How many fascists?
Socialist Organiser1983 1983-06-06Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 3 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 3
HOW many fascists are there in the Tory Party? Apparently the leadership don't know: they are running an extensive inquiry, into the "Young Conservatives" (under 35!) to find out.
It has long been clear that there is an active and influential 'hard right' component of the Federation of Conservative Students: and Stockton South candidate Thomas Finnegan is a recent former parliamentary candidate for the National Front.
Last week, Harvey Proctor, Tory candidate in Billericay and a vicious racist, rushed to deny reports that he had welcomed support from the National Front magazine Bulldog.
Revelations
In the face of these embarrassing revelations, Tory Party Chairman Cecil Parkinson claimed that the small number of expulsions of proven fascists showed that the problem was not a large one.
• But Phil Pedley, Chairman of the Young Conservatives, was less inhibited, describing the evidence so far accumulated as 'the tip of the iceberg'.
There is little doubt that Thatcher's overt racist propaganda prior to the 1979 election campaign drew many would-be fascists into the embrace of the Tory Party, where they have been nurtured on rabid chauvinism, racist legislation and the Falklands war. Like so many aspects of the Tory Party and its policies, the true extent of this problem. will not emerge until after the election.