Buf's Support In The 1930s

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History Coursework 2013 To what extent does the failure of the BUF to gain mass support in the 1930s reflect the lack of enthusiasm in Britain in the years 1845-1945 for any kind of extreme politics? Historians have never been able to accurately calculate the membership for the BUF. According to G.C Webber (1984) patterns of membership and support for the BUF scholars agree 40,000 members in 1934 this shows solidarity within historical documentation of the BUF . However he later states on the basis of the information contained in the home office files released out the public records office is that all the answers are misleading. For example the source refers to a picture painted by Collin Cross and accepted by Robert Benewick to support…show more content…
The last big protest was at Kennington Common in April 1848, which was followed by a procession to Westminster to present another petition. The Chartist leaders claimed this petition had over 5 million signatures, but many were proved to be fake. There was a massive police and military presence, but the meeting was peaceful, with a crowd estimated by some at 150,000. The petition was defeated heavily. Chartism was a mass movement that attracted a following of millions. Hundreds of thousands of people were sometimes reported to have attended their meetings and their three petitions amassed millions of signatures, although some were proved to be fake. Friedrich Engels wrote that '...in Chartism it is the whole working class which rises against the bourgeois', but it was more than simply a working-class movement ­ it attracted some rural support as well as more radical elements of the middle…show more content…
Further reform arrived with the Ballot Act in 1872, which ensured that votes could be cast in secret – a key demand of the People’s Charter. In 1884 the Third Reform Act extended the qualification of the 1867 Act to the countryside so that almost two thirds of men had the vote. Eventually, only one of the Chartists’ demands – for annual parliamentary elections – failed to become part of British law. At the time, Chartism may have been judged unsuccessful, but there is no doubt that the movement's campaign for electoral reform played an important role in the development of democracy in the
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