Useful overview which essentially argues that three competing ideas of national identity are now circulating on the British right – ethnic, religious and cultural – and that only the cultural-liberal version is politically viable. I agree.
The section where you describe “speech patterns, humour, mannerisms and the countless subtle signals that mark a shared social code” is a particularly good illustration of what really binds a culture together. It gets at something most thoughtful people intuitively understand.
If only the technocratic class could grasp the point rather than getting tied up in category errors (the inability to distinguish between Islam as an ideology and Muslims as people being the most pernicious example, repeated again just yesterday by Wes Streeting).
We should probably also stop talking about things being “to the right of the Tories” as if the Conservatives have been meaningfully right-wing for the past fifteen years rather than a kind of zombie Blairite distortion.
What the UK actually needs to rediscover is cultural conservatism rooted in Enlightenment liberalism.
"If only the technocratic class could grasp the point rather than getting tied up in category errors (the inability to distinguish between Islam as an ideology and Muslims as people being the most pernicious example, repeated again just yesterday by Wes Streeting)".
Do you really believe that he doesn't understand the difference?
It simply serves his interests most to pretend that the two concepts are similar. It affords him (in his own and his supporters' eyes) a sort of moral superiority while playing in the gutter of identity politics (where people are defined by their tribal identities, and appeals are made to the lowest common denominator).
I don’t really believe that, no. I was being uncharacteristically charitable to Streeting, who is simply a political operator as you say. Having said that, a vast number of people with power and influence really have convinced themselves of intellectual absurdities in service of moral vanity and status.
For me, the main task must be to push back against Islam.
Hindus and Sikhs, and African Christians are the natural allies in this task.
I had always thought of Englishness as an ethnicity. I could emigrate to New Zealand, and take citizenship. But I would never become a Maori, however much I might want to.
Politics has now irrevcably become sectarian. It was already so in the general election of 2024, with the election of several pro-Gaza MPs, and numerous more coming close to it.
I have written to MPs about it:
Initially I wrote this as one email, then split it into two. Hence both emails are in one article:
There are elements recently arrived in this country who adhere to a medieval worldview, following preachers who I consider radical and hateful. There's no desire to live this country as it is, but to shape it as they wish it to be. They are actively seeking to distort the fabric of this society, aided and abetted by well-meaning Liberals. To talk about this and express concerns about the rate and direction of change gets you labelled a bigot.
This is where the pushback is coming from.
I couldn't live in Japan for 10 years and call myself Japanese, I'd always be a Brit. Nor would I seek enter their political system and make Japan more to my liking. But that's happening here.
Egypt, India and Pakistan all have very clear rules about citizenship, which are unashamedly based on ethnic heritage. But we must treat even recent arrivals as fully British and are expected to celebrate their cultures, while denying ours.
This is why people are so angry.
If the reaction seems extreme, then people of a liberal mind must recognise their own part in this, meet us halfway and help shape the debate instead of accusing us of being Na#i.
A (small petulant) part of me enjoys what Lowe is doing: Straightforward crassness, moral incoherence, to hell with facts. a dash of bullying, inciting the lizard brained parts of some section of the "masses". Its what the "Woke" have done, and while a supporter of open, constructive dialogue, I also recognise the rules change when you come across bullies and ideologues.
But really - Helen's point is completely correct. What people mean by "Britishness" is cultural: Tenets include:
a) "I disapprove of what you say, but .. will defend... your right to say it".(lost to censorship and Islamic extremism and Woke institutional policy),
b) "No one pretends that democracy is perfect and ... is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried." (Lost when political parties refuse steadfast to indicate their intent in manifestos... it then becomes as bad as the rest)
c) "An Englishman's home is his castle" (The concept of private spaces and private lives lost to state encroachments... monitoring, taxation, regulation).
d) A particular sense of "fairness" - its more "equality" than "equity". but rather confusing all round - de facto Britishness I'd suggest believes in a variant of equality of treatment, and remains comfortable with large variances in outcome, so long as rules are perceived fair..... Its complex where the anchors come from. (However, the delicate stability of this form of fairness has been perturbed by "social equity", so now noone can agree what fairness is. That's bad news).
