Children identifying as animals, civil servants using Black Lives Matter hashtags, the campaign against Kathleen Stock, men in women’s prisons, the push for reparations: to Conservative activists and many others, all are manifestations of culture war. Are they right?
In one sense, no. Some of these developments are different: the row about self-identification has no link, at least at first glance, to that over reparations – the demand for the descendants of slaves to get money from the descendants of owners, or at least countries once tainted by traffic in human flesh.
In another, yes. There is a connection between all these phenomena, though it isn’t easy to pin down. They have in common a presumption that the conventional view is mistaken – and that British parliamentary government and (wider still and wider) western liberal democracy itself have more to be ashamed of than proud of.
The link branches out into a form of doublethink. On the one hand, this new way of thinking, having dissed the western civilisational project, also chucks out a conviction integral to it – the belief in objective truth. You may point out that this is also a challenge to religious belief more widely – for example, to Islam, too.
On the other, this lens through which the world is viewed privileges some people above others. “Your truth”, as Meghan Markle puts it, trumps my truth – or rather, the idea of truth itself that has a basis in thinking rather than feeling. And the feelings of some trump those of others: those of black people, for example, those of white.
This is how the new movement gets round its potential problem with Islam. To it, the religion has nothing to do with western civilisation (but what about Al-Andalus?), and so has a privilege that Christianity doesn’t. Ditto Judaism – hence the anti-semitism of the left.
It’s true at once that this worldview, for which “woke” is a kind of shorthand, is a existential challenge to conservatives and remote from most voters. The tension between the two is a trap for the unwary. Here are two examples of how to negotiate it – one unsuccessful, one successful.
The first involved footballers “taking a knee”. There was resistance on the right to it, based on opposition to Black Lives Matter – that’s to say, the American campaign which includes calls to defund the police. Lee Anderson said that he would boycott watching the England team.
Nonetheless, football fans didn’t draw a connection, rightly or wrongly, between the gesture and the movement. There was some booing. But there was more applause. One can argue that a larger number of fans sat on their hands, at least over time and in many places.
All the same, the median reaction seems to have been that racism is bad, which is true, and that demonstrations of opposition to it are fine. The gesture has become so commonplace at games that it has become almost meaningless, like the Romans offering a pinch of incense to the gods.
And so the Conservatives got themselves into a tangle about it, with lots saying that footballers shouldn’t take a knee, fewer taking the contrary position, and the party potentially at war with Gareth Southgate and the national team. Boris Johnson backed off – urging the country to get behind the team while refusing to condemn the booing fans.
The second was all about trans self-identification in Scotland. Should the UK Government in Westminster over-ride the SNP one in Scotland by moving Section 35 of the Scotland Act – which would effectively bar the move? Some urged caution – a few Tory MSPs, some whips and, not least, Sue Gray.
The risk was that Scottish voters opposed to trans self-ID would switch to backing it if the hated English Tories overuled St Nicola Sturgeon, mistress of all she surveyed at the time. Some Downing Street advisers insisted that this take was nonsense. So did Kemi Badenoch, who wanted the section moved.
So, too, did Alister Jack – who, once he had made up his mind, stuck with it, despite attempts to change it. Rishi Sunak took Jack’s advice. Section 35 was moved. It swiftly became clear that Sturgeon had not, in the eyes of Scottish voters, been put in the right but, rather, had backed herself into a corner.
Sunak had taken a poinard and pricked the SNP bubble. Its political slide gathered pace almost from that moment, and Sturgeon herself was last seen being interviewed by the police. The Prime Minister’s decision on Section 35 remains his most successful in government to date.
These two Conservative interventions, one confused and failed, the other focused and successful, hold lessons for the future. The culture war isn’t one at all, but rather culture wars, plural. For all the links that connect the various fronts, the struggle isn’t like a conventional conflict between two opposing armies.
Rather, it’s more like a civil war in the Middle East, where one might face one band of foes today and a different one tomorrow – with different movements forming and reforming, often with the same personnel. Amidst this bewildering and shifting ground, Ministers, MPs and activists must keep their wits about them.
Above all, they shouldn’t become preoccupied with Woke to the exclusion of everything else. This is the trap that many Labour backbenchers and much of the Left is falling into (to the frustration of what remains of the old-fashioned Marxists, with their belief in Hegelian dialectics and class struggle).
It will cause Keir Starmer no end of trouble if he becomes Prime Minister. In the view of voters, the most important issues facing the country remain the economy, the NHS and immigration. Woke is joined to the last especially by small boats, and its belief hat national borders are illegitimate.
But if the Conservatives fix their gaze on it to the exclusion of all else, they will be turning their backs on the voters. Meanwhile, there are three courses that Ministers should take – since Woke is especially vulnerable when it compromises women’s safety, what’s taught to children, and fairness more broadly (for example, when biological men compete in women’s sports).
First, speak. Government is a bully pulpit, and what Ministers say matters. So Gillian Keegan must be quick on the draw, for example, about self-ID in schools. Second, they must act. The recent Freedom of Speech Bill was a start. “In terms of academic freedom, it is a game-changer,” Eric Kaufmann wrote recently on this site.
Now, Kemi Badenoch has urged Ofsted to send inspectors into Rye College in East Sussex – the school in which a teacher allegedly told Year 8 pupils they were ‘despicable’ for stating there are only two sexes. But third and ultimately, the Government must think strategically.
On this site recently, Kate Coleman and Maya Forstater described the confusion about sex and gender in the Equality Act. This cats cradle needs to be untangled, and the Conservatives have had 13 years to do it. But it remains a mass of twisted threads. Why?
You might say because Tory MPs themselves have no united view – as we’ve seen over the mooted trans conversion therapy ban, which a minority who believe in self-identity enthusiastically support. But my sense is that they are a relatively small slice of the Parliamentary Party.
Rather, Ministers themselves haven’t even made a start on the intellectual work required. Which equality? Before the law? Of opportunity? Of outcome? On a narrow front, the Government needs to prune public sector equality duties. On a broader one, replace the Equalities Commission with an Opportunities Commission – and overhaul Labour’s equalities leglisation.