This article appeared in The Sunday Times on 15th October 2006
It’s enough to give student unions the blues as universities across Scotland are seeing a revival in the fortunes of young Conservatives, writes Anna Burnside.
Something is stirring in Scotland’s universities. Students have a new interest, one that has nothing to do with traffic cones, daytime television or horrible loud music. There is some strong drink involved, but that is an added extra rather than the main attraction.
Across Scotland’s campuses, young people are turning their backs on the traditional charms of the Greens and the left, and signing up for the invigorated Conservative party. Yes, that Conservative party, the one that, until 10 minutes ago, was the scratchy tweed home of middle-aged reactionaries. This year, the party estimates it has 654 student members. That might not fill a medium-sized union hall for a free cider promotion, but it is a mighty leap from the 1990s, when the party had all but disappeared from Scottish universities. It is a notable improvement on last year’s 345. And to the party’s added joy, these members are no longer concentrated in the traditional seats of learning.
AyrCollege, InvernessCollege, and AbertayUniversity now have a Conservative presence. All going well, StrathclydeUniversity will have one by Christmas.
Everybody who signs up becomes a member of Conservative Future Scotland, the umbrella grouping that shelters all Tories under 30. Gone are the Young Conservatives with their formal dances, monocles and 58-piece suits. No more the attention-seeking far right antics of the Federation of Conservative Students (favourite slogans: Free Nicaragua, Hang Nelson Mandela). The FCS was shut down in disgrace by Norman Tebbit in 1986.
But Conservative Future Scotland is flourishing. Later this month it will hold its inaugural Scottish conference, in Dundee. “It is,” says David Harris proudly, “the first time in 20 years they have had enough people to do it.”
When Harris arrived at GlasgowUniversity from Stornoway in 2003, he knew he wanted to join.
There was only one problem. Where were they? “Eventually I asked the Labour party and they pointed me in the right direction,” he recalls with a grin. “That was after I asked the SSP. They just told me where to go.”
Harris, 20, signed up for what was basically the political wing of Glasgow’s famous debating society, a moribund Tory grouping that had been rescued from £600-worth of debts and its death agony a year before. He became the 18th member, a 100% increase on the year before. This year Harris is president and is hugely proud that there are 85 names on his e-mail list.
Their challenge this year, says a fellow member, the 20-year-old Neil Armstrong, is to grow from being right-wing debaters. “We have a large number of members who are just students who want to get involved with the Conservative party,” he says, sounding a little astonished. “We’ve got to come up with events for everybody.”
This is the challenge facing all campus Tories. Students have always preferred watching Bargain Hunt and eating Nutella to discussing the pros and cons of the single currency. At AberdeenUniversity, they tackle this head on by running regular “port and policy” sessions. At Edinburgh, the Conservative Association’s famed Burns supper continued to thrive even when the association was in its death agony.
“We have a reputation as the party party,” admits the president, Alice Robinson, 22. “Somebody came up to me at freshers’ week and said, ‘The Liberal Democrats have told me not to join you, because all you do is drink. Where do I sign?’” Robinson is one of the few student activists to recognise a “Cameron effect” at work on campus. Although the Edinburgh grouping’s renaissance started under Michael Howard’s stewardship — in 2003, membership went from four to 120 — she does think having a leader who wears Converse trainers and drinks Innocent smoothies makes her job easier.
“People are much more approachable about being a Tory. They are less hesitant about asking what it is that Tories do.”
Robinson is the English-born daughter of a former Conservative MP, so maybe had little choice but to sign up. Others are in a different situation. “We have some people who would get kicked out if they went home and said they had joined the Conservatives. It’s a religion not to vote Tory.”
As these student pioneers struggle to rebuild an organised right- wing presence on campus, their biggest single battle is persuading their fellow students that they are not milk-snatching, miner-hating dinosaurs. “People do jump to conclusions,” says Robinson. “They still get cross about the poll tax. They are dragging up issues from before they were born.”
She insists that, even in Edinburgh, you don’t have to be rich, privileged and plummy to be a Conservative. “I am on a full student loan, so was last year’s chairman. Our committee is almost all Scottish. Our events are full of people you wouldn’t expect to be Tories.”
Steven Blane, the 22-year-old president of the Dundee Conservatives, says, “One of the most important things we have to do is show that we are normal people and convince students that we won’t force them to be some kind of political robot. We are not monsters, we have not deliberately set out to damage you and your family.”
In Glasgow, a longtime Labour student stronghold, defiant Conservatives organise a Tory Pride week, although they draw the line at marching down Byres Road in fancy dress.
They uphold certain traditions, as befits a venerable society founded in 1836, and hold black-tie dinners as well as nights out in west end bars. But they are, they say, a down-to-earth lot. “We haven’t got any outrageous, rabid Tories or old Tory boys,” says Harris. “Most of us are working-class Conservatives who went to state schools and want to have a government that doesn’t interfere so much in our lives.”
Would their members fancy the old FCS policies, such as legalising prostitution and heroin? The Glasgow activists shake their heads. They are such a broad church that one of their members is a Guardian-reading republican. In fact policies do not figure largely in the right’s rebirth.
“People don’t come up and say I dislike ID cards or I don’t like high taxes,” says Armstrong. “It’s more of a general feeling. They say, I want to be involved in the Conservative party.”
So is it cool to be a Conservative? Blane says ruefully: “I don’t think it’s cool to be in any political party.” Harris has seen a recent broadsheet article about a Conservative Future group in London with a sparkling social life and lots of glamorous blonde members. “I was reading about these cool Conservatives,” he says wistfully. “And I wondered where all mine are.” Another Glasgow member, 21-year-old Jonny Hardman adds: “It has lost its taboo. But it will be a while before people will actually stand on a street corner and shout: ‘I’m a Tory and proud.’ There’s still work to do.”