But all this is kind of abstract. People generally hold values that serve them and give them security, belonging, wealth, status etc. Lowe's supporters are no more or less guilty of holding values that serve them as anyone else. The values are just a little lower on Maslow's hierarchy.
“ an understanding that only material harm justifies coercion”
Why isn’t the UK more libertarian then? My impression is that the UK is a place where the presumptive answer to any question of “can I do this” is no, unless specifically allowed. Also all of the arresting people for tweets makes it look like it isn’t a very liberal society.
In a vague, cultural identification sense. It gets even lower if you ask if they believe Jesus was the son of God and lower still if you ask if they base their moral code on Christianity. We have to refer to “believing Christians” and “literal belief in Christianity” now to indicate what should just be covered by “Christian” and “Christianity.” I’ll give you an example from a conversation with my cousin.
Her: I’m a Christian
Me: Do you believe in God?
Her: ….Well, I’d like to think there’s something?
Me: Do you believe that Jesus was the son of God?
Her: How should I know?!
Me: Do you believe in Christian moral rules like “no sex outside marriage?”
This is sort of what I expected you to say, and it is wild to me because I don't know what culturally Christian (even though I think you're right) would mean. I think it probably just means "Being from a Christian country, hoping God exists, and being neither a raging atheist nor any other religion."
But it's occurred to me that although I believe in God and am a Christian, I don't believe Jesus was the literal son of God (biologically impossible) or rose from the dead (ditto), and nor do all the people I know who are active, practising Christians. But perhaps some people would argue that if I don't believe that, in what sense am *I* a Christian? Indeed, you could even argue that I have more in common, theologically, with Muslims ...
That’s interesting because I’ve seen other Christians say they don’t believe in a literal hell or that only Christians can get to Heaven either and that seems central to the faith to me. I think Christianity may be “deliteralising” more broadly.
Nice article. It’s nice of you to try to find a good faith set of coherent principles among these right wing groups but it seems to me that what unites them is cynicism about humanity and antisocial personalities (evidenced by the kleptocracy and corruption we always see elsewhere when their equivalents get hold of power). The principles if there are any are a post facto justification. They seem to have traction at the moment though. I don’t understand why people don’t see the danger.
The problem is clear to this yank. It is culture, not race, not ethnicity, not religion. Those things are subordinate to the primary issue of cultural homogeneity. They are in fact superficial. The real conservative movement in the US… call it MAGA if you will… and it seems to match the political interest behind Restore Britain… does not really care about race or ethnicity. It only cares about religion as foundation Jewish and Cristian values align with foundation American values which shape its culture and its bedrock governing principles. American patriots can define these values. Yes, they also align with classic liberalism. British conservatives seem to be lacking in their ability to define British values and culture. That leads them to confusing messaging and disconnect.
This is a classic British flaw, IMO. A friend of mine from the UK on a visit commented on all the American flags everywhere. He said that British people don’t demonstrate any real pride of country like that. They practice national humility or otherwise just don’t contemplate their country the same way. It seems to me that is the missing piece. First, what does it mean to be British? Then celebrate it and require everyone living there to adopt the same values. Deport those that clutch their home origin cultural values. Immigration works, but not with multiculturalism. That has been proven 100%
You ask what does it mean to be British and then say we should celebrate it and require everyone to adopt the same values, but those things feel pretty unBritish to me. We’re not really into celebrating being British, most of us at least, not in an overt way like Americans celebrate being American, and requiring everyone to adopt the same values seems very unBritish. Isn’t that also quite unAmerican?
Having to enter a PIN code in order to post a comment is a pain in the backside, and is a deterrent to commenting. Not sure why you have this, since the comments are not restricted to paid subscribers only.
