Britain can be as prone to fascism as any other nation

It’s easy to dismiss the fascistic ideologues who populate Graham Macklin’s book as reactionary cranks of no significance. It’s also a mistake. Fascists have edged uncomfortably close to the mainstream of British politics ever since the British Union of Fascists was founded in 1932 by Oswald Mosley, who two years earlier had been a government minister.

In 2009, two British National Party candidates were elected to the European Parliament. The seats were lost in 2014 because the BNP votes transferred en masse to Ukip. If you doubt that the spirit of the BNP infused Ukip, you have only to look at what has happened to it since Nigel Farage decamped.

Macklin’s lucid and informative book shows that there has always been a cross-fertilisation between the fascist fringe and the mainstream. The League of Empire Loyalists, a neo-fascist group set up in the early 1950s, was close to the right wing of the Conservative party and competed for members with the Monday Club.