Woke culture isn’t a laughing matter. It must be stopped before it’s too late
‘Woke” culture is often seen as a joke, but it is changing our country for the worse. We need to stop complaining, and start taking action against it.
There are three main things we should do. First, fighting the forces of identity politics – a mentality which refuses to treat people as individuals and promotes new forms of sectarianism. Take Pran Patel, the founder of “decolonise the curriculum,” who claimed: “Priti Patel is the perfect example of whiteness inhabiting a different coloured vessel”.
The public sector cannot – wittingly or unwittingly – promote such ideas, as it does by lumping together nonwhite minorities under the umbrella term “Black and Minority Ethnic” in official publications. Woke warriors like this divisive framing because it creates a sense of “them and us”; white people versus everyone else.
It’s also unhelpful, concealing important variations we need to understand to improve things. The employment rate among Indian men is higher than among white British, while for Pakistani and Bangladeshi men it’s a little lower. Asian pupils are more likely to get five good GCSEs than white, black pupils less likely. An average for “BAME” conceals these things. And people feel connections to real places, not a sociologist’s acronym. I have constituents who’d say they’re British-Punjabi or Gujarati. They wouldn’t say they’re BAME.
Though numerous bestsellers promote this divisive new politics, public sector bodies should not be regurgitating their messages. One Sheffield headmaster recently wrote to parents: “Our society is built upon white supremacy.” Apartheid South Africa was such a society. Britain is not. Schools have no business pushing this rubbish – and the Government must issue guidance to that effect. Mandatory “unconscious bias training” is also widespread in the public sector, despite the poor scientific evidence for its effectiveness: it may even be counterproductive.
A second aspect of the woke revolution we must resist is its assault on free speech. We are importing American “cancel culture”, in which people may be harassed or sacked for tiny deviations from new orthodoxies. The author JK Rowling writes thoughtfully on transgender issues, recently critiquing the use of the term “people who menstruate,” rather than “women.” Immediately, this triggered accusations of “transphobia”, numerous authors quit her agency, and staff at her publisher refused to work on her new book. One author was sacked from her contract simply for tweeting “I stand with JK Rowling.” Fuelled by social media, cancel culture is accelerating. Last week a bureaucrat at the Environment Agency cancelled an event with the independent mayor of Middlesbrough who had said: “Don’t listen to careless talk in the media about white privilege … deprivation here appears to be colour blind.”
To fight back, employment law may need to change to protect free speech. Of course, firms should be able to fire people who do racist or sexist things. But firms and public sector bodies must respect employment law and free
We are importing American ‘cancel culture’, in which people may be harassed or sacked for tiny deviations from new orthodoxies
expression. We particularly need to defend free speech in our universities, where cancel culture is most powerful.
Third, we must counter the excessively negative view of British history that is being pushed on young people. Someone recently spray-painted “racist” on a statue of Churchill, a shameful consequence of this unbalanced view of the past. Liverpool University is renaming buildings named after the great Liberal reformer Gladstone, merely because his father owned slaves. There’s good and bad in our history, but balance has gone out the window.
Let’s turn the conversation about slavery and statues towards something forward-looking. Let’s fight slavery today, with a commission on modern slavery to work in the run up to the 200th anniversary of the Slavery Abolition Act in 2033. Priti Patel is working with France to fight the trafficking gangs smuggling people across the Channel. But more is needed. Let’s clamp down even harder on sweatshops in Britain. Let’s hold to account western companies which benefit, disgracefully, from the slave labour of Uighur Muslims in China.
Perhaps we should make the Queen’s birthday a national holiday. Many other countries have national service: let’s replace National Citizen Service with something much bigger. In my constituency groups like the cadets bring together young people who might not otherwise meet: let’s build up such institutions.
Woke politics offers a bleak future of division, censoriousness and negativity. We need an alternative that is positive, free and uniting.