Pretty sure that’s Substack verifying your login rather than a setting the writer can switch off. If you log in and read Substack through your browser or the app, the problem should go away. If you reach the page from an email link that opens in a browser where you’re not logged in, it will ask for verification.
Useful overview which essentially argues that three competing ideas of national identity are now circulating on the British right – ethnic, religious and cultural – and that only the cultural-liberal version is politically viable. I agree.
The section where you describe “speech patterns, humour, mannerisms and the countless subtle signals that mark a shared social code” is a particularly good illustration of what really binds a culture together. It gets at something most thoughtful people intuitively understand.
If only the technocratic class could grasp the point rather than getting tied up in category errors (the inability to distinguish between Islam as an ideology and Muslims as people being the most pernicious example, repeated again just yesterday by Wes Streeting).
We should probably also stop talking about things being “to the right of the Tories” as if the Conservatives have been meaningfully right-wing for the past fifteen years rather than a kind of zombie Blairite distortion.
What the UK actually needs to rediscover is cultural conservatism rooted in Enlightenment liberalism.
When I seize power, it shall be thus.
"If only the technocratic class could grasp the point rather than getting tied up in category errors (the inability to distinguish between Islam as an ideology and Muslims as people being the most pernicious example, repeated again just yesterday by Wes Streeting)".
Do you really believe that he doesn't understand the difference?
It simply serves his interests most to pretend that the two concepts are similar. It affords him (in his own and his supporters' eyes) a sort of moral superiority while playing in the gutter of identity politics (where people are defined by their tribal identities, and appeals are made to the lowest common denominator).
Streeting's game is politics, not philosophy.
I don’t really believe that, no. I was being uncharacteristically charitable to Streeting, who is simply a political operator as you say. Having said that, a vast number of people with power and influence really have convinced themselves of intellectual absurdities in service of moral vanity and status.
“Offered power”, Cincinnatus 😊
💪💪🇨🇦🇬🇧🗽
Thanks for summarising it so well 👌
For me, the main task must be to push back against Islam.
Hindus and Sikhs, and African Christians are the natural allies in this task.
I had always thought of Englishness as an ethnicity. I could emigrate to New Zealand, and take citizenship. But I would never become a Maori, however much I might want to.
Politics has now irrevcably become sectarian. It was already so in the general election of 2024, with the election of several pro-Gaza MPs, and numerous more coming close to it.
I have written to MPs about it:
Initially I wrote this as one email, then split it into two. Hence both emails are in one article:
We should have a National Free Speech Day
Is sectarian politics here to stay?
https://hellish2050.substack.com/p/email-to-mps-we-should-have-a-national
Regarding Islam, why? And why those allies?
There are elements recently arrived in this country who adhere to a medieval worldview, following preachers who I consider radical and hateful. There's no desire to live this country as it is, but to shape it as they wish it to be. They are actively seeking to distort the fabric of this society, aided and abetted by well-meaning Liberals. To talk about this and express concerns about the rate and direction of change gets you labelled a bigot.
This is where the pushback is coming from.
I couldn't live in Japan for 10 years and call myself Japanese, I'd always be a Brit. Nor would I seek enter their political system and make Japan more to my liking. But that's happening here.
Egypt, India and Pakistan all have very clear rules about citizenship, which are unashamedly based on ethnic heritage. But we must treat even recent arrivals as fully British and are expected to celebrate their cultures, while denying ours.
This is why people are so angry.
If the reaction seems extreme, then people of a liberal mind must recognise their own part in this, meet us halfway and help shape the debate instead of accusing us of being Na#i.
A (small petulant) part of me enjoys what Lowe is doing: Straightforward crassness, moral incoherence, to hell with facts. a dash of bullying, inciting the lizard brained parts of some section of the "masses". Its what the "Woke" have done, and while a supporter of open, constructive dialogue, I also recognise the rules change when you come across bullies and ideologues.
