1 - 55 two The Early Political Life of Oswald Mosley 56 - 83 three Ireland "an appropriate hell": a case study of Mosley's 84 - 106 nation four Mosley and economic men: the drawing of Mosley's 107 - 137 imagined nation five Waking the Dreamers: Mosley and an Inspirational Creed 138 - 177 six National Warrior and Messenger Boy: Mosley and the 178 - 219 New Party seven A Party of the [corporate] Spirit 220 - 261 eight Blemish on the dominion: violence and anti-semitism 262 - 298 nine Becoming a fortunate man: internment and philosophy 299 - 338 ten Conclusion 339 - 349 Appendix 'The Two Greater Britains' 350 - 359 Bibliography 360 - 380 Published papers Abstract This thesis examines the major stages in the political career of Oswald Mosley and argues that a continuity existed in his diagnosis of contemporary history from the moment he entered political life at the end of the First World War as a zealous parliamentarian till his last days as an unrepentant fascist. An ideal type of the 'esoteric' core of Mosley's ideology is used to identify a consistent thread which resolves the contradictions in Mosley's political agitations into paradoxes. Drawing on a theory of ideology which distinguishes between its fundamental and operative dimensions, Mosley's core (fundamental) ideology is depicted ideal typically as the ambition to realize Bntain's potential for national greatness conceived in a future onented, modernizing rather than a nostalgic or conservative perspective. The structure of the biography follows the chronological narrative of Mosley's life, episodically, illuminating it through pivotal moments in his career. Through a textual and contextual analysis of these moments it identifies the performance of the operative dimension of Mosley's fundamental ideology in order to bring out its internal consistency. Each chapter highlights a theme which may have manifested itself at other moments in Nlosley's life but is especially distinct at one stage of Nlosley's career. These themes are the myth of the airman, leadership, economics, unemployment, the New Party, the nation and Greater Britain, anti-Semitism and violence, philosophical idealism and the philosophy of apologia. The thesis draws on the vast published textual output from Mosley along with reports of his speeches, supported by many contemporary writings relating to chapter topic. These resources are used to demonstrate and shed light on the esoteric mainspring of Mosley's politics. In addition the thesis demonstrates and argues in favour of a biographic methodology which does not construct the inner machinations of the subject's psychology or 'mind' as an explanation ofbehaviour but looks pragmatically to the significant products of the subject and constructs, ideal typically, a consistent ideological matrix the centre of the subjects politics. This thesis contributes to knowledge of the subject by presenting a pragmatic understanding of Mosley's political motivations and identifying a consistent core to his political pronouncements. The thesis also brings to biographical studies a phenomenological methodology which dispenses with the postulation of a knowable core personality or 'real' psychological life in order to demonstrate the inner coherence of the subject's personality for the purpose of historical reconstruction. One Introduction and theoretical concerns This study seeks to examine the charismatic politician Oswald Mosley and advance the thesis that his various and incongruous exoteric political forms can be better understood when viewed in terms of a consistent esoteric, ideological matrix. This chapter will introduce some of the theoretical concerns and problems which necessarily underpin such a study. There will be a discussion of political biography and ideology to enable this study to be located in a discourse. The core elements in Mosley's ideological matrix will then be outlined before an overview of previous biographies, and Mosley's autobiography, are discussed and it is argued that few of these accounts sufficiently grasp, or adequately describe, the consistent core of his politics. Mosley's fascism brought him notoriety and this political manifestation is discussed to bring out an idea o fa fascist minimum which dov etai is with the ideological matrix underpismiag Masky's politics argued in this thesis. Finally this chapter outlines some of the ideological trends and movements which contributed to the zeitgeist into which Mosley was born. Contradiction and Problems Oswald Mosley was a British politician whose political displays could be superficially interpreted as representing contradictory ideological positions. In itself this is not a unique trait in a fascist leader. Mussolini's contradictions intrigued Christopher Hibbert sufficiently to stimulate his biography of the duce. Hibbert begins by quoting Fernando Mezzasoma, Mussolini's Minister of Popular Culture to the Salel republic, who wrote of 1 his leader; "No one understands him, By turns shrewd and innocent, brutal and gentle, vindictive and forgiving, great and petty, he is the most complicated and contradictory man I have ever known. He cannot be explained." I This study sets out to resolve Mosley's inconsistencies by ascribing them to a consistent core which was not fascist in itself, but predisposed him to fascism when his belief and faith in the existing democratic structures broke down and the movement toward fascism in Europe was gaining impetus. This core will be described ideal typically as an ideological matrix with a core structure designed to realize the dynamics of futurist national greatness. It will be argued that using this ideal type matrix light can be shed on how Mosley interpreted and structured his world and his politics. Distinctively this political biography uses the heuristic device of an ideological matrix to resolve apparent contradictions in Mosley's career. Using this method an understanding of his long career of persistent political activism, which was criticised for its apparent fickleness in pursuit of power, could be gained.
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