Labour on the wrong side of the culture wars – and Englishness

What is going on out there? I cannot recall a greater disjunction between politics at Westminster and the way it is perceived in the rest of the country. The kerfuffles around Downing Street are dominating the media debate. But this may be distracting attention from profound long-term changes.

According to precedent, we know what ought to be happening. Most mid-term electoral contests come down to a referendum on the proposition: “does the government deserve a kick in the pants?” That is usually answered with a decisive “yes”, which should be even more resounding once Boris’s antics are factored in. But this time, the Tories have a good chance of holding the West Midlands mayoralty and winning the Hartlepool by-election. If they even come close, Keir Starmer and his team should be enveloped in Stygian gloom. 

Oppositions with prospects of victory need to be doing a great deal better.

So why is that not happening? There is one obvious explanation. Boris seems to be far less toxic than many commentators think that he ought to be. Many people find him amusing. He cheers them up. He is a bit naughty, but at least he is fun. The reputation of politicians in general has not recovered from the expenses degringolade. The assumption may be that Boris is no worse than the rest of them – and he was not using taxpayers’ money. Over the years, he has got away with a lot. His luck may not have run out.

I also suspect that a large section of the electorate are bored with the whole shenanigans. It does not prevent them from giving the government credit over the vaccination roll-out and for getting Brexit done. People are looking forward to the end of lockdown and the economic news is better than expected. There is no great tide of public discontent.

There may be other tides. Three of the most remarkable political phenomena in post-war British history have never been adequately scrutinised, which should not enhance the reputation of sociologists and political scientists (political “science” should probably be reclassified as an oxymoron).

The first is the effect that the loss of Empire had on public opinion. For some years after the War, most of the British people did experience austerity. Shortages, rationing, regulations, hard winters; many families found themselves huddling round the coal fire, when there was not enough coal and supper had not been up to much. But there were two linked consolations. We had won the War and vast areas of the globe were still painted pink. The average person did not concern himself with the Russo-German battles on the Eastern Front, nor with the constitutional arrangements in Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. George VI was still their King, and they had sent troops to fight for the Empire. We still had dominion over palm and pine. But we rapidly moved on the later verses of “Recessional”. From the Indian sub-continent onwards, via Suez, all our pomp of yesteryear was one with Nineveh and Tyre.

In the fifties, there was one post-Imperial compensation: post-war economic recovery. But from the sixties onwards, we appeared to be in a permanent state of economic crisis. It seems probable that all this did grave damage to national self-confidence. There was a loss of faith in Britain. That was especially serious in Scotland, where there was an alternative. In England , there was a growing market for Powellism. Having been an ardent Imperialist – the last man to believe that we should hold on to India – Enoch Powell had come to the conclusion that the UK, and especially England should forget about Empire, Commonwealth, Nato, the alliance with America and, of course, Europe. It should aim for self-sufficiency, drawing on a national tradition which had served it well over many centuries. Enoch Powell was an English nationalist and in that, he may have been prophetic.

The second and related development on which sociology has been silent concerns England’s war banner. In the 1966 football World Cup, the English went into battle under the Union Flag. That has now given way to the Cross of St George. So how did it move from the church steeple to white-van man’s bonnet? Though I have no wish to join in Emily Thornberry’s sneerings about her fellow-countrymen’s patriotism, it is possible to wonder how the average football supporter got to hear about the Cross of St George. Even if there is no more beautiful flag in the world, one suspects that the change was not determined by aesthetics and that it was an assertion of Englishness. There is an obvious parallel with Brexit. If we can no longer rule half the world, many Englishmen were saying, at least we can rule ourselves. 

That does not help with the problem of Scottish nationalism. But it does relate to Keir Starmer’s difficulties.

The third unsolved sociological conundrum is the unpopularity of the Tory party in modern Britain. Over the past half-century, political demography should have moved strongly in the Tories’ favour. Home ownership, up: municipal tenancies, down. Trade union membership, working-class self-identification, manual labour: all down. White-collar employment, middle-class self-identification: both up.

Yet since 1970, the Tories have only once surpassed Alec Home’s losing percentage in 1964. That was Margaret Thatcher in 1979, by half a percentage point. Whatever they should have thought, a large number of voters concluded that the Tories were not the party for them. Anyone who has canvassed for the Tories over the years will tell the same story. A working-class door: you go for a hard sell on law and order, and seem to be making progress, until the end. “I’m sorry, but we’ve always been Labour here.” That tribalism was reinforced, unwittingly, by Margaret Thatcher. She could not help giving the impression that “her people” were the striving, the sharp-elbowed, the successful, and that she had little empathy with those who were alarmed about job insecurity and just wanted to be looked after. Then came Tony Blair, a further obstacle to a Tory break-through.

Sir Keir Starmer may be another North London barrister, but he is no Tony Blair. He inherited a red wall which had been breached by Brexit, and by Jeremy Corbyn. “He’s not right for us”, they were saying in the North, and even if the Labour candidate in Hartlepool wished all his constituents a happy St George’s day, he is under threat from a new assault: wokery. Even five years ago, who would have thought that the forces of common sense could lose so many battles in the culture war. There has been an attack on British history and the family. It is being asserted that sexuality is just a social construct and that biology can easily be over-ridden. Children’s minds and even bodies are being poisoned by this nonsense, and thus far, the counter-attack has been feeble. The Tories should have done far more. They need others to stand alongside the admirable Kemi Badenoch. Everyone seems to be waiting for someone else to show courage.

But life is far harder for Sir Keir. Although plenty of his more sensible members wish otherwise, Labour is seen to be on the wrong side of the culture war, and of Englishness. Plenty of senior Labour politicians give the impression that they do not like their country. Though they might not go as far as the Woke-ist hooligans, they too do not approve of English history. That is going to cost Labour a lot of votes.

Boris can be accused of many things: not of wokery. “Woke” to him is an urgent elbow in the ribs and wake-up call from a mistress. She has heard a key in the lock. The husband has returned unexpectedly. She will try to keep him talking downstairs while Bojo rushes into his clothes and shimmies down the drain-pipe. But at least he likes his country.

Even if he should be doing more, he is on the right side in the culture wars: Labour, on the wrong one. Wokery could well put the Labour party to sleep.