Federation of Conservative Students

The Federation of Conservative Students (FCS) was the student organisation of the British Conservative Party from the late 1940s to 1986. It was created to act as a bridge between the student movement and the Conservative Party. It produced several magazines, and had regular Assembly meetings in which motions would be voted on. It had supported some controversial actions, such as the legalisation of various drugs, and the privatisation of the Trident nuclear missiles. There was continual tension between central party, which funded the organisation, and the Federation – which often used the funds on exploring unconventional policies.

The Federation had considerable influence on national politics (considered by some to be "the fast track to the next Conservative Party"), as committee members were consulted by MP's, and Ted Heath specifically had speeches written by the Federation's chairmen.

In its final years it became known colloquially as "Maggie's Militant Tendency", in reference to then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and to Militant, an entryist group active in the Labour Party at the time. The FCS was then broken up by the Chairman of the Conservative Party, Norman Tebbit, after one of its members had accused previous former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan of war crimes in extraditing Cossacks to the Soviet Union. The FCS was replaced by the Conservative Collegiate Forum.

The organisation was originally founded as the Federation of University Conservative and Unionists Associations (FUCUA) in January 1930 with Col. John Buchan MP (later Lord Tweedsmuir and Governor General of Canada) as its first President.

FUCUA was renamed the Federation of Conservative Students in 1967. From the 1980s onward it became a more controversial group.

The policies of Margaret Thatcher had a polarising effect on British politics and the student left moved towards radicalism in their response to them. Many students' unions would pass motions instituting a policy of "No Platform for Racists or Fascists". Starting in the early 1980s, the organisation adopted a more confrontational approach toward the left-leaning National Union of Students. Leaders, most notably from Scotland, started advocating "voluntary students' unions". They organised campaigns aimed at disaffiliating individual students' unions from the NUS to weaken the so-called block vote, and deprive it of taxpayers' money which the NUS used for various causes. Posters and other publicity material became much more provocative and hard-hitting.

In the early years FCS was moderate in its outlook and elected a number of National Chairmen reflecting a mainstream outlook. These included Mark Carlisle MP, Andrew Neil and Antony Buck MP.

However the 1970s saw increasing factionalism mirroring the internal conflicts between Monday Club and the Heathite leadership. In its last years, the FCS, perhaps reflecting the debate within the Conservative party of the 1980s and the generally fractious nature of student politics, was notably prone to factionalism. The three main factions were: