The Secret of the League

The Secret of the League is a 1907 dystopian novel by Ernest Bramah, which describes the overthrow of a democratically-elected British Labour Party Government through a carefully prepared plot by members of the upper classes, and depicts such an overthrow as being a positive and desirable outcome. George Orwell credited the book with having given a considerably accurate prediction of the rise of Fascism, and also with reflecting "the mentality of the middle classes" and the brutal measures which members of these classes might condone or actively support, should they feel threatened with a revolution -"even such a decent and kindly writer as Ernest Bramah", in Orwell's words The book was written in the aftermath of the 1906 elections in which the Labour Party, formed just seven years before, gained 29 seats - a meteoric rise from the bare two seats it held before - and for the first time emerged as a serious force in British politics. The prospect of Labour gaining a majority, though still far-off, was no longer impossible - a prospect which some Britons, evidently including Bramah, found highly disagreeable. All the more so as the period following the elections was full of intensive labour disputes and militant strikes.