1 hour ago
5 
It’s not at every party conference where Donald Trump, Margaret Thatcher and Sir Sadiq Khan end up side by side.
Then again, the Monster Raving Loony Party’s annual conference isn’t pretending to be your typical political gathering.
Of course, those famous faces were not really in attendance at this year’s conference, which was held in the quiet village of Ledbury in Herefordshire.
Instead it was the mask-clad members of the unmissable Loony party who turned up for their first day of fun and policy planning before the political year ahead.
Despite their quirks, the party say they believe they’re the ‘normal’ ones now – and all the other Westminster parties are ‘out-loonying’ them.
So, are they right?
Sign up to Metro's politics newsletter, Alright Gov?
Craig Munro breaks down Westminster chaos into easy to follow insight, walking you through what the latest policies mean to you. Sent every Wednesday. Sign up here.
Determined to find the answer, Metro went along to their 41st conference and spoke to members to find out what really goes on behind the scenes at the UK’s strangest political party.
A colourful leader with decades of experience
If you’ve had enough of constant leadership changes in recent years, you’ll like Alan ‘Howling Laud’ Hope, who’s been in charge of the Loony Party for 26 years.
A former rock and roll performer and publican, he was elected leader of the party 1999 after the party’s co-founder, Screaming Lord Sutch, died in 1999 aged 58. The pair established the party in 1982 with an aim to ‘bring frivolity to otherwise dull elections.’
Their tongue-in-cheek policies include scrapping VAT because it ‘adds no value’, reduce NHS waiting lists by making the text font smaller, and introducing ‘the Court of Human Lefts’ to balance out The Court of Human Rights.
Hope has tried and failed to become an elected MP many times over the years, having entered the race for at least one by-election every year since 2004. But, that’s not stopped him from throwing his white cowboy hat into the ring.
He said that he’s sick of all the constant churn at Westminster, which is why his party conference will hold their ‘world famous cabinet reshuffle’ this weekend.
Unlike the Downing Street one, this reshuffle is literal, with the party members set to jump inside a bedroom cabinet on the conference floor.
A Minister for Chocolate
While ministers for transport, health, women’s rights and equalities might be at the top of the agenda for the Labour Government, the Loony Party has their priorities focused in other areas.
‘We have a Minister for Chocolate,’ Howling Laud Hope told Metro. ‘The Minister for Chocolate can jump in and say “I am now the Minister for something else.”’
Yes, the party really has a Minister for Chocolate. Their first policy? Free chocolate, and ice cream for all pensioners.
That’s not the only perk for elder voters, either. They plan to give away two votes to the over-85s because ‘they’ve earned it’.
Eat dodos, not swans
Chocolate was not the only food on the political agenda in Ledbury.
After Nigel Farage caused fury by suggesting migrants are eating swans, the Loony party’s deputy leader said people should be feasting on dodos instead.
Baron von Thunderclap, whose shirt reads ‘Save the Dodos’, called the birds are ‘very tasty’.
The dodo is, of course, already extinct and can’t be saved, although some scientists have claimed they are close to bringing back the mammal after 300 years.
No more consonants in the Welsh language
Von Thunderclap has contested the Mid Sussex constituency six times for the Loony Party and once stood for the Welsh assembly, where he got 1200 votes.
He plans to try his luck in a Welsh seat again next year, and has dreamt up a policy he thinks will do the trick with voters.
Von Thunderclap wants to trim down their traditional language, famous for its long words and lack of vowels.
‘All these silly extra consonants in their words, they’re a bit greedy,’ he told Metro. ‘We will limit it to one l per word.’
£1,000,000 for all
The state of public finances is one of the most important issues affecting voters today, and the Monster Raving Loony Party have an answer for that too.
They want to re-route the English channel, away from France and towards the Channel Islands, so they can turn the UK into a ‘tax-haven’.
The policy that’s really going to catch everyone’s eye is their plan to dish out £1,000,000 to every Brit.
This idea was enthusiastically described to Metro by an anonymous new member, who preferred to be pictured with a rather creepy mask.
He said: ‘The country is bankrupt. We owe trillions. What we are going to do is sort out our national deficit is say we aren’t going to pay it back, we’ll print our own money.
‘Everyone in the country gets a million pounds. But also Bill Gates gets a million pounds and the rest would be taken away. It will be the “Great Reset”.’
Another first time Loony Party conference-goer John Campbell said he had been given a £1,000,000 note by the party’s first ever leader ‘Screaming Lord Sutch’ at a club in London decades ago.
Now, years later, he decided to come along and see what the fuss is all about.
‘This is now the sensible party’
What unites the wave of newcomers to the party is simple: they see loony as the new normal.
John explained: ‘It is the only party conference that makes any sense.
‘All the others will be more lies and more lies. The lies we have been told by every other party. The Monster Raving Loony Party is the future.’
As another newbie put it: ‘We have got to change our name. We are the party of sanity compared to the others.’
Over dozens of general elections and by-elections the Loony Party candidates have wracked up thousands of votes.
And they are convinced the recent Runcorn and Helsby by-election in May proves they are now an influential force in British politics.
The ballot was won by Reform’s Sarah Pochin by six votes over her Labour opponent, but a certain Hauling Laud Hope found 128 supporters.
He was out-campaigning in the local Wetherspoons hours before votes were counted, and he persuaded just enough life-long Labour supporters to back him instead – changing the outcome of the crucial poll.
A powerful political force?
Could we be about to get more Loony voters? Leader Howling Laud Hope is convinced the answer is yes.
He says the turn will come with the introduction of votes at 16, which he claims Labour and the Lib Dems stole as a policy from him.
Howling Laud Hope explained: ‘Whenever schools hold their own mock elections during a general election, you’d be surprised how many times the Loony Party wins.
‘If we get votes at 16 we will get loads more votes.’
The party already claims to have 160,000 members all over the world, from New Zealand and Australia to Canada, the US and Argentina.
There was even a ‘Monster Radio’ set up by a member in Lanzarote in the Canary Isles, which prided itself on ‘an extremely eclectic’ of music.
That eclectic mix of music, and an array of pints, was on full display as Metro departed Ledbury, leaving the Loony party faithful to debate dodos and consonants for the rest of a busy weekend.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected].
For more stories like this, check our news page.
Bengali (Bangladesh) · 
English (United States) ·