The Popular Front campaign differed from the United Front campaign in tone, content, and context. The United Front campaign was largely concerned with British politics. Even when its supporters spoke of fascism they frequently understood it as a problem presented by British capitalism. The Popular Front campaign, by contrast, was concerned almost exclusively with foreign policy. The United Front, for the Labour left at least, had its basis in ideological considerations. Allies were to be sought among socialists who shared their theoretical perspective on the nature of capitalism and fascism. The Popular Front was largely ethical. Its supporters were united in their desire to stop the evil of fascism by removing from power in Britain a government which appeared to encourage it.

Both of these differences are clearly products of the campaigns' differing contexts. The context of the United Front campaign was the formation of the National Government in 1931 and its reelection in 1935. In so far as the rise of fascism formed a part of that context, it was, as we have seen, immediately subsumed within the context of British political issues by the theory of capitalist imperialism.