‘Onward Blackshirts!’ Music and the British Union of Fascists

Macklin explores the role of music in British fascism's ‘palingenetic’ project for national rebirth. Taking as his starting-point the cultural production and criticism of music emanating from within the British Union of Fascists (BUF), he argues that music played an integral part of the fascist experience, representing far more than mere ‘entertainment’. Macklin examines how the BUF used music to underpin party mobilization strategies, to anchor choreographed set-pieces like meetings and marches, and to reinforce ‘collectives of emotion’ among participants as well as unaligned spectators. Having discussed the integrative mechanisms through which the BUF sought to capitalize on music's emotive appeal, and particularly the ideological content of ‘Fascist songs’, Macklin's article moves to examine the party's reaction to jazz. Not only did it offend British fascism's conservative cultural aesthetic but it served as a cipher for the wider sense of degeneracy British fascists believed had afflicted race and nation.