The extension of Blackshirt fascism to Northern Ireland under the title, Ulster Fascists (UF) occurred just as the BF in the region was going into decline, which could be seen as a happy coincidence: a competitor for popular support was leaving the political stage. That the BF had not prospered in the region, however, was a portent the UF failed to recognise, certainly did not acknowledge. That it did not do so reflects the very different conception of fascism – informed by a Griffinesque palingenetic myth of inevitable national rebirth – the UF, like its parent body in Britain, subscribed to during the period of rapid growth the Rothermere–Mosley compact produced, and the political confidence it facilitated. This chapter assesses its relative progress during the compact and the problems it encountered as it struggled to survive thereafter.

The UF: The Regional Context

To assist the formation of the UF, in August 1933, Dr Robert Forgan, Deputy Leader to Sir Oswald Mosley, wrote to a former member of the Ulster Command of the BF in Belfast requesting his assistance in establishing the UF Belfast centre. This initiative – basing Blackshirt branches on the organisation and personnel of BF converts – clearly reflected British practice where the BUF attracted many former BF members. Forgan, however, received an angry rebuff, undoubtedly informed by knowledge of the BUF's attitude to northern Unionists and their regime. The Belfast Centre was subsequently established at 35 High Street. This, however, was a very minor irritant compared with the difficulties that Northern Ireland presented as an arena for political recruitment.

In this context, the appeal to a ‘betrayed’ war generation that was central to BUF propaganda in Britain could not register effectively, because the motives for war service in 1914–18 – informed by the need to validate the cases for and against Home Rule – were significantly different from those that obtained in the rest of the United Kingdom. For Unionists, war service had done much to safeguard their place within the British State, effected, respectively, by the Government of Ireland Act of 1920, the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and the conclusions of the Boundary Commission in 1926. Thus, for Ulster Unionists, the question of what the war had been fought for could be given a more satisfactory answer than was the case in Britain.