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- Turning Point UK (TPUK) is a British offshoot of Turning Point USA set up to promote right-wing politics in UK schools, colleges and universities, ostensibly to counter what Turning Point alleges are the left-wing politics of UK educational institutions. The group reportedly has links to the far-right, including conspiracy theorists such as InfoWars. The group has a closely similar rhetoric to Generation Identity, whose intentions are racist and Islamophobic. The group describes its objectives as promoting "the values of free markets, limited government and personal responsibility". It says it does this to counter what it alleges is "a dogmatic Left-wing political climate, education system and radical Labour Party" which, Turning Point UK claims, "sympathises with terrorists [and] wishes to disarm the nation". The group was launched in December 2018 by Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, and Candace Owens, then the communications director of the US group, at the Royal Automobile Club in London. On the day of its social media launch in February 2019, Tory MPs including Jacob Rees-Mogg and Priti Patel tweeted supportive messages for the group. Labour MP David Lammy observed that the launch and its Tory support are evidence that the Conservative Party "openly promotes hard-right, xenophobic bile". From its inception, the organisation and its leading members were the subject of widespread popular ridicule. It was described by the BBC as "a tsunami of online mockery". (en)
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