The history, traditions, and culture of England are being undermined, subverted, and rewritten and in so doing what was a "we", a nation, is unraveling. Instead of a home our country is becoming a large, multicultural hotel in which the elites stay in power over a demoralised, balkanised demos unable to organise any push back.
Badenock only pushed back very occasionally and has stated she does not want to be seen as an anti-woke warrior. She is now in a cat fight with Braverman the one Tory left who is the only culture warrior left in politics. And look how she is being demonised, even by her own party, for some very straighforward comments.
Labour's legal and institutional framework will strangle citizens' push back. Dismantling woke will require a government in power that understands what has happened and has the backbone to roll back the legal framework. It can only do that if it has, for example, an 80 seat majority over a poltical re-alignment except we won't see that again so deep is the anger, hatred even, for the Tories.
Labour and its running dogs in the media will put a cordon sanitaire around Reform which, as on the continent, may take years to breach. The future is bleak indeed.
It's very simple, 'Woke' is just a clever new word for MARXIST. It is designed to demoralise, confuse and destroy normal western society. Every aspect of it is poison.
Even Farage is intimidated by accusations of racism. He is careful to distance himself from groups and individuals, here in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, who are tainted by the far right label. This is understandable but at the same time gives the cultural left enormous power.
Matt has spoken about researching far right groups and it would be interesting to hear his views on this one. On 1st June there was a large event in London branded by MSM as far right and another is planned for 27th July. I didn't attend and am very wary of doing so, but coverage on YouTube does not match the far right label. It is organised by Tommy Robinson who is presented by the media as a hate figure, akin to Goldstein in George Orwell's 1984. But to be fair he did speak out against the grooming gangs when virtually nobody else was prepared to do so. He and his allies including people like Laurence Fox and Calvin Robinson, formerly of GB News, have invited Farage to join them.
So Matt, should Nigel accept the invitation? If so, what would be the reasons in favour? If not, would this be because those involved are genuinely extreme or because he can't afford to be smeared by association even if the smears are unjustified.
Farage fell out with Batten over Tommy Robinson - Farage wanted him kept out of UKIP, Batten wanted him in - and won't accept an invitation. Tice even more distant from the 'uncouth' saying, shortly after the Brexit Party became Reform UK, that he didn't want it to become "ukippy" - i.e a working class movement.
They do fear being smeared by association but there is also class snobbery.
Tommy is massively brave and massively right about Islam. But Farage knows that few people will vote for someone who looks and sounds like a yob. The British public, and the working class, want their politicians to look and sound like their doctor, not the dustman. Sorry but that’s the harsh truth.
Farage has just promoted Tice to deputy and demoted Ben Habib. I despair because Tice is too smooth and establishment. Ben Habib was the only leading Reform candidate to sign up to the New Culture Forum's points. I am also uneasy about Farage promoting his big new donor to party chairman which smacks of money buying influence.
I still prefer the SDP over Reform, pity that having a decent guy with intelligent ideas in charge isn't enough in British politics.
Habib is justly miffed. He campaigned long and hard for Reform and although not an MP he has been set aside for someone else who is not an MP. The former banker Zia Yusaf (Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs) was nowhere to be seen until Birmingham by which time all the hard work had been done. His last minute donation only came once it was clear Nigel and Reform were on a roll. He did not earn his spot, he bought it. The left box tick in preference to merit and Reform have done the same with the additional stink of money involved.
Quite probably Yusaf's appointment is intended to shield them from charges of racism - I'm not racist, some of my best chairman are brown - but they are playing the DEU game and appeasing the left instead of opposing it. In any case, they already had Habib.
This does not augur well for Reform. The millionaire, middle class elite atop Reform may be impressed by another but many in the red wall will not.
I’ve spent time up close with Nigel Farage around Britain and Brussels. I’m quite sure he’s absolutely sincere, a real British patriot, not many of them around, he’s the best. But he’s human, gets tired and fed up, has made mistakes. But I still think he’s Britain’s best chance. I’d watch Zia very carefully though, not keen on people suddenly appearing out of nowhere.
