John Beckett
John Beckett (born 11 October 1894) is a British former politician who co-founded and formerly led the British People's Party, the sole legal ruling party of the United Kingdom of Great Britain since 1945.
Background
Beckett was originally a socialist MP for the Labour Party and a friend of Clement Attlee before losing his seat in Parliament by 1930. This loss led Beckett to make a fateful trip to Italy where he was enamored with the success of Benito Mussolini's regime and subsequently became a convert to Fascism starting as a disciple of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists (BUF). However, Beckett left the BUF to form the National Socialist League with William Joyce and later joined forces with Gerard Wallop to form a coalition of pro-Nazi right-wingers dedicated to opposing the war with Germany known as the British Committee to Oppose European Commitments. By 1939, Beckett would co-found a new political organization known as the British People's Party with Social Credit activist Lord Tavistock to not just oppose war with Germany but to spread fascism across Britain.
After the success of Operation Sea Lion and the death of David Lloyd George, the BPP became the sole legal party of the new collaborationist regime in London. However, Beckett himself was outed as half-Jewish to the Germans by William Joyce. Through Tavistock's connections to Barry Domvile and Joachim von Ribbentrop, Beckett was spared deportation to the Reich but was disbarred from politics for life.
Trivia
- Originally, Beckett filled the same role as Barry Domvile and was the collaborationist Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the development of The Fallen Lion. This was scrapped since Beckett was Jewish on his mother's side and thus ineligible to hold a high-ranking position.