In reviewing the television film Churchill & The Fascist Plot (History Channel), I loved the era, the historical records accessed and the connection to my other posts on late 1930s Britain. However the title of the programme was misleading since Churchill was barely mentioned
Archibald Ramsay (1894-1955) was born into a Scottish aristocratic family. He fought in the war, then worked in London and married into another very aristocratic family in 1917. As befitted a young man of his social standing, Ramsay joined the Conservative Party and after a respectable time, was elected as a Scottish-based MP. Conservative, deeply Christian and traditional, yes; Fascist and bitterly anti-Semitic, no.
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Ramsay's growing hatred of socialism and communism created a powerful belief, in his mind, that Jews were party leaders and ideologues in Russia, and that Germany needed to be defended against rampaging Jews, anti-Christian atheists and Soviets. Jewish press barons and Jewish international financiers were the worst, because they held the most power.
Ramsay believed that even the British Conservative Party was under Jewish control. For proof he showed that Leslie Hore-Belisha was appointed Secretary of State for War by Neville Chamberlain in 1937, even though the Conservatives did not like a Liberal National getting this Ministry. Worse still, conservatives hated Hore-Belisha's Judaism and labelled him a Bolshevik who could not wait to declare war on Germany. In 1940 Hore-Belisha was dismissed from the Ministry, not the doing of the Right Club but because he introduced conscription.
In the meantime, Ramsay established the Right Club in May 1939 that would be free of Jewish “malevolence”. The secret membership list was sealed in leather-bound Red Book, but evidence came out later that members included William Joyce/Lord Haw Haw; Arthur Wellesley Duke of Wellington, Baron Redesdale, Lord Ronald Graham, Anna Wolkoff, Duke of Westminster, Earl of Galloway and other important aristocrats mentioned in the post on Sir Oswald Mosley. For the first time I saw the badge of the Right Club, an eagle killing a snake with the initials P.J/Perish Judah.
This society was to link up those people who opposed Jews in general, and war against Germany in particular. Yet Ramsay already had the ear of pro-German politicians. It has been suggested any secretive meetings were eventually dominated by Oswald Mosley and his supporters, so Ramsay felt he had to create his own political space. But even so, I am not clear what relationship Sir Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists had with the Right Club. Did Mosley, Ramsay and Lord Haw Haw do coffee mornings together?
The film showed that in March 1940 Ramsay asked questions in Parliament about William Joyce/Lord Haw Haw. Joyce had been an English-speaker who had recently moved to Germany to run a Nazi propaganda radio station in Hamburg. Mosley had already sacked William Joyce from the British Union of Fascists, so it was interesting that Ramsay was seen to be giving Joyce warm support and great advertising in Parliament.
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Archibald Ramsay (1894-1955) was born into a Scottish aristocratic family. He fought in the war, then worked in London and married into another very aristocratic family in 1917. As befitted a young man of his social standing, Ramsay joined the Conservative Party and after a respectable time, was elected as a Scottish-based MP. Conservative, deeply Christian and traditional, yes; Fascist and bitterly anti-Semitic, no.
What changed Ramsay into an extreme rightist? Sometime during the Spanish Civil War, Ramsay became a rabid Franco-ite, hoping presumably for a return to the monarchy and a strong Catholic Church (sic). Clearly he was drawing comparisons between the hated Spanish Republicans and the despicable Soviet Union.
Ramsay, 1937
Photo credit: National Portrait Gallery
Ramsay's growing hatred of socialism and communism created a powerful belief, in his mind, that Jews were party leaders and ideologues in Russia, and that Germany needed to be defended against rampaging Jews, anti-Christian atheists and Soviets. Jewish press barons and Jewish international financiers were the worst, because they held the most power.
Ramsay believed that even the British Conservative Party was under Jewish control. For proof he showed that Leslie Hore-Belisha was appointed Secretary of State for War by Neville Chamberlain in 1937, even though the Conservatives did not like a Liberal National getting this Ministry. Worse still, conservatives hated Hore-Belisha's Judaism and labelled him a Bolshevik who could not wait to declare war on Germany. In 1940 Hore-Belisha was dismissed from the Ministry, not the doing of the Right Club but because he introduced conscription.
In the meantime, Ramsay established the Right Club in May 1939 that would be free of Jewish “malevolence”. The secret membership list was sealed in leather-bound Red Book, but evidence came out later that members included William Joyce/Lord Haw Haw; Arthur Wellesley Duke of Wellington, Baron Redesdale, Lord Ronald Graham, Anna Wolkoff, Duke of Westminster, Earl of Galloway and other important aristocrats mentioned in the post on Sir Oswald Mosley. For the first time I saw the badge of the Right Club, an eagle killing a snake with the initials P.J/Perish Judah.
This society was to link up those people who opposed Jews in general, and war against Germany in particular. Yet Ramsay already had the ear of pro-German politicians. It has been suggested any secretive meetings were eventually dominated by Oswald Mosley and his supporters, so Ramsay felt he had to create his own political space. But even so, I am not clear what relationship Sir Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists had with the Right Club. Did Mosley, Ramsay and Lord Haw Haw do coffee mornings together?
