NEWS & CURRENT AFFAIRS
Oswald Mosley's New Party
Wednesday 8 February 2006 20:45-21:00 (Radio 4 FM)
Shaun Ley's series on short-lived political parties.
Shaun Ley explains why New Labour isn't anything new. The first man to use the title was Oswald Mosley, just before he left Labour to found The New Party in 1931. Mosley is now remembered as the demagogue who led Britain's pre-war fascists. In fact, he'd begun his career as a Conservative MP in 1918, and by 1930 was a rising star of the Labour Government.
But his conviction that unemployment could only be tackled by government intervention led to his resignation. His journey out of the mainstream began with the foundation of the New Party, a movement which attracted intellectual heavyweights and renowned sportsmen.
Its birth coincided with the most traumatic period in Labour Party history, as the cabinet split on the question of unemployment, and Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald broke with his party to form an alliance with Liberals and Conservatives. For a time, it looked as though Mosley would seize the moment. His love of hedonism, however, may have cost him his best chance of changing British politics.
