Anti-Semitism of a jailed Borders Tory MP

SPECIAL 

FEATURE by DOUGLAS SHEPHERD

The continuing furore over anti-Semitism which has dominated coverage of the 2019 General Election campaign might be regarded as relatively insignificant compared to the hateful propaganda against Jews being circulated exactly 80 years ago by an extreme right wing Scottish Borders Tory MP.

Captain Archibald Ramsay, who sat in the House of Commons for the Peebles and Southern Midlothian constituency from 1931 to 1945 was considered to be a threat to British security, and was detained without charge in Brixton Prison for more than four years during World War Two.

In 1939 he formed an organisation called The Right Club whose aim was "to co-ordinate the activities of all the patriotic bodies which are striving to free this country from the Jewish domination in the financial, political, philosophical and cultural sphere."

The list of members of The Right Club was kept a closely guarded secret in a large red book although the organisation was soon infiltrated by the nation's secret service. Ramsay and others who ran the club had close links with Oswald Mosley, the notorious leader of the Black Shirts while most of those involved were sympathetic to Adolf Hitler's cause.

It was suggested at the time that Ramsay had been selected to be Hitler's Gauleiter [governor] of Scotland following an invasion although the MP strongly denied the allegation and threatened to sue.

Another leading member of The Right Club was Anna Wolkoff, whose father had been aide to Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. During the 1930s she visited Germany several times where she held meetings with Rudolf Hess before returning to her home in London. Wolkoff was eventually jailed for ten years for passing secrets to the Germans.

The Thirties was also a time when Viscount Rothermere and his newspaper The Daily Mail were not unsympathetic towards Hitler, and Rothermere met The Feuhrer on several occasions.

The activities of Ramsay's Right Club have been written about in considerable detail by Tim Tate, the highly respected journalist and author in his book Hitler's British Traitors The Secret History of Spies Saboteurs and Fifth Columnists.

Mr Tate revealed how MI5 formally asked the Director of Public Prosecutions to charge Ramsay and his wife Hon. Ismay Lucretia.

"The request was not granted: instead, Ramsay was interned in Brixton Prison under Defence Regulation 18b. Here, like his fellow fascist detainees, he was allowed regular visits from friends and his wife  without explanation, entirely free – who were allowed to bring their loved ones additional supplies of food and even wine.

"Ramsay was also permitted to retain his seat in the House of Commons, his annual MP’s salary of £600, and to lodge Parliamentary Questions from his prison cell throughout his internment. When he was finally released, in September 1944, he returned to the House as if nothing untoward had happened."

And according to the book: "Suitable candidates [of The Right Club] were invited to send applications to Ramsay, care of his office in the House of Commons. He then assigned the new members, according to his perception of their descending levels of social status or ability, into a series of ‘classes’: Wardens, Stewards, Yeomen, Keepers and Freemen.

"Membership costs ran from a £25 joining fee, with a further £10, 10 shillings annual subscription, for the most senior class (Wardens), to 2 shillings and sixpence or the lowest (Freemen). Once accepted, each member was sworn to secrecy and issued with a specially manufactured badge: an eagle killing a snake and bearing the initials “P.J.” – universal British fascist shorthand for “Perish Judah”.

However, the true purpose of Ramsay's secret organisation was to promote a fascist revolution in Britain via a military takeover of the country. He is said to have told the club's inner circle: "Personally, I should welcome a civil war with shots fired in the streets.” 

The Right Club membership register had been seized by Special Branch officers and retained its status as a classified document for more than half a century despite requests by politicians to have its contents published from the 1940s onwards.

But in 1952 Ramsay published his own version of events in a book he called The Nameless War. It included numerous ant-Jewish passages and praised Hitler's Mein Kampf.

Reviews of The Nameless War included he following contributions: "There is no limit to the depths of human depravity. Captain Ramsay ... seems to have made a very determined attempt to plumb those depths." - The Jewish Chronicle. And "The publication of such a book, at this time, underlines the urgent need for the law to be reformed so as to make it a crime to preach racial hatred or publish libels on groups in the community." -The Daily Worker.

Ramsay tells readers of his book: "Ever since the fall of Mr. Chamberlain's Government, the interests of the Jewish Empire have been advanced as prodigiously as those of Britain and her Empire have been eclipsed.

"Stranger than all this — should any dare to state the truth in plain terms — the only response is an accusation of anti-Semitism. The phrase "anti-Semite" is merely a propaganda word used to stampede the unthinking public into dismissing the whole subject from their minds without examination : so long as that is tolerated these evils will not only continue, but grow worse."

TO BE CONTINUED