Something that always strikes me when considering ‘culture war’ populism is that it’s often about, in political terms, minority topics.
Take Brexit, where this all properly started. For years, the issue of ‘Europe’ was regularly about ninth on the list of voter concerns, as expressed to opinion pollsters - a very long way behind the economy, education, health, crime etc. Yes, being primarily concerned about the EU was very much a minority sport or ‘edge case’. Even within the fractious parliamentary Conservative Party of the 1990s, the issue regularly exerted fewer than 10% of Conservative MPs - a hard core of rebels whose number had changed little since the parliamentary battles over EEC entry in the 1970s.
Fast forward to 2016, and it took only about 1.4% of voters to swing the vote from Remain to Leave. That then took us on a journey that proved dramatically different to remaining.
Then there was the question that Brexiters of the day always dreaded: ‘But what particular thing has the EU prevented the UK from doing?’ Vote Leave’s answer: Something about clinical trials regulation (that the EU then fixed). In other words, an edge case that was remote from ordinary people’s day-to-day lives.
So much of what has happened since (and sent populists into a rage) has followed a similar pattern.
There have been only 13 immigration-related defeats at the European Court of Human Rights over many decades; the kind of cases that sent the Daily Mail into a tailspin. There is a nuance here that must be acknowledged, in that such cases were effectively brought ‘in house’ after the Human Rights Act of 1998 (created by parliamentary vote and capable of repeal the same way). Nonetheless, we are still talking about a very small number where Strasbourg ‘overruled’ the UK. Moreover, on the subject of prisoners voting rights where the European Court overruled the UK government, the latter refused to comply and never repealed its blanket statutory ban on convicted serving prisoners voting.
This is hardly the stuff of revolution. Nor of even picking up one’s ball and whining all the way home. But that’s where the populist Right is.
The pandemic gave us another populist attack: that of Covid ‘vaccine harms’, including some very wild conspiracies about what was actually in the vaccine. It worried a lot of people unnecessarily, especially in the face of a killer virus that had a mortal or savage effect on a lot of people - see Derek Draper.
I personally know someone who was really ill for weeks after taking the AstraZeneca vaccine, and I know he was not alone. But a major side effect of the vaccine occurred in c.0.05% of the vaccinated. That’s one in every two thousand people. By contrast, the hospitalisation rate for those infected by the virus was more like 100 in every two thousand, and about 20 deaths.
Drugs have side effects. This is not news. It is and always has been a balance of risk.
The Covid vaccines in their various forms clearly worked and were necessary. They allowed the human race to fight back against a deadly global virus that it is now considered - thanks to those vaccines - to be on a par with ‘normal’ seasonal flu. That was very far from true in 2020 and 2021.
Here’s another one: foreign aid. This amounts to 0.3% of UK GDP. It was once 0.7% (pledged and hit by Conservative-led governments). And yet some people mostly on the Right now get very animated about the 0.3%. I personally know someone who is very cross about the foreign aid the UK gives to China - ‘Don’t get me started on that, it’s a real hobby horse of mine!’ And yet foreign aid to China is equivalent to 0.0003% of GDP. It’s a bit like losing 30p down a drain and then, as a consequence, getting bothered that you’ll no longer be able to pay for your £100k house extension. Furthermore, much of the aid to China goes to the British Council there.
Why do people get bothered about foreign aid to China or foreign aid in general? Because the Daily Mail has conditioned them to be bothered.
How many people are bothered by certain old statues in public places? An infinitesimally small number, I would suggest.
How about the ‘issue’ of dishonest welfare claims? It’s estimated to be about 2% of all claims.
Small boat ‘illegal immigration’? It amounts to roughly 5% of all immigration, although that has varied recently as the numbers drop.
What about direct income support for Asylum Seekers staying in hotels/barracks: The amount of money equates to c.1% of the UK minimum wage. It’s tiny.
And then there are Muslims in Britain supposedly ‘taking over’ in a ‘clash of civilisations’? Actually, they represent about 6% of the UK population, and that will include very many ‘westernised’ and second/third generation Muslims, including children.
Grooming gang sexual offences? c.1% of all sexual offences.
Asian grooming gang sexual offences? c<0.1% of all sexual offences, and roughly in line with the proportion of the population that is of Asian heritage. The vast majority of grooming gang offences are carried out by white people.
The claim from the emboldened ethnonationalist Far Right that ‘true’ British people have to be white and have British ancestry (and maybe be Christian as well) gets only tiny levels of support.
The recent tragic case of Jason Arday, the black Cambridge University Professor whose backstory was allegedly ‘dodgy’, but most of all, he was supposed to represent an out-of-control DEI culture infecting universities. So what’s the proportion of the 795 Cambridge professors who are black? 0.4%. Literally five. Massively below the proportion of all British people who identify as black (c.4%). If DEI policy is essentially running Cambridge University, then it’s doing an appalling job.
And 'dodgy' free speech cases that supposedly demonstrate Britain’s free speech liberties are going into reverse? Small. There are probably a greater number of ‘free speech’ complaints from people engaging in inciteful ‘free speech’ that, in reality, has been prohibited by law for decades and is nothing new. What has changed is that people think they are now entitled to ‘publish’ what they like (online) without breaking any laws. They can’t. See Lucy Connelly.
How about the trans culture war? Trans people represent c.1% of the population. Detransitioners are thought be a small percentage of that c.1%. So a small percentage of a very small percentage.
I could probably go on but you get the picture.
I don’t wish to suggest these topics and these small numbers are unimportant, just that a constant sense of perspective, a level of sensitivity, a strict observance of facts, and a deftness of touch are required when discussing them.
Because the central theme of what Britain is, what its dominant culture is, and what its people are, is very similar to that which has existed throughout the lifetimes of most British-born people.
Of course, that narrative doesn’t work for clickbait populists, whose existence relies on making the small appear large, endemic and dangerous.
But be under no illusions: populists (and indeed many ‘ordinary’ folk) are getting over-animated about a lot of small things.