British People's Party (1939)

British People's Party
Leader	John Beckett
Chairperson	Lord Tavistock
Founder	John Beckett, Lord Tavistock
Founded	1939
Dissolved	1954
Newspaper	The People's Post
Ideology	Fascism British nationalism Social Credit Pacifism

The British People's Party (BPP) was a British far-right political party founded in 1939 and led by ex-British Union of Fascists (BUF) member and Labour Party Member of Parliament John Beckett.

The BPP had its roots in the journal New Pioneer, edited by John Beckett and effectively the mouthpiece of the British Council Against European Commitments, a co-ordinating body involving the National Socialist League (NSL), English Array and League of Loyalists. The main crux of this publication was opposition to war with Nazi Germany, although it also endorsed fascism and anti-Semitism. The proprietor of this journal was Viscount Lymington, a strong opponent of war with Germany. Others involved in its production included A. K. Chesterton and the anthropologist George Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers, whilst individual members, especially Lymington, were close to ruralist Rolf Gardiner.

Beckett split from his NSL ally William Joyce in 1939 after Joyce intimated to the patriotic Beckett that were war to break out between Britain and Germany he would fight for the Nazis. This, along with a feeling that Joyce's virulent anti-Semitism was hamstringing the NSL, led Beckett to link up with Lord Tavistock, the heir to the Duke of Bedford, in founding the British People's Party in 1939. The new party supported an immediate end to the Second World War, and was vehemently opposed to usury, calling to mind some of the economic policies of Hilaire Belloc. The group also brought in elements of Social Credit, as Lord Tavistock had been a sometime activist in the Social Credit Party.

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