By the end of World War Two, Europe had changed beyond all recognition. Large parts of the continent were under occupation by Russia and the U.S.: the two new world Super-powers. Great Britain seemed in terminal decline - bankrupt and unable to finance the development of its once great Empire which now clamoured for Independence. And a post-War Labour Government was preventing the recovery of British industry by wholesale nationalisation which sapped the spirit of commercial enterprise and initiative. Oswald Mosley recognised the changed conditions and pragmatically rejected any temptation to return to the past. He had spent the wartime years in prison, without charge or trial, and had used the time well to contemplate a new way forward for Britain. 'European Socialism' is a concise summation of Mosley's new thinking. He recognised the British Empire was now a lost opportunity and urged his fellow countrymen and women to unite with Europe. But not only to give our continent the strength to resist subservience to Russia and the U.S. He saw Europe, together with Europe Overseas, as the new self-contained area that could withdraw from the chaos of global markets.
World trade, he contended, would always undermine our home industries by undercutting them with goods made using cheap Third World labour. Mosley also moved beyond the economics of the Fascist Corporate State which he now viewed as too bureaucratic and unwieldy. Instead, he proposed a far simpler system of worker-ownership based on syndical, or guild socialist, structures. He brought together these two new strands in his political thought and called the result 'European Socialism' - a new creed of hope for a post-War world.