[2][6] In 1962, with the support of others, Ainslie re-formed the moribund Devizes Constituency Liberal Association and established the Thrifty Orange in Marlborough, an early charity shop, to raise funds for it.
Ainslie was a member of the local Alliance negotiating committee for Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, and he gave up his own position in Devizes to allow a younger Liberal to contest Stroud.
[2] In 1979, he contested the first direct elections to the European Parliament as a Liberal and in 1984 fought a strong SDP-Liberal Alliance campaign for the Wiltshire Euro-constituency, gaining over 60,000 votes.
[2] After he died at Mildenhall on 5 January 2007 aged 85, Sara Morrison, a former vice-chairman of the Conservative Party, said that it was "the end of an era... when we took our public duties and responsibilities very seriously", and the Labour peer Lord Faulkner of Worcester described him as "...a representative of the old school of parliamentary candidates in country areas; urbane, intelligent, knowledgeable on rural matters, a gentleman".
In June 2007, former Liberal Democrat party leader Charles Kennedy MP proposed the establishment of an annual countryside lecture as part of Ainslie's legacy.