A stone’s throw from Westminster, a haven for ultra-conservative lobbies

Letter from London

It’s a discreet £40,000 (over £46,000) private school in central London, a few hundred meters from the Palace of Westminster and Downing Street, close to Conservative Party headquarters or the select Westminster School. Euros) per annum. In recent times, 55 Tufton Street, an elegant Georgian-style building (weathered bricks, white colonnades) has become a symbol of the worst the British right has produced in recent years: the lies of Brexit or attempts to shamelessly patronize the rich.

In late October, climate activists Just Stop Oil They chose it as their target and sprayed orange paint on its facade. The BBC and other mainstream British media covered his activities and the London collective Let By Donkeys, a band condemning the abuses of the Tories, dedicated a video to him that went viral.

Just Stop Oil video

At 55, Tufton Street is home to half a dozen ultra-conservative lobbying groups, including the TaxPayers’Alliance, Civitas, Migration Watch UK and the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Vote Leave, the pro-Brexit organization that coordinated the 2016 referendum campaign, was housed there for a few months. Leave Means Leave, another Eurosceptic pressure group co-chaired by far-right politician Nigel Farage, had offices there until its dissolution in 2020. Also nearby is the influential, very liberal Center for Policy Studies at 57 Tufton Street. building. The Institute of Economic Affairs is located around the corner at 2 Lord North Street.

Community of Thought

This is what most think tanks say “Freedom” And “Non-Party” But a simple visit to their website reveals their common thinking with the Conservative Party. The Taxpayers Coalition is calling “Join the Fight for the Lowest Taxes Possible” And offers many studies of the weight of the British public debt or the salaries of the country’s trade union leaders – clichés of Tory elected officials. Migration Watch UK condemns migration “big” In the country, there is an abiding interest in the right wing. Economic Affairs Company prefers “encourage” The role of the market in society.

Rarely known to the general public, so intimate Daily Telegraph A you viewer, Pro-Tory newspapers, these think tanks are key animators of right-wing debate and key incubators of ideas for successive Conservative governments in Downing Street since 2010.

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