In view of economic conditions between the wars, how do you account for the failure in Britain of the Communist and Fascist parties?

There is an implicit assumption in this title that there is a correlation between severe economic downturn and the strengthening of forces at the political extremes. Such a hypothesis is seemingly given weight by both the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917, which occurred during a time of enormous economic strife and widespread poverty, and the accession to power of Hitler and the Nazis, prompted by a combination of Germany's severe economic ills in the inter-war period and backlash against the injustices of the Versailles treaty. Yet it is these combinations of factors that point to economic crises alone not being sufficient causes of support for fascist or communist movements. Other examples where these parties are strong, such as the Communist Party in France, further reflect the influence of extraneous factors, in this instance, the involvement of the PCF in the resistance during the Second World War. Thus to expect a rise in these forces in any country simply because of the existence of a depression is clearly a gross oversimplification. Furthermore, if such a depression is accepted as a necessary condition for the rise of such movements, then it can be argued initially that to expect any rise in Britain in the 1930s is a futile pursuit, given the nature of the slump experienced here. Other unique factors that kept communist and fascist forces in check in Britain can then be examined and their contribution evaluated.
Although the Depression and the decade of the 1930s are often portrayed as a time of despair, stagnation, and suffering, reference to economic data shows that Britain's downswing during the Depression was moderate, and that she was not as badly affected as other countries such as the United States and Germany. Richardson argues that the Depression was of "limited significance" economically for three reasons. Firstly, it started abroad, and was only imported to Britain through the balance of payments account when the United States virtually ceased its capital lending and severely reduced its imports. Although Britain's trade was significantly affected (export values fell by over 50% during the slump), national income hardly fell at all, and the only worrying effect was a rise in unemployment of 5%, which when compared with other countries demonstrates that Britain's suffering was not the most acute. In contrast to the United States, the banking system remained relatively unscathed in Britain, and certainly did not suffer the catastrophic losses and collapses that afflicted this sector in America. Secondly, Britain had been slow to transfer resources into new industries as a result of the false sense of security given by secure Imperial markets and a pre-1914 boom. Thus the Depression was helpful in reducing "defensive investment" - i.e. investment by existing firms to reduce their unit costs in order to survive - and expediting the movement of capital into new, fast-growing industries. Although traditional industries such as coal-mining, shipbuilding, and textiles suffered during the slump, new manufacturing performance balanced out to produce almost no change in this sector, whilst the service and non-manufacturing sector displayed some of its strongest growth of the inter-war period during the Depression. Thus Britain was aided in some ways by shifting its resources towards newer industries during the Depression. Thirdly, the crisis did not produce any change in the orthodox economic policies pursued by the government; allegedly "new" policies implemented by them were either short-term applied reluctantly, or had been gaining support prior to the slump and were now followed on grounds of expediency. If they had the benefit of aiding the recovery, then this was incidental, as measures specifically designed to induce recovery were not effected, in direct contrast to both the United States' New Deal and the strict unemployment-reducing policies observed in Germany. Keynesian deficit spending was not adopted - Keynes himself promoted the ideas of tariffs ahead of demand-side "pump-priming," due to the negative effects this would have on already depressed business confidence. The doctrine of maintaining a balanced budget through reduced expenditures and raised taxes was still followed at this time. Finally, what is not often realised is that for those who remained in work, the standard of living rose dramatically in real terms as prices fell. Now people could afford cars, well-equipped houses on reasonable mortgages, gas cookers, radios, trips to the cinema, and other modern appliances. This satisfaction of demand for material goods combined with the other factors proves that the impact of the Depression, while marked and resulting in persistently high unemployment throughout the period, was not as severe as in other countries, and this partly explains the resistance to the emergence of extreme political groupings.
When talking of fascism in Britain, most of the debate centres on Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists (BUF), as this was the only fascist grouping of any note at this time. There had been a few fascist parties in Britain in the 1920s, which had been created to counter the "leftward" drift of politics, but these were small even by the standards we are considering here, and were virtually extinct by 1930. It is also arguable that without Mosley, the BUF would have achieved even less than it did and have joined these groups in insignificant anonymity. Mosley himself entered Parliament as a Coalition Unionist MP in 1918, but left that party in 1920 to sit as an independent before joining the Labour party in 1924. He was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the second Labour government of 1929 with a special responsibility to reduce unemployment; however, he resigned from this position in early 1931 after numerous attempts to push through unorthodox and costly proposals to reinflate the economy were persistently rejected by the Labour leadership. He formed a New Party soon afterwards, and in the General Election of that year contested 24 seats, winning none and losing the deposit in 22 of the constituencies. After this the New party virtually ceased to exist, with its central offices closed down and publication of its newsletter, Action, was wound up. Mosley left for Italy in January 1932 to study fascism, and was encouraged by Lord Rothermere to take up these ideas; Rothermere assured Mosley that his Daily Mail would be available as an outlet for them. The BUF was launched on October 1, 1932, with the intention of taking power (and preventing the communists taking over) once the "inevitable" collapse of the existing liberal democratic order occurred as the Depression worsened. however, the BUF became associated with violence at its meetings as a result of both infiltration by anti-fascist groups and heavy-handed tactics by the "blackshirts," the militant paramilitary force that acted as stewards and "defenders of free speech" during party meetings. Membership grew to an estimated 50,000 by July 1934, but collapsed soon after this after events at the Olympia meeting the month before reversed the attitude of tolerance toward the party. At this meeting, anti-fascist infiltrators disrupted the meeting, and were violently ejected by the Blackshirts, many being beaten before being dumped outside. After this was widely reported in the press, there was widespread criticism, and Rothermere disassociated himself with the movement. Without a mouthpiece for its propaganda, the BUF was left in limbo, and turned increasingly to anti-Semitism to attract publicity. Its rallies often ended in clashed either with anti-fascist demonstrators or the police; this led to the introduction of the 1936 Public Order Act, which curtailed the activities of the BUF. In terms of electoral performance, the BUF was a disaster, not even managing to secure seats in local elections, let alone representation in Westminster. As the war came, and the country geared up for the war effort, the BUF was suspended under the emergency Powers Defence Regulations, and its publications were banned for the duration of the war. It never recovered.
The inability of the BUF to achieve a successful following or solid membership base can be attributed to the strong loyalty shown by the British electorate to the established parties. Unlike in Germany where there was no strong conservative party to check the rise of the Nazi party by attracting middle-class voters fearful of a communist take-over, the success of the National Government in 1931 and the rout of the Labour party with only 52 MPs being returned in the 1931 election meant that these factors did not come into play in Britain. The BUF (and indeed, the New Party) failed to gain sufficient heavyweight supporters from the current MPs of the two major parties, nor (with the exception of Lord Rothermere), among those who would attract interest and give credibility to the party. Here again, the economic prosperity of the middle classes pointed out above comes into play. There was no inclination among them to vote for a fascist party, even if, in the case of the New Party, it did promise a sustained policy to reduce unemployment. The BUF was unlucky in that it began campaigning as the nadir of the depression had been passed, and living standards were beginning to improve again. Even among areas where the slump did affect communities as severely as in other countries, there is no evidence of any change in voting habits towards the ideological extremes. The primary impact of the Depression on voting habits was to promote a return to conservatism among the majority of the electorate, and the crisis that Mosley was certain would assure his sweeping to power did not materialise. Furthermore, the violence and militancy that became associated with the fascist movement resulted in it being viewed with deep suspicion by many potential Conservative voters, who were convinced of the civility of British politics, and refused to support a party that seemed to promote political violence. Anti-Semitism had very limited appeal to the British electorate. Finally, Mosley's limitations were also important in the failure of the BUF; he was unprepared to play the waiting game to slowly amass support. He also failed to appreciate the resilience of British political institutions, and became convinced that it was his destiny to be a great leader. He did not appreciate the historical patterns that had rarely lead to success in British politics for those who try to "go it alone" in the face of a strong party system and a conservative and cautious electorate.
At the other extreme of the political spectrum at this time was the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). Formed in 1920 as initially a federal grouping of small radical left-wing parties and dissenting ILP members (and not resulting from a split in the ranks of the social democratic movement), the CPGB was the heir to the Social Democratic Federation, which was involved in the foundation of the Labour Party. Its membership stood at 2,500 at this time, rising to a 1920s high of nearly 11,000 before declining to 1,376 in 1930, and then rising again to a peak of 60,000 in 1943, since when the party has been in decline. These figures were undoubtedly depressed by the necessity of competition with the Labour party, which is the largest and most powerful social democratic party in the world, and consisted of a high turnover rate of perhaps 40%, which underlines the fragility of the movement, and its lack of success in establishing a secure base of support among the electorate. Its members were mostly the unemployed and disillusioned who left the party as soon as they had found security again. The party's electoral performance, whilst not as bad as the fascist movement's, was still unimpressive. Only two Communist MPs were ever elected, and even when the country had generally swung to the left in the 1929 election, little of this vote went to the Communists. In 1931, 26 seats were contested, with no MPs being returned, and all but five of the candidates losing their deposits. This poor electoral performance can gain partially be explained by the less severe impact of the Depression in Britain and the politically conservative nature of the mass of British electorate, but also to the inherent gyrations in policy of the Communists that resulted from guidance being received from Moscow. Thus while the Labour party was initially condemned by the Communists, later in the 1935 election, they withdrew from most constituencies to allow Labour a free run. The initial attacks on the Labour party robbed the Communists of many potential supporters, who were not impressed when it later called for a united front against fascism. Indeed, the Communist party failed to impress many potential working-class voters, who were loyal to the labour party and never saw the Communists as a serious contender for their votes. Despite the mass unemployment of the time, the Communists could not penetrate the support that existed for the Labour party, nor convince the electorate that the parliamentary system was doomed to failure and thus they should abandon the institution and prepare for a revolution. Both the masses and intellectuals remained wedded to the political and constitutional conventions of parliamentary politics, and thus failed to turn to the Communist party, which did not contain as many intellectuals as its foreign equivalents (and even had it done, the impact on its electoral fortunes may have been negligible, as intellectuals are not held in as high regard by the British working-classes as in other countries). The CPGB also misjudged the compatibility of its philosophy with a country brought up on the political ideals of Hobbes, Hume, and Mill. Whereas the Labour party was able to blend liberal and conservative values with Christian morality, the rigidity of structure and thought within the Communist party were not conducive to attracting support in such a political environment. It was, like the fascists, a revolutionary party in a non-revolutionary situation, where not even mass unemployment could break the electorate's traditional allegiances to party and parliamentary politics.