I watched Tommy’s movie and footage of the rally. Tommy talks so much sense. There were many different ages and cultures represented in the crowd but all proudly British. Watch the move and footage on Rebel, it is great.
Stay well clear, you know it will be used against anyone who turns up, regardless of whether the people there are good, bad or misguided. Nigel is wise to stay well clear.
Can’t disagree and can’t see a way out of this one. Hold tight to your loved ones, pray, hang on to your books (before they are banned) and wait for it to all fall apart when something better might emerge. If we had a proper Conservative opposition that was smart and fearless, there would at least be a safe space in the public realm, from which you can at least say “told you so” as the ship sinks further and further.
... this will soon be the end of Britain as a free, truth-based, and socially cohesive nation. And I don’t think any of us want to see that.... Wrong! Many who are coming into power are quite happy to see the destruction of a free Britain and the West and they even have a fully documented legal approach... it's called Sharia Law. And Starmer and the left are leading the broken tribes of a once-unified nation down the path to slaughter and submission.
It is a big problem when policies are set to suit those less able to earn a living or other minority groups because it disadvantages the majority. For example having health care free at the pointy of delivery. Performance is always better when the user pays and is seen as the customer. This is why supermarkets aim to meet our our needs because their income depends on it.
It seems to me "Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman and Oliver Dowden, were willing to combat this poisonous belief system" right up to the point of actually doing nothing about it.
She was Home Secretary. You may have given up on the job and called it 'integrity', but she may have thought it better to struggle on and seek change that way. Not an easy decision.
That's a very interesting definition ("making sacred of historically marginalised..."), not least as it frames the issue in religious terms, which I think is essential. For me the elephant in the room is the secular ideology that has dominated western thought for the last couple of centuries, and which sees Christianity in particular as inherently irrational and to be discarded. Where a secular ideology holds sway we lack the capacity to engage creatively with these problems (with the rise of Islam most of all). That is, the only cure for bad religion (woke, climate change etc) is good religion - and to carry forward that argument there needs to be a sense of what good religion is and does. Fortunately the secular perspectives peaked at the academic level at least a generation ago, maybe two generations ago - even Dawkins claims cultural Christianity now! - so I am not without hope.
Guilt seems to loom large in many peoples' pyche. Christianity was an effective way to channel it; but now, with increasing secularism, woke has become a competing force and to a large extent taking the place of Christianity.
But wokery comes with a large helping of conceit, in that wokesters self-importantly take it upon on themselves to claim responsibility for things completely beyond their control and nothing to do with them, such as events that occurred and attitudes held long before they were born!
Also, in championing minorities, vociferous wokesters are implicitly thinking themselves, and seeking to be seen, as superior to those vulnerable poor souls who supposedly need their help.
All politics is ultimately theological. Remove the Logos and what is left? As I see it, only two viable alternatives that co-exist in their weird way. Utopianism where all barriers and injustices must be removed to create the perfect world here on earth or the pursuit of power. The unholy alliance of the two is where we are at now.
For me, the central issue at stake is democracy itself. Democracy only works when a majority view prevails and the minority accept this view and, if they wish, continue to try and persuade the majority to change its collective mind.
Society functions because everyone strikes a contract with each other; we give up some freedoms to facilitate democracy to work and allow us to collectively thrive.
Society doesn't work when everyone is allowed to pursue their individual freedoms. Anarchy would lie ahead. Society works when there is an agreed equilibrium between 'give' and 'take'.
For thousands of years society has explored and experimented with this issue. Democracy is the desirable outcome, not the anarchy of unfettered individuality.
The rights of an individual should not trump the collective will of the majority. Those in the majority also have rights and there are more individuals in the majority.
And now Tory members want Farage to join....stupid braindeads who continue to support them should be told under no circumstances will Reform join and save the Tories. I do not want a Tory party 2.0
I don't expect Labour , woke or not, will do anything that will aid this country get out of the mess it is in, quite the opposite. How the hell an elected Government believes it has some unchallengeable right to destroy the country it is supposed to represent is beyond belief.
Across the board for years and years Politicians, intellectuals and woke globalists have caused this country to be degraded.
