TheBritish League of Ex-Servicemen and Women (BLESMAW) was a Britishex-service organisation that became associated withfar-right politics both during and after theSecond World War.
The group had its origins in 1937, whenJames Taylor set up the group as an alternative to theRoyal British Legion.[1] Its main area of concern was the right for military veterans to receive a good pension.[2]
By 1944Jeffrey Hamm andVictor Burgess, both members of theBritish Union of Fascists who had been interned underDefence Regulation 18B, had taken control of the group.[3] The League held its first meeting inHyde Park on 4 November 1944 at which it promoted itself as afascist organisation that endorsed racial purity and "Britain for the British", which inspired a hostile reaction from the crowd.[4] Under Hamm and Burgess, the group became active inEast London, where it was involved in street violence.[5]
In June 1945 the League was represented at a meeting of theNational Front After Victory, an initiative led byA. K. Chesterton aimed at forming a united postwar party although the group quickly floundered.[6] By 1946, Hamm was in full control and had expelled Propaganda Director Burgess, whom he viewed as a rival for the leadership, as well asJohn Marston Gaster, the League's public relations officer, whose public displays ofNazism were proving an embarrassment and damaged the League's chances of gaining a following.[2]
Nonetheless, the League, along with other more minor fascist groups in Britain at the time, worked closely with German prisoners-of-war held in camps in and around London.[7]
The group was noted for its virulentantisemitism, although immediately after the war, the group's decision to continue espousing such views was publicly criticised byOswald Mosley.[5] As a result of the group's antisemitism, it came into regular conflict with themilitant anti-fascist43 Group although individual members of the 43 Group such asJames Cotter also managed to infiltrate the League.[8] Ultimately the 43 Group proved successful in forcing the League to abandon many of its street parades.[9] However, the League also won support due toantisemitism in the United Kingdom becoming widespread around 1947 in response to theJewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine against British rule. Such a growth in antisemitism not only boosted the league but also gave renewed impetus for a refoundation of a wider fascist movement in the UK.[10]
On 15 November 1947 a meeting was held at the Memorial Hall, inLondon'sFarringdon Road, where Mosley announced his intention to return to politics. Four main movements were represented at the gathering:Anthony Gannon'sImperial Defence League, Burgess'sUnion of British Freedom,Horace Gowing'sSons of St George and the League itself.[11]
Hamm and the League reacted favourably to that development although some, such as the former BUF memberRobert Saunders, of theRural Reconstruction Association, were less than enthusiastic about admitting BLESMAW since they that they represented the brawling, vulgar, anti-Semitic tendency of the BUF that should be kept out of any new movement.[12] Nevertheless, BLESMAW was one of the constituent groups of theUnion Movement upon its foundation in 1948, which marked the end of the organisation.[5]