As political launches go, it fish-tailed, rather than flew. Amid a raft of endorsements from conservative and reactionary figures, Turning Point UK, a local offshoot of an American conservative youth movement, hit social media with all the grace of a pigeon slamming into a plate-glass window. Instead of a brave bunch of plucky young Britons ready to crowbar free the stranglehold the left supposedly has on UK youth, our heroes were subjected to a sustained shower of ridicule the likes of which hasn’t been seen on Twitter for, well, at least a fortnight.

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Turning Point UK says it aims to challenge the idea that young people are inherently left-leaning, and seeks to fight against “socialism, racism and identity politics”. But recommendations from such reactionary “bad boys” as Infowars’ Paul Joseph Watson, Breitbart’s James Delingpole and Westminster’s Michael Heaver weren’t enough to drown out the ridicule. Nor were the endorsements from Tory right MPs such as Jacob Rees-Mogg, Ben Bradley, Priti Patel, Chris Green and Steve Baker, among others. The wisecracks – particularly about star recruit Darren Grimes, who is still looking at a £20,000 fine from the Electoral Commission – simply wrote themselves.

Yet among the jollity and really rather funny Twitter parodies, there are rather worrying aspects of Turning Point’s work in the United States that bear some consideration, and have ramifications for its UK incarnation.

Turning Point USA (TPUSA) was founded in 2012 by Illinois college student Charlie Kirk as a supposed antidote to the “scourge” of liberal thought overwhelming American campuses.

Over the course of a string of Fox News appearances, during which Kirk railed against campus leftists, the supposed oppression of conservative thought, and the conservative talking points of the day, the operating budget of the group skyrocketed from around $50,000 in 2012 to approximately $8,000,000 in 2016.

It should surprise nobody that careful examination of tax filings by outlets such as the Daily Beast revealed that some TPUSA funding came from industry interests, such as mining and petroleum companies. Nor should it be any great shock that a number of shadowy thinktanks, with a stated libertarian or far-right agenda, have contributed to the group. It is “astroturf” – a front for various interests that wish to remain hidden, and one that has almost continuously been involved in controversy.

Since its inception, TPUSA has been making headlines for supposed racist and sexist statements, for making misleading statements, and for having very little transparency in its day-to-day running.

TPUSA’s director of communications, Candace Owens, for example, has regularly drawn ire over her mockery of the #MeToo movement, describing survivors as “weak”, while founder Kirk has been caught in a string of mistruths – most recently, that gilets jaunes protesters in France were chanting “we want Trump!”. All the while, the organisation resists requests to reveal the entirety of its donors.

As the UK draws closer to Brexit, whose interests will Turning Point UK – which describes itself as a “student movement for free markets, limited government and personal responsibility” – be representing? Will they be attacking state schools, social services, the NHS? The odds are good, just as much as the goods are odd. Yet there is one more aspect of TPUSA’s operations that provokes concern.

Perhaps the centrepiece of Kirk’s TPUSA, and the project that made the most headlines, was “Professor Watchlist”, a website on which students could “name and shame” academics, listing their supposed transgressions against students with a conservative mindset. If that sounds rather sinister, that’s because it is. Policing academia has long been a tool of authoritarians, particularly fascists. For an outfit that supposedly prides itself on its focus on liberty and opportunity, a website enabling students to inform on their teachers does seem rather off-brand. In fact, it appears downright insidious.

With Turning Point UK seeking to fill the same position within UK universities as its American branch, how long will it be before a similar British website appears, seeking submissions from those aggrieved by their teachers? What protections will academics have, and how will the information be used? Jokes aside, the arrival of Turning Point UK is cause for concern.

• Mike Stuchbery is a writer and historian