Europe a Nation

Europe a Nation was a policy developed by the British fascist politician Oswald Mosley as the cornerstone of his Union Movement. It called for the integration of Europe into a single political entity. Although the idea failed to gain widespread support for the Union Movement, it proved highly influential on European far-right thought. The idea of a united Europe began to develop in the final days of the Second World War. Concepts such as Nation Europa and Eurafrika, both of which looked for an ever-closer union between European countries, gained some currency in the German far-right underground in the immediate aftermath of the war. Mosley, who towards the end of the war had learned to read the German language, read a number of pamphlets discussing these ideas and was strongly influenced by them. Another important influence was Benito Mussolini's manifesto of the Italian Social Republic, which included a call for the establishment of a European Community. For his part, Mosley would later claim that he had first advocated something akin to Europe a Nation in speeches as early as 1936. In Mosley's essay The World Alternative published in 1936 he wrote "We must return to the fundamental concept of European union which animated the war generation of 1918," and he proposed "the union of Europe within the universalism of the Modern Movement." It was not, however, British Union of Fascists policy at any time. In Mosley's book Tomorrow We Live published during 1938 he declared that BUF policy was in favour of a "united Europe" and a "New Europe". Mosley first presented his idea of Europe forming a single state in his book The Alternative in 1947. He argued that the traditional vision of nationalism that had been followed by the various shades of pre-war fascism had been too narrow in scope and that the post-war era required a new paradigm in which Europe would come together as a single state. He rejected any notion of a federal Europe, instead calling for full integration. Indeed, Mosley insisted that a supranational European state was essential to the plan.