The Conservative Party and the extreme right 1945–1975

This book reveals the Conservative Party’s relationship with the extreme right between 1945 and 1975. For the first time, this book shows how the Conservative Party, realising that its well known pre-Second World War connections with the extreme right were now embarrassing, used its bureaucracy to implement a policy of investigating extreme right groups and taking action to minimise their chances of success.

The book focuses on the Conservative Party’s investigation of right-wing groups, and shows how its perception of their nature determined the party bureaucracy’s response. The book draws a comparison between the Conservative Party machine’s negative attitude towards the extreme right and its support for progressive groups. It concludes that the Conservative Party acted as a persistent block to the external extreme right in a number of ways, and that the Party bureaucracy persistently denied the extreme right within the party assistance, access to funds, and representation within party organisations. It reaches a climax with the formulation of ‘plan’ threatening its own candidate if he failed to remove the extreme right from the Conservative Monday Club.

Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. The shock of opposition 1945-1951
2. Consensus Conservatism and extreme-right revival 1951-57
3. Macmillan and Home: ‘Pink socialism’ and ‘true-blue’ Conservatism
4. Edward Heath: a rightwards turn and the coalescence of the extreme right, 1964-70
5. ‘Heathco’ meets the extreme challenge
Conclusion: Keeping it right
Bibliography