It didn’t take long for Turning Point UK
hailed as the nationalist right’s answer to Momentum 
to descend into a chaotic crab-barrel of mutual recriminations
parody accounts and even Hitler apologia
Needless to say, the internet and Left Twitter in particular 
was absolutely loving it.
If only there was some German word perhaps to describe
the pleasure one feels at another’s misfortune.
It was only 18 months ago that Activate
remember hashtag retweet, hashtag meme
imploded after a mere 2 weeks in the public eye
after members got caught talking about gassing chavs 
and a charming imposter found his way
onto the Novara Media sofa.
And this all got me thinking
why is it that conservative youth organisations
always turn out so… 
weird?
Back in the 1980s, the Federation of Conservative Students
whose former chairmen include David Davis 
and strangely enough, John Bercow
considered themselves a bulwark against socialism’s
pernicious influences in UK universities.
If Margaret Thatcher considered herself a ‘dry’ Conservative
the FCS were positively desiccated
they were vocal supporters of extremist rightwing guerillas
in Nicaragua and Angola
and printed the now notorious 
‘Hang Nelson Mandela’ posters
They ended up getting disbanded by Norman Tebbit
in 1987, after their entryist antics
saw them getting branded
as the right wing equivalent of Militant
It’s tempting to see Turning Point UK
as just another baffling flub
in a long and rich history
of rightwing youth organisations taking things
a bit too far
But I think there’s something else going on here
because unlike the FCS, who had relatively little overlap
with their Reaganite counterparts
Turning Point UK is utterly inseparable
from the American alt-right
Their gatherings have been swanky Trans-Atlantic affairs
featuring that now-infamous Q&A
in which Candace Owens appeared to defend
Hitler’s domestic policy
also involved is prominent Trump donor
and noted conspiracy theorist John Mappin
who so far has remained tight-lipped
about the organisation's funding sources
And while Turning Point UK
say their ambitions are to energise
a student movement across the UK
their advertising focus has skewed stateside
A Facebook ad ahead of their launch wasn’t seen
by a single soul in Britain
Instead, all the targeted views were in
Texas, Ohio and London Borough of California.
Their American cousins, Turning Point US
don’t seem to be that bothered by
the student engagement bit of their mission statement either
none of their paid-for adverts on Facebook
are targeted at anyone under the age of 24
Instead, their core audience is aged 45 and over
The weirdness of conservative youth organisations
isn't just the inevitable consequence of
swimming against the current of your generation’s values
All that bombastic talk of Cultural Marxism
and campus snowflakes isn’t intended
for the millennial ear anyway
They’re not actually trying to be the new Momentum
their role is to rile up economically secure
but culturally anxious baby boomers
to normalise reactionary ideas and extreme electoral patterns
They’re establishment-backed astroturfers
dressing up as grassroots social movements
and most of them have graduated bloody ages ago anyway!
This isn’t counter-culture
it’s classic counter-revolutionary strategy
Only now, with memes.
