Blaming ministers for culture wars is a cowardly labor gesture

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This is a common tactic, employed by left-wing infantrymen as frequently as by their parliamentary leaders.

It goes like this: a comment, statement or report from an organization usually, but not always, an academic institution or student body announces a new policy that goes against not only tradition and practice. past, but also common sense and logic. An example could be an order for professors not to raise a questioning eyebrow when a black student or staff member speaks, as such action should be reclassified as racial micro-aggression.

Another example could be the ban on students clapping, lest it trigger sensitive members of the public. Jazz hands should be used as a less scary and quieter alternative, apparently.

There are many other examples, often more serious: insisting that trans women are women, referring to breastfeeding rather than breastfeeding lest the latter phrase exclude women trans, even using the phrase menstruating rather than women, these are all initiatives taken by what has come to be known as the Awakened Left.

The point is, whether it’s his assertions in favor of trans ideology or critical race theory or the many other new minority interests around which have sprouted a whole network of supporters and advocates (well funded, usually by tax dollars), we have entered a political Twilight Zone where any negative response to these initiatives is redefined as the first shot in a crop war. What is significant is that those who make the original claims are themselves released from all responsibility; only those who choose to respond, who choose not to remain silent on the latest assault on our culture, are thus accused.

The latest example comes from former Labor leader Ed Miliband, who said Boris Johnson is not only a populist (which the left applies to any party that wins an election), but also wants to provoke a culture war. .

Now, it is hardly disputed that the side Johnson is accused of taking in such a war is the popular (rather than the populist) camp; the vast majority of people consider the daily reports on new ideologies imported from American universities to be beyond comprehension or relevance. Of course, they will agree with any politician who actually takes a stand for what most people take for granted – common sense and scientific logic.

Above all, accusing Johnson and his ministers of delivering the first punch allows Labor and the rest of the left to avoid having to offer their own answers to the madness that is now taking hold on our campuses. After all, if the anger of Tory MPs and right-wing commentators can be described as the powerful fighter against minority groups, why should the top members of the shadow cabinet join the fight?

Labor leader Keir Starmer wisely chose to stay away from culture wars (despite an early unforced error when he was pictured kneeling in his Commons office). But a more honest approach would be to stop accusing ministers of choosing a culture war and start tackling the root causes of such conflicts.

The dangers are however obvious. For starters, the Labor Party would cause a lot of unease and internal criticism if it didn’t claim to at least bow to some of the weirder new fads coming to our shores that many on the party’s fringes have embraced. By saying very little about such new thinking, Labor is at least hanging on to those supporters and members. Should MPs reflect the views of ordinary people of the kind who prefer not to use social media to broadcast their political views, they would end up on the side of government ministers and who knows? might even end up triggering some of their own limbs.

The alternative that the party has chosen is to try to reverse the whole phenomenon of cultural wars, to reframe it as a reactionary right-wing game. Ignore those who believe they can rewrite history by removing and degrading statues, or who see racism in common garden bird names, instead blame ministers who criticize these warriors of social justice and accuse them, and not the statue-knockers, of launching a war culture.

To be fair, Starmer was very early on criticizing those who threw the statue of slave trader Edward Coulson into Bristol Bay last year. But the intervention did not go well on his side and he has kept his head down on such questions ever since, leaving Miliband, his shadow business secretary, to try to squeeze political capital out of the reactions perfectly. reasonable ministers. to extreme actions and statements.

There has been a lot of advice given freely for Starmer lately, much of which prompts him to relaunch his leadership by taking a stand against his far-left wing, including his predecessor as leader, Jeremy Corbyn. This is not bad advice. But he should also consider tackling the awakened culture of his party. Ignoring him, or blaming opponents for reacting to it, will get him nowhere and risks isolating Labor in communities who are more likely to laugh at most of his initiatives than start playing jazz hands. .

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