Imperial Fascist League

The Imperial Fascist League was a British political movement founded by Arnold Leese in 1929.

The IFL was a small movement with never more than a few hundred members, including its "Fascist Legions" who wore black shirts and were organised for street battles. Initially using the fasces as its symbol the movement became more admiring of Adolf Hitler and after he came to power it adopted the swastika superimposed on the Union Jack as its new emblem.

Like their contemporaries in the British Fascists the IFL sought a version of fascism that would be tailored to British peculiarities. Amongst their ideas was a call for Parliament to be converted into a lower house drawn from the occupations and an upper chamber to consist of the great and the good on an appointed basis. Anti-Semitism was a central theme of the IFL and the party had contacts with the notorious Julius Streicher before the War.

The arrival of the British Union of Fascists saw a huge slump in IFL membership as Oswald Mosley was much more highly regarded than the relatively unknown Leese. The two groups were on bad terms and more than once there were reports of battles between their supporters. Eventually the BUF proved too strong a check to IFL ambitions and by the time war broke out they had largely disappeared.

See also: Imperial Fascist League, 1929, Adolf Hitler, Anti-Semitism, Arnold Leese, British Fascists, British Union of Fascists, Fasces, Fascism, Julius Streicher