Islam, multiculturalism, mass immigration have all detracted from what this country was up to the1990s. Our Nation needed no 'enrichment'.
Can anyone over 40 honestly say this country is a better place to live in today than it was ?
We have idiots running this country. That has been the case for years.
If you want to push Parliament into working for the interests of this Nation then come to Trafalgar Square on 27th July and join a boots on the ground people's movement that will start to stand up to the Westminster clowns.
We need to challenge the narrative. For example, when politicians and media talk about racism we say "oh, you mean white racism".
When they talk about institutional racism we say "oh, you mean like the cover up of the grooming gangs where the victims' lives don't matter because of their race".
When they talk about reparations we say "and should the Islamic world and certain African tribes also pay reparations?"
So a male double murderer, wants to be called female and the wokery send him to a female prison. Then he gets caught having sex with an inmate. The lunatics have taken over the asylum.
The Woke agenda cares nought for the marginalised . During the BLM riots in America, many black children were killed in the cross fires. We don't know their names or ages thus proving that black lives don't matter to the Wokerati . It's all about a Marxist agenda and power and money staying in the same hands.
There's a very informative discussion on YouTube featuring Eric Kaufmann, being interviewed by Dr. Jordan Peterson and it is relatively easy to follow what these two academics are saying, too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyOSjWiVBFA
Kaufman is himself being hypocritical. He claims to be affronted by the push for trans gender males to be allowed to use women’s “spaces” for the very reason that biological females should be protected and kept safe, yet he also claims that feminism is itself akin to so called “woke” ideology. Surely feminism is about keeping women safe from oppression and females having equality. And by the way, putting feminism into his group of isms that he claims “woke” lefties have seized and claimed is wrong. He defined “woke” as a view that holds minorities as “sacred” and effectively puts them on a pedestal. Well, last time I checked, females were not a minority group. In fact, they account for nearly 51% of the population in Britain.
Let’s be honest. The belief that all people are equal and should be treated so, is a good principle and a civilised and progressive ideal that all societies should strive for. When this ideal is high jacked and the aims of equality get distorted, resulting in ridiculous rules and sweeping judgements, not allowing any to question the reasoning and basis for this and taking the view that any who disagree are either stupid or belong to a previous era, it becomes just as damaging as oppression against women, ethnic minorities, gays etc was. It is a new form of oppression. The origins of these movements were justified and equal societies are happier societies and more peaceful societies. It is a shame that these authentic causes have been taken over by those jumping on the bandwagon.
I hate the word ‘race’ and its associated racism and racist. We are one race. Not several. We are the human race. Created in God’s image, male and female descended from Adam and Noah. Our differences are superficial and cultural. Rejecting our judeo Christian heritage has led to evolutionary thinking that one group of people are better than another because they had different origins.
Just look at the morons governing Australia and the US and you can see where you are headed. We have to stand firm and not modify our language.
How moronic of Starmer to appoint two women as ministers for women who don’t know what a woman is. We have to hope and pray that installing numpties will be the norm. It will make them look so stupid.
Woke callous authoritarianism is symbolised perfectly in the US Democrats' cruelty in keeping on Joe Biden. SOmehow it reminds me of the film, 'They Shoot Horses, Don't they?'.
I'm sure they do. More widely I can see shades of another story, The Handmaid's Tale, as the kind of dystopian and authoritarian society UK is becoming.
But if ever there was a story satirising the anti-woke movement , it is 'The Handmaid's Tale' so I am not at all surprised many here dismiss it as 'woke', just as Communists dismissed '1984' as pro-Western propaganda.
Good article, thank you.
PLEASE Eric, stop putting the word “biological” before male/female or man/woman. This implies there’s another type of male/female or man/woman.
Of course, there isn’t. Language changes the way we think, it’s one of the reasons we are where we are.
Yes. Cis-woman and cis-man is another pair. Wrong, it's the outliers that need the suffix.
The history, traditions, and culture of England are being undermined, subverted, and rewritten and in so doing what was a "we", a nation, is unraveling. Instead of a home our country is becoming a large, multicultural hotel in which the elites stay in power over a demoralised, balkanised demos unable to organise any push back.
Badenock only pushed back very occasionally and has stated she does not want to be seen as an anti-woke warrior. She is now in a cat fight with Braverman the one Tory left who is the only culture warrior left in politics. And look how she is being demonised, even by her own party, for some very straighforward comments.
Labour's legal and institutional framework will strangle citizens' push back. Dismantling woke will require a government in power that understands what has happened and has the backbone to roll back the legal framework. It can only do that if it has, for example, an 80 seat majority over a poltical re-alignment except we won't see that again so deep is the anger, hatred even, for the Tories.
Labour and its running dogs in the media will put a cordon sanitaire around Reform which, as on the continent, may take years to breach. The future is bleak indeed.
It's very simple, 'Woke' is just a clever new word for MARXIST. It is designed to demoralise, confuse and destroy normal western society. Every aspect of it is poison.
Even Farage is intimidated by accusations of racism. He is careful to distance himself from groups and individuals, here in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, who are tainted by the far right label. This is understandable but at the same time gives the cultural left enormous power.
Matt has spoken about researching far right groups and it would be interesting to hear his views on this one. On 1st June there was a large event in London branded by MSM as far right and another is planned for 27th July. I didn't attend and am very wary of doing so, but coverage on YouTube does not match the far right label. It is organised by Tommy Robinson who is presented by the media as a hate figure, akin to Goldstein in George Orwell's 1984. But to be fair he did speak out against the grooming gangs when virtually nobody else was prepared to do so. He and his allies including people like Laurence Fox and Calvin Robinson, formerly of GB News, have invited Farage to join them.
So Matt, should Nigel accept the invitation? If so, what would be the reasons in favour? If not, would this be because those involved are genuinely extreme or because he can't afford to be smeared by association even if the smears are unjustified.
Farage fell out with Batten over Tommy Robinson - Farage wanted him kept out of UKIP, Batten wanted him in - and won't accept an invitation. Tice even more distant from the 'uncouth' saying, shortly after the Brexit Party became Reform UK, that he didn't want it to become "ukippy" - i.e a working class movement.
They do fear being smeared by association but there is also class snobbery.
Tommy is massively brave and massively right about Islam. But Farage knows that few people will vote for someone who looks and sounds like a yob. The British public, and the working class, want their politicians to look and sound like their doctor, not the dustman. Sorry but that’s the harsh truth.
Farage has just promoted Tice to deputy and demoted Ben Habib. I despair because Tice is too smooth and establishment. Ben Habib was the only leading Reform candidate to sign up to the New Culture Forum's points. I am also uneasy about Farage promoting his big new donor to party chairman which smacks of money buying influence.
I still prefer the SDP over Reform, pity that having a decent guy with intelligent ideas in charge isn't enough in British politics.
Habib is justly miffed. He campaigned long and hard for Reform and although not an MP he has been set aside for someone else who is not an MP. The former banker Zia Yusaf (Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs) was nowhere to be seen until Birmingham by which time all the hard work had been done. His last minute donation only came once it was clear Nigel and Reform were on a roll. He did not earn his spot, he bought it. The left box tick in preference to merit and Reform have done the same with the additional stink of money involved.
Quite probably Yusaf's appointment is intended to shield them from charges of racism - I'm not racist, some of my best chairman are brown - but they are playing the DEU game and appeasing the left instead of opposing it. In any case, they already had Habib.
This does not augur well for Reform. The millionaire, middle class elite atop Reform may be impressed by another but many in the red wall will not.
Ben Habib should have worked his constituency instead of spending every day on Twitter. Twitter upticks are not constituency votes
As I asked in a previous post - are Reform populist or are they really globalist light? My question has been answered.
I’ve spent time up close with Nigel Farage around Britain and Brussels. I’m quite sure he’s absolutely sincere, a real British patriot, not many of them around, he’s the best. But he’s human, gets tired and fed up, has made mistakes. But I still think he’s Britain’s best chance. I’d watch Zia very carefully though, not keen on people suddenly appearing out of nowhere.
I watched Tommy’s movie and footage of the rally. Tommy talks so much sense. There were many different ages and cultures represented in the crowd but all proudly British. Watch the move and footage on Rebel, it is great.
Stay well clear, you know it will be used against anyone who turns up, regardless of whether the people there are good, bad or misguided. Nigel is wise to stay well clear.
Can’t disagree and can’t see a way out of this one. Hold tight to your loved ones, pray, hang on to your books (before they are banned) and wait for it to all fall apart when something better might emerge. If we had a proper Conservative opposition that was smart and fearless, there would at least be a safe space in the public realm, from which you can at least say “told you so” as the ship sinks further and further.
... this will soon be the end of Britain as a free, truth-based, and socially cohesive nation. And I don’t think any of us want to see that.... Wrong! Many who are coming into power are quite happy to see the destruction of a free Britain and the West and they even have a fully documented legal approach... it's called Sharia Law. And Starmer and the left are leading the broken tribes of a once-unified nation down the path to slaughter and submission.
It is a big problem when policies are set to suit those less able to earn a living or other minority groups because it disadvantages the majority. For example having health care free at the pointy of delivery. Performance is always better when the user pays and is seen as the customer. This is why supermarkets aim to meet our our needs because their income depends on it.
It seems to me "Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman and Oliver Dowden, were willing to combat this poisonous belief system" right up to the point of actually doing nothing about it.
Braverman was repeatedly overruled in cabinet. Badenock learnt her lesson after one push back.
She should have had the integrity to wake awa then. Sitting there now with a decimated party still bleating doesn't impress me.
She was Home Secretary. You may have given up on the job and called it 'integrity', but she may have thought it better to struggle on and seek change that way. Not an easy decision.
That's a very interesting definition ("making sacred of historically marginalised..."), not least as it frames the issue in religious terms, which I think is essential. For me the elephant in the room is the secular ideology that has dominated western thought for the last couple of centuries, and which sees Christianity in particular as inherently irrational and to be discarded. Where a secular ideology holds sway we lack the capacity to engage creatively with these problems (with the rise of Islam most of all). That is, the only cure for bad religion (woke, climate change etc) is good religion - and to carry forward that argument there needs to be a sense of what good religion is and does. Fortunately the secular perspectives peaked at the academic level at least a generation ago, maybe two generations ago - even Dawkins claims cultural Christianity now! - so I am not without hope.
Guilt seems to loom large in many peoples' pyche. Christianity was an effective way to channel it; but now, with increasing secularism, woke has become a competing force and to a large extent taking the place of Christianity.
But wokery comes with a large helping of conceit, in that wokesters self-importantly take it upon on themselves to claim responsibility for things completely beyond their control and nothing to do with them, such as events that occurred and attitudes held long before they were born!
Also, in championing minorities, vociferous wokesters are implicitly thinking themselves, and seeking to be seen, as superior to those vulnerable poor souls who supposedly need their help.
All politics is ultimately theological. Remove the Logos and what is left? As I see it, only two viable alternatives that co-exist in their weird way. Utopianism where all barriers and injustices must be removed to create the perfect world here on earth or the pursuit of power. The unholy alliance of the two is where we are at now.
For me, the central issue at stake is democracy itself. Democracy only works when a majority view prevails and the minority accept this view and, if they wish, continue to try and persuade the majority to change its collective mind.
Society functions because everyone strikes a contract with each other; we give up some freedoms to facilitate democracy to work and allow us to collectively thrive.
Society doesn't work when everyone is allowed to pursue their individual freedoms. Anarchy would lie ahead. Society works when there is an agreed equilibrium between 'give' and 'take'.
For thousands of years society has explored and experimented with this issue. Democracy is the desirable outcome, not the anarchy of unfettered individuality.
The rights of an individual should not trump the collective will of the majority. Those in the majority also have rights and there are more individuals in the majority.
Ah, the toxic legacy of 14 years of the Tories. I mean a Tory PM happily admitting she is woke says it all.
The thing is, if people keep voting for this, there’s not much we can do about it. Turkeys and Christmas and all that.
Even now quite a number of Tories are saying that they lost because they were to right wing and engaged in culture war issues.
