For background, Oswald Mosely was a member of Parliament in the Conservative Government before WWII and then with the Labour Party.
He then broke away and formed his own party – the British Union of Fascists – in the 1930s, whose views were allied to the fascists in Italy and the nazis in Germany.
His movement captured the attention of the public through mass rallies and street violence but declined before World War II. Mosley was interned by the British government during the war and never regained significant political influence afterward. The strange thing is that he even tried.
He wrote to Bertrand Russell looking for support – and this is Bertrand Russell’s letter to Oswald Mosely on 22 January 1962.
Dear Sir Oswald,
Thank you for your letters and for your enclosures. I have given some thought to our recent correspondence. It is always difficult to decide on how to respond to people whose ethos is so alien and, in fact, repellent to one’s own. It is not that I take exception to the general points made by you but that every ounce of my energy has been devoted to an active opposition to cruel bigotry, compulsive violence, and the sadistic persecution which has characterised the philosophy and practice of fascism.
I feel obliged to say that the emotional universes we inhabit are so distinct, and in deepest ways opposed, that nothing fruitful or sincere could ever emerge from association between us.
I should like you to understand the intensity of this conviction on my part. It is not out of any attempt to be rude that I say this but because of all that I value in human experience and human achievement.
Yours sincerely,
Bertrand Russell