The politically unacceptable face of the libertarian right.
During the 1980s Margaret Thatcher ran highly potent campaigns against the ‘Loony Left’. High-taxing ‘Loony Left’ local councils were accused of pandering to minority voters and even to communists. Neil Kinnock’s expulsion of far-left entryist groups was perhaps the greatest gift of his 1983 to 1992 leadership to the Labour Party. It was also an essential preparation for the New Labour project.
The Federation of Conservative Students
With the Federation of Conservative Students, the 1980s Tory Party had its own loony faction, however.
The FCS was the Conservative Party’s official organisation in universities and colleges. Some of its members called for the death of Nelson Mandela. Others said that the Holy Eucharist was cannibalistic. In 1986 its members caused £14,000 of damage at Loughborough University in what newspapers called a “riot”. Often an embarrassment to the Tory leadership it became an unacceptable millstone when it published an article accusing Prime Minister Harold Macmillan of involvement with the post-WWII slaughter of Serbian POWs. That article was the last straw for then Tory Chairman Norman Tebbit. Tebbit disbanded the FCS and its grouping of what he later called the Conservative Party’s “loony-Right libertarian” politicians.
Extreme Right politics
There are very few people in today’s Tory Party who hold views once promoted by the FCS. Many voters fear, however, that the political outlook of too many Tories is extreme (if not loony).
Many Tories are associated with sink-or-swim views on welfare, worship of an unfettered market economy and a hostility towards foreigners. Linked to these negative views is a sense that extreme Tories have little to say about social justice, the environment or international development.
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