When it comes to England, at least, there are two important components that I'd like to mention -- one a personality, and the other a law. The following is derived largely from comments I've made elsewhere about a particularly infamous event, to which I will link below.

Anyway: The personality, to begin with, was Sir Oswald Mosley.

The British Union of Fascists was founded by Mosley in 1932, and it was immediately successful. There were already a number of Fascist organisations in the British Isles to begin with, and Mosley managed to unite them under himself with the promise of turning them into a legitimate -- and, he hoped, irresistible -- political force. At its height the BUF boasted some 50,000 official members, and, though public protest against the Union’s meetings and demonstrations was in constant evidence, order was kept through the deployment of increasingly well-organised (and increasingly violent) black-shirted footsoldiers. Brawls and riots became more common; public sympathy waned.

Still, the story is a familiar one; about on par, in fact, with how events played out in other nations across Europe. At first it’s one man forming a new and initially unsuccessful party, but soon there are uniformed men marching through your streets with their own anthem playing, people are getting hurt, and an impotent state looks on. So it was with Mussolini, so it was with Hitler, and so it was with Mosley.

The problem in his case was a multi-faceted one.

In spite of his charisma and his popularity with certain fascist demagogues, he had rather aggressively tarnished his reputation with every other major political force in England. An aristocrat of well-established vintage and a notorious philanderer (it is said that, after his first marriage to Lord Curzon's daughter, he slept with her, her sister, her maid, and her mother), Mosley had filled out his early career by dabbling in quite conventional politics, spending a number of years as the Conservative MP for Harrow before crossing the floor and spending a few more as the Labour MP for Smethwick. By 1930, however, he had become disgusted with the state of the national political scene, and, resigning from the Labour Party, founded a new party of his own (imaginatively called “The New Party”). It failed to achieve much traction, and, disappointed, Mosley looked abroad for fresh ideas.

He found them in Italy, with results very much like you might imagine. His return to form as a newborn fascist, after having grievously disappointed both Tory and Labour factions and having created a failure of a party, left him persona non grata with many of the leading papers, magazines, and social icons of the time.

As a consequence, he and the BUF came to rely more and more upon the sort of strong-arm tactics that proven so successful in Italy and Germany. These culminated in the sensational Battle of Cable Street on Oct. 4th of 1936, which saw Mosley and his black-shirted cohorts attempt to march through a region of London famously populated by immigrants, Jews, etc. This resulted in a day-long running battle between the blackshirts and a veritable volunteer army, but there was one more far-reaching consequence that bears mentioning here.

We have considered the personality of Sir Oswald; let us consider in turn the law that his actions eventually brought about.

Both Cable Streeters and fascists were eventually dispersed and the police, in a general sense, won the day. There were arrests and injuries aplenty, and international fascism hadn’t exactly been stopped for all time, but Mosley and his men had indeed been turned back, and would have to think twice before they tried something like this again. They weren’t afforded many more opportunities, however; as a direct result of the Battle of Cable Street, the government was moved to pass the Public Order Act, which came into effect on the 1st of January, 1937. While it didn’t ban the BUF outright, the Act did ban the wearing of political uniforms in public, made illegal all quasi-military political organisations, and imposed stiff penalties on political marches and demonstrations undertaken without police consent. The BUF would not actually be banned until 1940, at which point Mosley, his wife, and hundreds of his supporters were arrested and interned as possible enemy sympathizers -- though, perhaps surprisingly, the real problems that the Mosleys had then been causing came in the form of too-various and too-broad calls for immediate and international peace.

The Public Order Act remained in effect from 1937, and the Second World War's outset in 1939 came at a time when any question about the suitability of fascism as a political system for England had already been decisively settled by the course of events. In a sense, Mosley came the closest out any Englishmen to establishing a fascist order in England -- but he was also indirectly responsible for the legislation and widespread public furor that made such an establishment impossible.

TL;DR: The British Union of Fascists tried in earnest to bring about such a government in England, but intense public opposition and the drafting of anti-fascist legislation prevented them from succeeding.

I can't really comment of the US, but i can give you a bit of a hand with British and to a lesser extent the Commonwealth. it's a hard question to answer because each of these countries are unique politically and answering in a way that covers all of them is difficult, but il do my best to give broad answers

First of all remember that Britain had communist and fascist movements within it, such as the BUF and the Communist Party of Great Britain, and at times they had a level of support that couldn't be dismissed as insignificant. But ultimately at the time Britain was a democracy, and had been to some extent for centuries.The population usually need to have major grievances against their system of government to feel the need to replace it, barring foreign intervention. I think this question is easier to answer if you look at what the ideological appeal of fascism and communism was in other countries, and ask how could this apply to Britain in the 20's and 30's, and what would make people support it?

