Unwoke, awake! Victimhood is on the wane
The result of our general election last month confirms that the culture war rages, and that the unwoke side is winning. If one had to pick a woke slogan which explains this trend it would be “Believe the victim”.
Laurence Fox, who shot to fame in political debate last week after neatly repelling claims on the BBC’S Question Time that criticisms of the Duchess of Sussex are racist, has identified this as the central false doctrine. Don’t automatically believe, he says. Instead you should “listen to the victim”, and then make up your mind on the basis of the evidence.
How did we ever get away from this obvious truth? If people know that by claiming victimhood about anything they will automatically be believed, many of them will be tempted to use the cloak of victimhood for their own purposes. This is not a grown-up state of mind, and it rightly creates a sense of gross injustice in the minds of those falsely accused, whether they be a whole group, such as men, or a named individual.
There are always millions of people who feel victimised, some with good reason. But it must be doubtful that there will ever be enough to take political power. Eventually, the majority of our culture will turn against those who claim victimhood at their expense, and cry out for a more just approach. I believe this is what is happening now.
It is important at this moment to repeat that the most “moderate” candidate for the leadership of the Labour Party is the most vulnerable on this score. As director of public prosecutions, Sir Keir Starmer led the way in shifting the scales of British justice so that “Believe the victim” became the mantra of the courts, with consequently grotesque wrongs being assumed of the falsely accused. If “Believe the victim” is also the foundation of his politics, he will prove himself a loser.
I am still waiting for the big Remainer article or speech which tries to answer the question, “Why did we lose?” Perhaps this sounds sarcastic, but I mean it. It is perfectly possible to continue as a firm believer in the European Union (and in Britain’s eventual return to membership), and yet to express one’s shame at how badly the cause has been promoted. Indeed, it is perfectly logical, and much needed.
From the day early in 2016 when David Cameron called the referendum to now, the Remainers have got it wrong. Probably their key mistake was to think – and sometimes almost to say – “We know best”. Project Fear was a version of this, deploying what Remainers considered superior knowledge in order to frighten the ignorant. The same attitude led them to disparage the very idea of the referendum and then, once they had lost, to pretend that the democratic way forward was to have another one.
So who, from the Remainer side, will be the first to start the public self-questioning? The obvious first platform for this debate should be the contest for the Labour leadership, but most of the candidates shear off such discussion lest it lose them votes. Lisa Nandy, the MP for Wigan, is the only one who begins to try to wrestle with the issues. She has called recently for a form of politics which does not dismiss patriotism as if it were automatically Right-wing. She also emphasises the importance of this country’s history. If our story is seen – as it is by Jeremy Corbyn – as one long tale of atrocities and exploitation perpetrated by white men against everyone else it will never win support.
Ms Nandy is also right that such a dark approach to our own past does a great injustice to the many radicals and reformers who have succeeded in bringing about change in our own country and, by their example, to the wider world.
How, for example, could you properly teach the story of Britain’s involvement with slavery without studying both how we profited by the trade and how we abolished it and then policed its abolition on the high seas?
As a mixed-race woman young enough to be Mr Corbyn’s daughter, Ms Nandy is well placed to encourage her party to relearn these truths.
Boris Johnson wants to move the House of Lords to York. I hope this plan will not be used as a justification for pressing ahead with HS2. The idea should not be to make North and South 15 minutes closer to one another. Rather it should be to give the North more power and pride.
I wonder if the Church of England should consider something similar. The C of E is divided into the provinces of York and Canterbury. In the Middle Ages, there was a long wrangle about which took precedence. This was eventually settled in the reign of Henry II after the two archbishops engaged in an unseemly tussle in a Westminster garden in front of the papal legate. Canterbury gained first place and has held it ever since.
Perhaps this precedence should now be reversed. In modern times, the Archbishops of Canterbury have become dreadfully bogged down with trying to manage the worldwide Anglican Communion. This has proved an impossible task and a big distraction. This problem could be solved if future Archbishops of York take the lead in England and leave Canterbury with the global role. If the House of Lords were in York, it would be natural for the Archbishop of York to take the lead there as, at present, the Archbishop of Canterbury does in Westminster. “Hills of the North, rejoice!” as the old hymn says.