And now Tory members want Farage to join....stupid braindeads who continue to support them should be told under no circumstances will Reform join and save the Tories. I do not want a Tory party 2.0
I don't expect Labour , woke or not, will do anything that will aid this country get out of the mess it is in, quite the opposite. How the hell an elected Government believes it has some unchallengeable right to destroy the country it is supposed to represent is beyond belief.
Across the board for years and years Politicians, intellectuals and woke globalists have caused this country to be degraded.
Islam, multiculturalism, mass immigration have all detracted from what this country was up to the1990s. Our Nation needed no 'enrichment'.
Can anyone over 40 honestly say this country is a better place to live in today than it was ?
We have idiots running this country. That has been the case for years.
If you want to push Parliament into working for the interests of this Nation then come to Trafalgar Square on 27th July and join a boots on the ground people's movement that will start to stand up to the Westminster clowns.
We need to challenge the narrative. For example, when politicians and media talk about racism we say "oh, you mean white racism".
When they talk about institutional racism we say "oh, you mean like the cover up of the grooming gangs where the victims' lives don't matter because of their race".
When they talk about reparations we say "and should the Islamic world and certain African tribes also pay reparations?"
So a male double murderer, wants to be called female and the wokery send him to a female prison. Then he gets caught having sex with an inmate. The lunatics have taken over the asylum.
The Woke agenda cares nought for the marginalised . During the BLM riots in America, many black children were killed in the cross fires. We don't know their names or ages thus proving that black lives don't matter to the Wokerati . It's all about a Marxist agenda and power and money staying in the same hands.
There's a very informative discussion on YouTube featuring Eric Kaufmann, being interviewed by Dr. Jordan Peterson and it is relatively easy to follow what these two academics are saying, too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyOSjWiVBFA
Kaufman is himself being hypocritical. He claims to be affronted by the push for trans gender males to be allowed to use women’s “spaces” for the very reason that biological females should be protected and kept safe, yet he also claims that feminism is itself akin to so called “woke” ideology. Surely feminism is about keeping women safe from oppression and females having equality. And by the way, putting feminism into his group of isms that he claims “woke” lefties have seized and claimed is wrong. He defined “woke” as a view that holds minorities as “sacred” and effectively puts them on a pedestal. Well, last time I checked, females were not a minority group. In fact, they account for nearly 51% of the population in Britain.
Let’s be honest. The belief that all people are equal and should be treated so, is a good principle and a civilised and progressive ideal that all societies should strive for. When this ideal is high jacked and the aims of equality get distorted, resulting in ridiculous rules and sweeping judgements, not allowing any to question the reasoning and basis for this and taking the view that any who disagree are either stupid or belong to a previous era, it becomes just as damaging as oppression against women, ethnic minorities, gays etc was. It is a new form of oppression. The origins of these movements were justified and equal societies are happier societies and more peaceful societies. It is a shame that these authentic causes have been taken over by those jumping on the bandwagon.
I hate the word ‘race’ and its associated racism and racist. We are one race. Not several. We are the human race. Created in God’s image, male and female descended from Adam and Noah. Our differences are superficial and cultural. Rejecting our judeo Christian heritage has led to evolutionary thinking that one group of people are better than another because they had different origins.
Just look at the morons governing Australia and the US and you can see where you are headed. We have to stand firm and not modify our language.
How moronic of Starmer to appoint two women as ministers for women who don’t know what a woman is. We have to hope and pray that installing numpties will be the norm. It will make them look so stupid.
Woke callous authoritarianism is symbolised perfectly in the US Democrats' cruelty in keeping on Joe Biden. SOmehow it reminds me of the film, 'They Shoot Horses, Don't they?'.
I'm sure they do. More widely I can see shades of another story, The Handmaid's Tale, as the kind of dystopian and authoritarian society UK is becoming.
But if ever there was a story satirising the anti-woke movement , it is 'The Handmaid's Tale' so I am not at all surprised many here dismiss it as 'woke', just as Communists dismissed '1984' as pro-Western propaganda.
Yes, utterly de-humanising