The arguments that supported fascism in Europe don't really apply to Britain. Both Mussolini and Hitler supported the idea of new empires for their respective countries, and both felt bitter about Versailles. Most Germans obviously resented the peace treaty enforced on it, and most Italians felt betrayed by the treaty, not receiving a lot of the land they were promised for entering the war on the allied side. In these circumstances it's easy for a leader to use arguments about national destiny, restoring the pride of the country etc. But with the British having the largest empire in the world at the time, and being a victorious power of WW1, nationalist rhetoric like that didnt really hold much allure for British people. Most of the other gripes didn't exist or were much lessened in Britain as well. The British government was reasonably strong and able to act to respond to crises, unlike other countries were the legislatures were split partly due to their electoral systems and the governments were paralysed, meaning that criticism of democracy is easy in those countries in a way that never really applied to Britain. Britain didn't take as much of an economic hammering from the Great Depression as some other countries and bounced back quicker, meaning that the allure of a fascist alternative was reduced

Communism is slightly different, but ultimately the British working class had a democratic recourse through the Labour party and through their trade unions, which had influence on government. Britian had started a process in the 20th century of gradually improving working conditions, and had limited welfare provision in place. Even at the height of its popularity, most socialists preferred to change their situation using the political institutions already in place than elect a government that would do away with the system altogether. Support for these parties was also heavily localised and not spread across the country. It was concentrated enough in 1945 for 2 communist MPs to be elected to parliament for example.

Ultimately both Britain and the Commonwealth had a strong tradition of parliamentary democracy and that political culture ran deep. Most of the instances of communist and fascist governments arose because they were either overthrowing an autocratic regime, or more commonly operating a relative new country with little democratic past that recently overthrown an authoritarian ruler or become a democracy by other means. The monarchy also helped as they in a way embodied the nation, which made it difficult for other politicians, elected or otherwise, to claim that they did. The head of state was a monarch with no political power, which acts as a great restraint on extremist elements. British, Canadian and Australians all had great pride in their own political identities, and it's difficult to replace this without mass support that never materialised.

I'm going to talk about a few aspects of fascism in the early 20th century in the US. The short answer: fascism and associated ideologies (eugenics, antisemitism, xenophobia) were popular in the US as part of the social reform of the Progressive era, but the Great Depression caused a decline in ideas based in social Darwinism in the early 1930s, and fascism was relegated to a fringe theory. Social Darwinism clashed with the very American "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" philosophy that became prevalent around this time. Also, the association of fascism with Germany and Italy made it less popular- it was associated with immigrants/foreigners, and most people drawn to that ideology were anti-immigrant. By the 1930s, Germany and Italy were officially our enemies, so supporting a nationalist ideology that was associated with enemies of the state became an untenable position.

During the early 20th century, blurred lines between legitimate new scientific research (especially genetics) and outright racism meant that anti-immigrant, antisemitic, and racist ideologies were fairly prominent and well-respected. Here's some information about the Eugenics Record Office in New York. Eugenics and "scientific racism" were also a big part of the justification of the movement to popularize contraception, safe abortion, and reproductive rights, and Margaret Sanger and the American Birth Control League promoted in racism, eugenics, and forced sterilization.

Another really interesting aspect is the relationship between wildlife conservation and fascism. Madison Grant, the American author of The Passing of the Great Race, a treatise on Nordic/Aryan superiority. I don't think Grant ever called himself a fascist, but he was certainly sympathetic to them; Hitler sent a letter personally thanking Grant for his work. Grant was basically the most extreme racist you can imagine; he was a huge proponent of eugenics and "racial hygiene". However, the impulse for conservation and stewardship of "natural" races meant that he (and many of his peers) shared a passion for the conservation of native wildlife. Grant was a close friend of Teddy Roosevelt, and Grant helped to found several national parks, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Bronx Zoo, and he created organizations to save the redwoods and the American bison. (This intersection is something I'm really interested in; I'm cutting it short here but I can add more.)

There were also German- and Italian-American fascist leagues (The German-American Bund and the FLNA); I don't know much about either so I'll just leave the names, but both were disbanded by the time the US was involved in WWII.

Anyway, post-1930, there were some disparate fascist fringe movements. Of course, we still had institutionalized racism and eugenics, but these sentiments were no longer part of a fascist ideal. Virgil Effinger led a KKK splinter group around the midwest advocating fascist takeover of the US government, with him as dictator; he was linked to several racist murders and a lot of arson. William Dudley Pelley was a fascist extremist (and a spiritualist, notably, another progressive-era fad that is entwined with scientific racism) who formed a fascist legion and ran for president against FDR; he wound up in jail.

