British sympathies with fascism.

 

There were many English upper middle-class Conservative types that admired the Italian fascist, Benito Mussolini. 

The English novelist Evelyn Waugh, supported Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia and supported General Franco and the Croation fascist Ante Pavelic, the leader of the Ustase. Winston Churchill called Mussolini the "Roman Genius" and praised him for ridding the world of Bolshevism.The Daily Mail admired Mussolini and supported Oswald Mosley, the leader of the black shirt British Union Fascists, who was financed by Mussolini. Churchill visited Italy in 1927 and declared that had he been an Italian, he would have been a fascist. 

King George V, gave Mussolini an honorary knighthood that was only withdrawn when he declared War on Great Britain. Lady Austen Chamberlain, the sister-in-law of Neville Chamberlain, was a Fascist sympathiser who idealised Mussolini.

Italian fascism in its early days wasn't anti-Semitic and many Italian Jews were fascists. They became fascists out of a sense of patriotism or to get on. The Italian fascists didn't target Jews until they hooked up with Hitler. What they targeted was the left - communists, socialists, anarchists, trades unionists. 

In May 1924, the secretary general of the Italian Socialist Party, Giacomo Matteotti, denounced the Fascist Party and Mussolini to the Chamber of Deputies. He challenged the results of the recent elections and denounced the violence and abuses that had brought the party to power. He declared, "I've said my piece...now get ready for my death." Less than two weeks later, on 10 June, six fascists squadristi kidnapped him as he walked along the banks of the Tiber in Rome. In August, his mutilated body was discovered buried just outside the city, near Riano Flamino.

Mussolini took full responsibility for the murder of Matteotti and dared his critics to prosecute him. After a prolonged judicial inquiry into the murder, the six suspects arrested for the murder, were allowed to walk free. Mussolini established a police state in Italy and suppressed opposition parties and killed lefties. Despite this, many people in Britain, accepted Mussolini and subsequently Hitler, as modernizing reformers.