1975 Conservative Party (UK) leadership election cabinet members pledged their support for Heath including Jim Prior, Peter Carrington, Leader in the House of Lords, and Robert Carr, Shadow Chancellor. However Margaret Thatcher opted to stand, with Airey Neave as her campaign manager, as did backbencher Hugh Fraser. Even then many believed that Heath would win easily. Thatcher's support was seen as minimal, with all the Conservative daily newspapers backing Heath (although the weekly "The Spectator" backed Thatcher). As the election went on it became clear that the race was going to be much closer, as Thatcher became the clear candidate to be supported by discontented backbenchers.
Racism in the UK Conservative Party fringes became a bastion of ugliness that the present-day party is still trying to distance itself from". He goes on to argue that this campaign had two legacies — initially, the degradation of race relations in the UK, which consequently "poisoned the debate over immigration" in the UK by "drag[ging] politics into the gutter". The racialised debate and discourse over immigration in British politics are said to have become popularised by Conservative MP Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech in April 1968, and the clamping down on postwar "new Commonwealth" non-white immigration while allowing concessions to the white-majority "old Commonwealth"