The film showed that in March 1940 Ramsay asked questions in Parliament about William Joyce/Lord Haw Haw. Joyce had been an English-speaker who had recently moved to Germany to run a Nazi propaganda radio station in Hamburg. Mosley had already sacked William Joyce from the British Union of Fascists, so it was interesting that Ramsay was seen to be giving Joyce warm support and great advertising in Parliament.
Books on Lord Haw Haw,
Archibald Ramsay and the Right Club, and
Ramsay's autobiography
MI5 had its eyes well and truly fixed on the Right Club. Its agents ensured that the British government was fully up-to-date on Ramsay and the other pro-Nazi members. But the film concentrated on two members of the Right Club in particular. The first was Anna Wolkoff, the daughter a Russian admiral. Wolkoff ran the Russian Tea Room in London and offered her space for meetings of the Right Club. Spartacus but not the film mentioned that MI5 agents knew that Wolkoff had developed a close relationship with Wallis Simpson and that the two women might be involved in passing state secrets to the German government! They also knew of Wolkoff’s connections to Rudolf Hess and to William Joyce/Lord Haw-Haw in Germany.
The second was Tyler Kent, a decryptor in London’s American Embassy. Kent’s self-proclaimed role was to copy and leak the secret correspondence between President Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. Once the American public understood that Roosevelt was lying about his country’s neutrality, Kent believed, Roosevelt would be run out of Washington in disgrace. So Kent’s flat was searched and he was arrested; the locked Red Book was opened. 2000 classified documents between Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were taken away.
There was no mention of Sir Joseph Ball in the film. He had been head of investigations at MI5 since the 1920s and as Winston Churchill began to urge Chamberlain to overturn his concept of appeasement that seemed to be leading to war, Ball did whatever he could to block Churchill’s taking the prime ministerial position.
The second was Tyler Kent, a decryptor in London’s American Embassy. Kent’s self-proclaimed role was to copy and leak the secret correspondence between President Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. Once the American public understood that Roosevelt was lying about his country’s neutrality, Kent believed, Roosevelt would be run out of Washington in disgrace. So Kent’s flat was searched and he was arrested; the locked Red Book was opened. 2000 classified documents between Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were taken away.
There was no mention of Sir Joseph Ball in the film. He had been head of investigations at MI5 since the 1920s and as Winston Churchill began to urge Chamberlain to overturn his concept of appeasement that seemed to be leading to war, Ball did whatever he could to block Churchill’s taking the prime ministerial position.
In May 1940 Ramsay was arrested and sent to gaol on a Regulation 18B, a Defence Order giving the Home Secretary the right to imprison treasonous people without trial.
Ramsay came out of gaol September 1944 and returned to Westminster to take up his electoral duties in the House of Commons. The film did not mention one thing that others have discussed; that Ramsay put forward a private member’s bill, reinstating the Statute of the Jewry originally issued by King Edward I in 1275, placing onerous restrictions on medieval Britain’s Jews. [In 1290, King Edward issued an edict expelling all Jews from England, an event Ramsay may well have approved of]. But it didn't matter - Ramsay's days as a parliamentarian were rapidly coming to an end.
Catching Anna Wolkoff and Tyler Kent was important; they were arrested and charged under the Official Secrets Act in November 1940 and both received long sentences. But I would have liked a much greater analysis of the links between The Right Club and Sir Oswald Mosley, Lord Haw Haw, Wallis Simpson and other significant players. And although Winston Churchill did not become Prime Minister until May 1940, I would still liked to have known his true feelings about The Right Club.
I also wondered how much Ramsay had learned about the horror of anti-Semitism, once the news of 6 million Jews being exterminated reached Britain. Not much, it would appear. Well after the war in 1952 Ramsay wrote his book The Nameless War, strongly restating his old political conspiracy theories and saying why it was essential to eliminate the influence of Jews.
Ramsay died in 1955. His Red Book, that was not de-coded for decades, gave the names of 235 people, including many conservative MPs and noblemen.
Ramsay came out of gaol September 1944 and returned to Westminster to take up his electoral duties in the House of Commons. The film did not mention one thing that others have discussed; that Ramsay put forward a private member’s bill, reinstating the Statute of the Jewry originally issued by King Edward I in 1275, placing onerous restrictions on medieval Britain’s Jews. [In 1290, King Edward issued an edict expelling all Jews from England, an event Ramsay may well have approved of]. But it didn't matter - Ramsay's days as a parliamentarian were rapidly coming to an end.
Catching Anna Wolkoff and Tyler Kent was important; they were arrested and charged under the Official Secrets Act in November 1940 and both received long sentences. But I would have liked a much greater analysis of the links between The Right Club and Sir Oswald Mosley, Lord Haw Haw, Wallis Simpson and other significant players. And although Winston Churchill did not become Prime Minister until May 1940, I would still liked to have known his true feelings about The Right Club.
I also wondered how much Ramsay had learned about the horror of anti-Semitism, once the news of 6 million Jews being exterminated reached Britain. Not much, it would appear. Well after the war in 1952 Ramsay wrote his book The Nameless War, strongly restating his old political conspiracy theories and saying why it was essential to eliminate the influence of Jews.
Ramsay died in 1955. His Red Book, that was not de-coded for decades, gave the names of 235 people, including many conservative MPs and noblemen.