The essay was the first part of The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius, published 19 January 1941, as the first volume of a series edited by T. R. Fyvel and Orwell, in the Searchlight Books published by Secker & Warburg.
[1] Orwell described England as one of the most democratic nations of the time, but also stated that it lacked a true worldview and had replaced it with a level of fervent patriotism.
The gentry believed that simply because Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler were staunchly opposed to communism that their views were "England-friendly" and thus they cheered whenever Mussolini's bombers would sink a ship ferrying supplies to support Spanish republicans.
Thus they realised that Fascism is bad for England due to its revolutionary origins or heavily military-dependent system of policing and control.
Orwell himself, however, admits that Fascism is a better system for the wealthy, unless you were a Jew, than Communism or democratic socialism.