Much to the dismay of friends and family, he later acted as a bodyguard for Oswald Mosley's New Party and was also persuaded to stand in the 1931 general election as a candidate for the party in his local Whitechapel and St Georges constituency; he polled only 154 votes. However, Lewis fell out with Mosley when his subsequent political movement, the British Union of Fascists revealed itself as openly anti-Semitic. After the defeat of 1931, Mosley embraced European-style fascism and founded the British Union of Fascists in 1932. Among other things, this saw him move towards more open anti-Semitism, particularly in Lewis' native East London. In his biography of his father, Morton Lewis describes how he was taken along by his father when he went to quit Mosley's movement. It involves Lewis violently arguing with Mosley and a pair of his henchmen at their headquarters, leaving the former reeling on the ground and the other two out cold. Then, after leaving, Lewis is described as returning to the building on a whim and knocking out two more of Mosley's guards without provocation.