This is quite a broad question because these countries are quite distinct culturally and politically, so it's hard to pin one particular answer for everyone.

For Australia - Communism has rarely been seen in a positive light. This is partly borne from the long-held view that Australia is the 'land of the free' and therefore Communism would threaten this way of life, and partly because by the time the Communist Party of Australia [CPA] came to being in 1920, another political party for the working class - the Labor Party - were already firmly established.

The CPA's high point was in the 1940s, despite a ban on the party from 1940 - 42 when they were seen as a security risk to the war effort. A CPA member, Fred Paterson, was elected to Queensland parliament in 1944. There was another attempted ban in 1951 which was defeated by the High Court. After that, the party declined until it was dissolved in 1991.

While the CPA derived most of their support from trade unions, they were always a marginal party. Ideological splits also didn't help over the years with members leaving to form splinter groups.

Additional summary

Since no one has commented on Canada yet, I will.

Canada never had a significant fascist movement, Journalist Adrien Arcand did try and form a National Unity Party consisting of fascist and nationalist regional parties but he never won a seat and the party was banned in 1940 with the outbreak of WW2. After the war he reformed the party and kept active until his death, he managed to place second in a few elections. They never direct or indirect influence on Canadian politics. Canada never has the base of disgruntled war veterans to draw from that Hitler and Mussolini did. It did however have labourers and farmers who were especially hard hit by the Great Depression.

Communism and Socialism in Canada is a more interesting story. Socialist political theory had, and continues to have, a large impact on Canadian political thought. Canada had active labour and progressive parties from the 1870s onwards and a Communist party formed in 1921. The communists never became mainstream and alternated between being banned and unbanned during the 1920-1940s. They still exist today but are a marginal party.

Canadian socialism however flourished. The labour and progressive as well as agrarian socialism and social/liberation theology movements combined to form the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Farmer-Labour-Socialist) (CCF). They released a manifesto in 1933 which concluded, "No CCF Government will rest content until it has eradicated capitalism and put into operation the full programme of socialized planning which will lead to the establishment in Canada of the Co-operative Commonwealth.". At their peak they won 28 seats in the House of Commons with 15.6% of the vote. However, their biggest success was in the province of Saskatchewan where they were elected in 1944 and won the subsequent 5 elections to be in power until 1960. This was the only socialist government in North America at the time and its leader was Tommy Douglas. Douglas was a pragmatist and not an ideologue and was very popular which allowed him to work across party lines to institute social policies. He instituted universal healthcare in Saskatchewan, which formed the blueprint for universal care in the rest of Canada. After ending his tenure in Saskatchewan, became the leader of the NDP (New Democratic Party) which was formed out of the CCF in 1961. The NDP exists to this day and is currently the official opposition in the House of Commons. It's last leader (Jack Layton) was the most popular choice for Prime Minister, in the last federal election, and was proud to proclaim he is a Socialist. They have formed provincial governments in Ontario, Nova Scotia, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Can I request someone flesh out the Blueshirts in Ireland? From what I recall they were a right wing organisation from around the 30's- Would it be correct to say the IRA at the time were more communist leaning?

I think it's important to note that fascism succeeded in Italy and German because the mainstream right wing cut deals with the fascists in the beginning. The right wing was terrified of communism and so decided to bring the fascists in. In the Anglo-Saxon countries this never happened, and the far right remained outside the political main stream.

One aspect that I haven't seen anyone mention here is language. I won't be able to polish this as much as I'd like, because I'm in a bit of a hurry, so I apologize.

The rhetoric that Hitler and Mussolini used in their communication was impressive and powerful in their native languages, but comes across as bombastic and puffed-up in English. To this day, many western European languages use linguistic constructions in everyday speech which, although present in English, would sound unnecessarily stilted and formal, and have not been used in common communication in English for over a hundred years, and probably much longer.

Fry and Laurie touched on this in a sketch (again demonstrating how fucking brilliant they are), but I don't know that anyone has ever formally explored it. There appears to be a cynicism inherent in the English language that is not present in many other languages, and I would tend to think that this also played a part in the inability of fascism (and to an extent, communism) to take hold in the Anglosphere.

As for communism, at least part of it was because they never were in Russian sphere of influence. For example, in Czechoslovakia, the communists won the 1946 elections with 38% of the vote. At the beginning of 1948 their ratings were on decline, but in February they staged a coup. Arguably, without the Soviet backing and advisory, it wouldn't have happened /succeeded.