Tommy Moran

Tommy Moran was a leading member of the British Union of Fascists and a close associate of Oswald Mosley.

Initially a miner, Moran later became a qualified engineer and also served in the Royal Navy, where he became a champion boxer in the Light heavyweight division.

Moran first entered politics as a member of the Labour Party, although he did not reach any position of influence. He left Labour in 1933 to join the BUF and set about organising the local branch in Derby. Moran quickly gained a reputation as a skillful speaker at BUF events and before long was called to the National Headquarters to help organise the BUF as a whole.

He first came to public attention in 1935 when he was the main speaker to a crowd of 6000 people at a BUF rally in Tonypandy. Moran did not get the opportunity to say much, however, as a sizeable group in the crowd had come to oppose the rally and he and his fellow speakers were stoned off the stage. It marked the end of the BUF as a force in Wales. He also took part in the Battle of Cable Street the following year and had to have his head treated for cuts after the event.

Moran became one of the last BUF election candidates when he stood in a 1940 by-election in the Silvertown division of West Ham. In what was a safe Labour seat, Moran campaigned on a platform calling for an immediate peace with Nazi Germany, a policy which saw him win only 115 votes. Not long after this he was detained under Defence Regulation 18B and the BUF were banned altogether.

Following his release in 1944, Moran set up his own organisation the Sons of Saint George, which represented itself as a patriotic movement. The Sons, however, were a very minor group and in 1948 Moran was happy to turn their entire membership over to Mosley in the newly formed Union Movement. Moran remained a leading member of the UM until the late 1940s.