See National Socialist Party (UK)

National Socialist Party (UK)

The National Socialist Party was a small political party in the United Kingdom, founded in 1916. It originated as a minority group within the British Socialist Party who supported British participation in World War I; while historically linked with the Marxist left, the party grew more moderate...

, for the left-wing organisation and National Socialist League (United States)

National Socialist League (United States)

The National Socialist League, was a Neo-Nazi political party in the United States that existed from 1974 until the mid 1980s. It was founded by Russell Veh in Los Angeles in 1974. Veh financed the party using the profits from his printing business...

 for the Nazi-gay organization.

The National Socialist League was a short lived Nazi

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

 political movement in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 immediately before the Second World War.

Formation

The NSL was formed in 1937

1937 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1937 in the United Kingdom.-Incumbents:*Monarch – King George VI*Prime Minister – Stanley Baldwin, national coalition , Neville Chamberlain, national coalition-Events:...

 by William Joyce

William Joyce

William Joyce , nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw, was an Irish-American fascist politician and Nazi propaganda broadcaster to the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He was hanged for treason by the British as a result of his wartime activities, even though he had renounced his British nationality...

, John Beckett and John Angus MacNab as a splinter group from the British Union of Fascists

British Union of Fascists

The British Union was a political party in the United Kingdom formed in 1932 by Sir Oswald Mosley as the British Union of Fascists, in 1936 it changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists and then in 1937 to simply the British Union...

. The leaders claimed that the League had been formed because BUF leader Oswald Mosley

Oswald Mosley

Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, was an English politician, known principally as the founder of the British Union of Fascists...

 was too in thrall to continental fascism, although Mosley contended that the three had simply been sacked from their paid posts in the BUF as part of a cost-cutting exercise. The formation of the group was announced at 109 Vauxhall Brdge Road in south-west London.

Whatever the truth the NSL began fairly healthily as Joyce secured the financial backing of Alex Scrimgeour, a stockbroker, and soon the NSL was able to publish its own newspaper, The Helmsman, adopting 'Steer Straight' as the party motto. The party's ideology was based on a document published by Joyce entitled National Socialism Now in which he declared his strong admiration for Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

 but added that what was needed was a specifically British Nazism.

Development

Connections were quickly established with the Nordic League

Nordic League

The Nordic League was a far right organisation in the United Kingdom from 1935 to 1939 that sought to serve as a co-ordinating body for the various extremist movements whilst also seeking to promote Nazism...

, an influential secret society chaired by Archibald Maule Ramsay

Archibald Maule Ramsay

Captain Archibald Henry Maule Ramsay was a British Army officer who later went into politics as a Scottish Unionist Member of Parliament . From the late 1930s he developed increasingly strident antisemitic views...

. Rising far right

Far right

Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...

 figure A. K. Chesterton

A. K. Chesterton

Arthur Kenneth Chesterton MC was a far right-wing politician and journalist who helped found right-wing organisations in Britain, primarily in opposition to the break-up of the British Empire, and later adopting a broader anti-immigration stance. His cousin, the author G. K...

 would go on to speak at a number of NSL functions and write for their publications, after leaving the BUF in 1938. Anglo-German Fellowship

Anglo-German Fellowship

The Anglo-German Fellowship was a group which existed from 1935 to 1939 and aimed to build up friendship between the United Kingdom and Germany; it was widely perceived as being allied to Nazism...

 member and Conservative

Conservative Party (UK)

The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

 MP Jocelyn Lucas also developed clandestine links with the NSL. However the NSL also attracted Vincent Collier as a founder member, a propaganda officer in the BUF who also functioned as an agent for the Board of Deputies of British Jews

Board of Deputies of British Jews

The Board of Deputies of British Jews is the main representative body of British Jews. Founded in 1760 as a joint committee of the Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jewish communities in London, it has since become a widely recognised forum for the views of the different sectors of the UK Jewish...

.

In 1938 the NSL became associated with the British Council Against European Commitments, a coalition group chaired by Lord Lymington

Gerard Wallop, 9th Earl of Portsmouth

Gerard Vernon Wallop, 9th Earl of Portsmouth , styled Viscount Lymington from 1925 until 1943, was a British landowner, writer on agricultural topics, and politician.-Early life:...

. Although Joyce quickly tired of this unusual mixture of high society fascists and pacifists Beckett was closer to their ideals and before long he left the NSL to join the British People's Party. Beckett had also become less convinced of following the lead of Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 in the aftermath of the Munich crisis. Meanwhile Scrimgeour died in 1938 and surprisingly left nothing to the NSL in his will resulting in the main source of funding being cut off. Alongside this, as was the case for most rival groups on the far-right, the BUF Blackshirts saw the NSL as enemies and were known to attack their rallies and meetings.

Decline

Joyce became embittered and increasingly turned to alcoholism whilst politically his vision of a British National Socialism gave way to a more direct copy of German Nazism, with Chesterton stating that he started ending NSL meetings by shouting "Seig Heil". By 1939 the NSL had been re-registered as a drinking club rather than a political party and one of the group's final meetings in May 1939 ended in chaos as Joyce puched a heckler after the crowd had turned on him for his overtly pro-German speech. On 25 August he handed control of the NSL over to MacNab instructing him that it was his duty to dissolve the movement, which by that time had only 40 registered members. Joyce would depart for Germany just after this meeting and the NSL was wound up.

Towards the end of the Second World War some NSL members regrouped in the Constitution Research Association under Major Harry Edmonds although this initiative had no impact and quickly disappeared.