“Labour’s election manifesto may not have much in terms of extra spending, or any substantial plans,” writes Prof Eric Kauffman for the Spectator, “[b]ut it sends a green light to activists in government, schools, universities and corporations to carry out their illiberal cultural revolution without restraint.” He continues:
It promises to introduce ethnicity pay gap reporting requirements for ‘large employers’ and upgrade the focus on hate crime. Compliance departments will emphasise going beyond the letter of the law, leading to discriminatory quotas and speech suppression. The manifesto promises a ban on ‘conversion therapy’ for trans people that will make it risky for adults to question a young person’s decision to change pronouns, take puberty blockers and undergo gender reassignment surgery.
But the biggest change is in mood music, with Labour enthusiastically embracing the identitarian Equality Act, which activists in institutions have used to justify speech policing, political indoctrination and anti-white male discrimination. This will accelerate an ongoing shift in the country’s public culture.
Woke is not – as the left has convinced itself – a simple right-wing epithet, but an analytic concept that describes something real in the world. Woke may be precisely defined as the making sacred of historically marginalised race, gender and sexual identity groups. From these hallowed attachments comes the view that the overriding aim of society is to enforce equal outcomes and emotional harm protection for historically disadvantaged groups.
The culture war between woke activists and those who resist them is not an amusing sideshow, but a struggle for the very heart of our civilisation. Will we be free, truth-based and a cohesive nation, or will we descend into an Orwellian nightmare of speech policing in which we are forced to mouth false mantras (‘trans women are women’, ‘systemic racism’, ‘diversity is our strength’) we don’t believe while the state turns British schoolchildren against their national past.
Beneath the noise of the news cycle, the most far-reaching legacy of New Labour was its unspoken cultural revolution in the form of large-scale immigration and a surge of institutional Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) on the back of its 2010 Equality Act.
Likewise, the most significant impact of Starmer’s government could be to unleash the full force of progressive illiberalism in British society.
Worth reading in full.
To celebrate the publication of Prof Kauffman’s latest book, TABOO: How Making Race Sacred Created a Cultural Revolution, he will be delivering a guest lecture at our next live event, on Wednesday 26th June. Professor Kaufmann will open with a short lecture, followed by a response from Thomas Harris, the FSU’s Director of Data and Impact and author of the report, The EDI Tax: How Equity, Diversity and Inclusion are Hobbling British Businesses.
FSU members can purchase discounted in-person tickets for the event in Central London or join online, free of charge, by following the links including in the most recent weekly newsletter. In-person tickets are available to the general public here.
For free and discounted tickets to this event, and the many other similar events we regularly host for our members, consider joining the FSU below – prices start from just £4.99 a month!
