At last, a Tory rally cry against wokery

BRITISH Conservatives in recent years have tended to concentrate on Brexit and on the economic battle, against high taxation and extravagance, and against too much State control of business and industry. The post-Thatcher years have not seen much Tory thinking about the deeper issues of human liberty, free speech and thought.

In fact, under David Cameron’s leadership, the Tories sometimes wandered into wokery themselves. This was never so in the US, where the different wings of conservatism have kept up a lively debate on these subjects.

So it is striking and encouraging that Tory Chairman Oliver Dowden is planning to use a platform in Washington DC to launch a rallying cry against the new tyranny of cancel culture.

The Mail on Sunday reports today that Mr Dowden will tomorrow call on Conservatives to find the confidence to mount a vigorous defence of the values of a free society. He will warn against social-media mobs but also against the enemies of the West in China and Russia. He will point out that China has not, as some hoped 30 years ago, become politically free because it has embraced free markets and capitalism.

These are important points. Mr Dowden is wise to make them and the rest of the Government should heed him.

People in Britain are increasingly sick of efforts to tell them what they can and cannot think or say, often enforced by giant social-media corporations based in California – and backed by the BBC, which they are also forced to pay for. They are tired of seeing attacks on national heroes such as Winston Churchill.

In the political battles to come, the party which fights against wokery and in favour of national pride will have much to gain

and nothing to lose.