Philip Jones - 10-20-8

Corporatists of left, right and centre show a marked hostility to allegations that the European Union is fundamentally fascist. This is perhaps not surprising since they combine in their belief in supranational government, collective solutions, corporatist economics, State intervention and what Tony Blair often termed the “Third Way” most of the characteristics of fascism.

They must therefore seek to distance themselves from that discredited ideology. This is made easier if they can find an enemy to whom they can ascribe the values of “fascism” ­ they choose nationalists and those they term “the extreme right”.

A fine example is the article by Professor Richard Overy in the London Evening Standard of 15th May 2002 who described “fascism” as an exclusively “right wing” movement. This false analysis was supported by pictures of the Frenchman Le Pen and the late Austrian politician Jorg Haider who are in principal nationalists, not fascists. The defining aspect of fascism is that it is neither right nor left nor centrist it is left and right and centrist as the support for fascism in the 1930s from Liberals like Lloyd George, Conservatives like Samuel Hoare and Socialists like Ramsay Macdonald, Lord Allen of Hurtwood and Arnold Toynbee clearly demonstrate.

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