Crisis: By Oswald Mosley

The Nation Calls for Action at Once - But Our Rulers go on with the Game

"The Nation demands action; the politicians seek a formula". Such have been the activities of our leading "statesmen" during the last fortnight of National Crisis. We ask for a policy they give us a maneuver. Even now their prevailing passion is too strong for those who have spent a lifetime in "the game."

Who is so foolish or so short of memory to expect anything else? We are dealing with the men who have ruled Britain since the War. They are responsible for our decline from the first position in the world to our present situation. They have failed more consistently and more conspicuously than any statesmen in our history.

Road to Power

Why, then, should it be so easily assumed that combination of failures will jointly solve the muddle which they have severally created. The road to power in this country becomes ever simpler for the skilled and experienced politicians. They need only to do two things: (1) make such a muddle that a National Crisis threatens the safety of the State, (2) appeal to the patriotism of a united nation to give them a "Doctor's Mandate" to cure the disease of which they are the germ. By this simple process, Office and the plaudits of a grateful people are ever at their disposal.

How long is the farce to last? How long before Britain wakes up? These things continue because so far no alternative exists but something worse.

Labour Failure

The unfortunate elector turns from this national coalition of failure to contemplate the Labour Party. There he finds much noise but little thought; no policy or plan, but many pledges and promises, which in his recent experience have invariably been broken.

On the whole he is inclined even to prefer our "Formula Government" to a Labour Party which turns the House of Commons into a bear garden, while outside the rocket, released beneath the belly of the policeman's horse, the stone, the razor and the bludgeon carry on the propaganda of "Idealism". Such is the condition of Britain, and such is the dilemma of the elector.

All this but thirteen short years since we occupied the greatest position in our history. All this humiliation we suffer while we know that the real strength, vitality and loyalty of the nation is as great as ever before if only it can be mobilized for the constructive purpose of national reorganization.

How Long?

How long are these things to endure? The answer must be until a new movement has arisen from the needs of this hour. It is true that such a movement cannot reach maturity in a few months. At a General Election so soon after its inception it cannot fight for power, but it can—and will—fight to secure a group in the House of Commons capable of influencing and even driving that institution in the direction of vigour and of action.

Meanwhile, in the country, the fundamental task of new creation can proceed, which is far more relevant to the modern age than the transient labours of a nineteenth century Parliament.

Dynamic Progress

We must create a movement which aims not merely at the capture of political power; a movement which grips and transforms every phase and aspect of national life to post-war purposes; a movement of order, of discipline, of loyalty, but also of dynamic progress; a movement of iron decision, resolution and reality; a movement which cuts like a sword through the knot of the past to the winning of the modern State, If you would serve such a movement, do it now.