Vermin Club

{{Short description|British Conservative Party grassroots organisation of the 1940s}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

The Vermin Club was an organisation of grassroots Conservative Party supporters in Britain in the late 1940s.

On the evening of 4 July 1948, Aneurin Bevan, the Labour Government's Minister of Health, addressed the annual Labour rally for the North of England at Belle Vue, Manchester, and described Conservatives as "lower than vermin".{{cite news|title=Bevan's speech to the Manchester Labour rally 4 July 1948|url=http://www.sochealth.co.uk/national-health-service/the-sma-and-the-foundation-of-the-national-health-service-dr-leslie-hilliard-1980/aneurin-bevan-and-the-foundation-of-the-nhs/bevans-speech-to-the-manchester-labour-rally-4-july-1948/|access-date=23 August 2015|publisher=Socialist Health Association|date=5 July 1948}} Young Tories, disregarding the "lower than" part, took on the description with ironic self-deprecation and set up the Vermin Club.

Members took to wearing vermin badges (a chrome badge featuring a rat and the word VERMIN).{{cite journal|last1=Martin|first1=Paul|title=The Vermin Club, 1948–51|journal=History Today|date=1997|volume=47|issue=6|url=http://www.historytoday.com/paul-martin/vermin-club-1948-51|access-date=23 August 2015}} A whole hierarchy was established, so that those who recruited ten new party members wore badges identifying them as vile vermin; those who recruited twenty five were very vile vermin. Margaret Thatcher was an early member of the group{{cite web |title=£2,000 prize fund to launch creative internet campaigns |url=http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/2006/04/online_on_the_r.html |website=ConservativeHome |access-date=29 April 2017 |date=26 April 2006 |quote=Margaret Thatcher was an early member of the Vermin Club.}} and rose through the ranks to become a "Chief Rat".{{cite book |last=Rowe |first=David |title=The A–Z of Curious Flintshire |publisher=The History Press Ltd |isbn=978-0752493282 |date=23 March 2015 |section=Politics – Flowers and Vermin |quote=One former Chief Rat was the late Baroness Thatcher.}} The club boasted a membership of between 105,000 and 120,000 at its height.