Arthur Butler talks to Sir Oswald Mosley

Edward Heath's efforts to push Britain into Europe may have failed to win the approval of most of the British people but they have warmed the heart of a certain elderly exile on a quiet visit to London.

Sir Oswald Mosley has no doubts. He has preached the gospel of United Europe for over twenty years. In a smart terraced house in one of those little streets that branch off King's Road, Chelsea, Sir Oswald speaks with intense satisfaction at the outcome of Parliament's vote on Europe.

"I said Europe a nation way back in 1948. After the war when we'd lost the Empire it seemed that the only thing left was to enter Europe."

The youngsters parading outside the Chelsea gear shops and coffee bars a few hundred yards away might just recall that in that war Sir Oswald was interned by a hard-pressed government alarmed by the activities of his British Union of Fascists — the Blackshirts.

The man who was one of the most talented parliamentarians in the decade after World War One is treated today as an outcast by some MPs who will never forgive him for those activities. Only last month Peter Shore and Douglas Jay withdrew from an Oxford Union debate when they learned that Sir Oswald had been asked to speak against them in favour of joining Europe.

Recalling the days of Fascism in the 'thirties he says: "I was not prepared to surrender an inch of sovereignty then. We could have got a Common Market but the union of Europe as now conceived was out of the question."

He was urging the creation of an economic system insulated from world shocks as far back as 1930 when he resigned as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster over the failure of MacDonald's Labour government to tackle the unemployment problem.

His search for insulation and internal planning led him first to argue for an Empire system and then for a European economy.

Sir Oswald leans forward in his chair, his eyes alight with that old fire that hypnotised the Blackshirts at those pre-war London rallies.

"Now it is essential for Britain to join Europe. The post-war economic policies of the western powers have failed — as I said they would.

"The traditional trading and financial system only worked after the war because export surplus has broken down. The system only worked after the war because America carried everything on her shoulders.

"Now Mr Nixon has been driven in the direction of making an American system.

But why should America be the only country with the ability and guts to save itself? "We need to get together with the Germans and other Europeans to make a continental system. Britain must now form part of that system — a new third force in the world."

A nuclear-armed third force?

"Yes," says Sir Oswald.

"There's a great fear of Germany having her finger on the trigger" concedes the man who knew the trigger-happy Nazi leaders too well for the liking of wartime Britain.

"No one will trust Germany at present with nuclear arms. But in a united Europe she would be part of an integrated defence force — integrated almost to regimental level."

He argues that when European power is fully developed the American presence on the Crmtinent will be unnecessary.

"From a position of strength I think we shall be able to negotiate a settlement with Russia."

The economic burden on Britain of joining Europe? He dismisses this as 'absolutely trivial."

"What is that burden compared to the effort and sacrifice by the British people in two world wars?"

And what of the damage that Britain's entry into Europe will inflict on the economies of those Commonwealth countries who fought with Britain in those two world wars?

"The temporary arrangements for those countries are fairly satisfactory and I should urge bringing the Commonwealth into closer and closer association.

"Europe will want space for expansion and Commonwealth countries will need larger markets for their products."

Sir Oswald himself is already a European. He loves France and Germany "perhaps equally." He no longer maintains a home in England. He lives in a small stately home near Paris.

In politics the man who in the judgement of some politicians could have become leader of either the Conservative or Labour party describes himself as a man of the centre.

"All effective things are done by the centre. Action comes from the centre, never from the wings."

With the right wing of the Tory party and the left wing of the Labour party opposing membership of the Common Market it fits his theory that it is the men of the centre who are seeking to take Britain into Europe.

But he is ahead of even the most dedicated of these marketeers in his concept of a three-tier grand design for Europe.

Under this there would be a central government for the whole of Europe elected on universal suffrage to deal with defence, foreign affairs and major economic problems.

The second tier would consist of existing national governments; and the third tier would be composed of regional governments dealing with the needs of such areas as Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

Ireland! Sir. Oswald is on another of his subjects. It takes him back to that October day in 1920 when he quit the Tory party in the Commons after failing to win its support for complaints of torture and abuses in that earlier spell of Irish troubles.

Now he warns that the Government should not commit the error of permitting terrorist counter-tactics and torture bY some new model of the Black and Tans.

He is unhappy with the handling of the Ulster situation.

"Skilful guerrillas supported by a determined civil population will always baffle the regular army."

His solution involves a " readjustment " of the border, giving Eire nearly a third of Ulster and the bulk of the Catholics.

"The remaining Catholic areas in the North would be an inadequate base for effective guerrilla action and could be controlled either by a normal police force or a specially recruited force of war veterans."

In the end he believes Ireland can be united within a united Europe. Under his scheme north and south would become areas of second or third tier government.

With United Europe the apparent cure for so many of Britain's problems, from economic weakness to Ireland, where does that leave the ageing ex-Blackshirt who has waited in the wings for a call to rescue the nation from crisis?

Sir Oswald is backing a cause which if successful would — according to the claims made for it — destroy his hopes of making a political comeback.

But he claims to see his role now as essentially one of persuading the British people to join Europe.

"If they don't do that there may be a great crisis — and if I were asked to help at such a time it would be my duty to do so."

At seventy-four he does not regard his age as any bar to shouldering such e burden.

"In recent history all the messes have been made by young men while old Men like Adenauer, De Gaulle and Mao have succeeded.

"Of course," adds Sir Oswald, "you' got to keep fit and have a sense of rills' sion,

"I've kept myself fit."