British Brothers League
Encyclopedia
.jpg)
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...
anti-immigration
Immigration
Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
group that attempted to organise along paramilitary
Paramilitary
A paramilitary is a force whose function and organization are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not considered part of a state's formal armed forces....
lines.
The group was formed in 1902 in east London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
as a response to waves of immigration
Immigration
Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
from Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
that had begun in 1880 and had seen an influx of eastern Europeans into the area. As a result Captain William Stanley Shaw formed the BBL to campaign for restricted immigration with the slogan 'England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
for the English' and soon formed a close alliance with local 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 Major Evans-Gordon
William Evans-Gordon
Major Sir William Eden Evans-Gordon was a British Conservative Party politician and Member of Parliament . As a soldier he had served on the North-West Frontier...
. Initially the League was not antisemitic and was more interested in keeping out the poorest immigrants regardless of background, although eventually the Jews became the main focus.
The League claimed 45,000 members, although membership was actually fairly irregular as no subscriptions were lifted and anyone who signed the organisation's manifesto was considered a member, with Tory MP Howard Vincent amongst those to do so. As a result of this, attempts to militarise the group were largely a failure, although the movement continued to organise demonstrations against immigrants. The Aliens Act 1905
Aliens Act 1905
The Aliens Act 1905 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The Act for the first time introduced immigration controls and registration, and gave the Home Secretary overall responsibility for immigration and nationality matters...
, which restricted immigration, was largely seen as a success for the BBL and, as a result, the movement by and large disappeared. It officially carried on until 1923, albeit on a tiny scale, and was associated with G.K. Chesterton and the distributist movement.
The League also left behind a legacy of support for far-right groups in east London and this was exploited by 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 British League of Ex-Servicemen and Women
British League of Ex-Servicemen and Women
The British League of Ex-Servicemen and Women was a British ex-service organisation that became associated with far right politics during and after the Second World War.-Origins:...
, the Union Movement
Union Movement
The Union Movement was a right-wing political party founded in Britain by Oswald Mosley. Where Mosley had previously been associated with a peculiarly British form of fascism, the Union Movement attempted to redefine the concept by stressing the importance of developing a European nationalism...
and the National Front who gained followings in the same environs.