But really - Helen's point is completely correct. What people mean by "Britishness" is cultural: Tenets include:
a) "I disapprove of what you say, but .. will defend... your right to say it".(lost to censorship and Islamic extremism and Woke institutional policy),
b) "No one pretends that democracy is perfect and ... is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried." (Lost when political parties refuse steadfast to indicate their intent in manifestos... it then becomes as bad as the rest)
c) "An Englishman's home is his castle" (The concept of private spaces and private lives lost to state encroachments... monitoring, taxation, regulation).
d) A particular sense of "fairness" - its more "equality" than "equity". but rather confusing all round - de facto Britishness I'd suggest believes in a variant of equality of treatment, and remains comfortable with large variances in outcome, so long as rules are perceived fair..... Its complex where the anchors come from. (However, the delicate stability of this form of fairness has been perturbed by "social equity", so now noone can agree what fairness is. That's bad news).
But all this is kind of abstract. People generally hold values that serve them and give them security, belonging, wealth, status etc. Lowe's supporters are no more or less guilty of holding values that serve them as anyone else. The values are just a little lower on Maslow's hierarchy.
“ an understanding that only material harm justifies coercion”
Why isn’t the UK more libertarian then? My impression is that the UK is a place where the presumptive answer to any question of “can I do this” is no, unless specifically allowed. Also all of the arresting people for tweets makes it look like it isn’t a very liberal society.
"Only 56 per cent of Christians believe in God."
In ...what ... sense ... are ... they ... Christians?!?!?!?!?!
In a vague, cultural identification sense. It gets even lower if you ask if they believe Jesus was the son of God and lower still if you ask if they base their moral code on Christianity. We have to refer to “believing Christians” and “literal belief in Christianity” now to indicate what should just be covered by “Christian” and “Christianity.” I’ll give you an example from a conversation with my cousin.
Her: I’m a Christian
Me: Do you believe in God?
Her: ….Well, I’d like to think there’s something?
Me: Do you believe that Jesus was the son of God?
Her: How should I know?!
Me: Do you believe in Christian moral rules like “no sex outside marriage?”
Her: Hahahahaha! No.
This is sort of what I expected you to say, and it is wild to me because I don't know what culturally Christian (even though I think you're right) would mean. I think it probably just means "Being from a Christian country, hoping God exists, and being neither a raging atheist nor any other religion."
But it's occurred to me that although I believe in God and am a Christian, I don't believe Jesus was the literal son of God (biologically impossible) or rose from the dead (ditto), and nor do all the people I know who are active, practising Christians. But perhaps some people would argue that if I don't believe that, in what sense am *I* a Christian? Indeed, you could even argue that I have more in common, theologically, with Muslims ...
That’s interesting because I’ve seen other Christians say they don’t believe in a literal hell or that only Christians can get to Heaven either and that seems central to the faith to me. I think Christianity may be “deliteralising” more broadly.
Nice article. It’s nice of you to try to find a good faith set of coherent principles among these right wing groups but it seems to me that what unites them is cynicism about humanity and antisocial personalities (evidenced by the kleptocracy and corruption we always see elsewhere when their equivalents get hold of power). The principles if there are any are a post facto justification. They seem to have traction at the moment though. I don’t understand why people don’t see the danger.
🔥.
The problem is clear to this yank. It is culture, not race, not ethnicity, not religion. Those things are subordinate to the primary issue of cultural homogeneity. They are in fact superficial. The real conservative movement in the US… call it MAGA if you will… and it seems to match the political interest behind Restore Britain… does not really care about race or ethnicity. It only cares about religion as foundation Jewish and Cristian values align with foundation American values which shape its culture and its bedrock governing principles. American patriots can define these values. Yes, they also align with classic liberalism. British conservatives seem to be lacking in their ability to define British values and culture. That leads them to confusing messaging and disconnect.
This is a classic British flaw, IMO. A friend of mine from the UK on a visit commented on all the American flags everywhere. He said that British people don’t demonstrate any real pride of country like that. They practice national humility or otherwise just don’t contemplate their country the same way. It seems to me that is the missing piece. First, what does it mean to be British? Then celebrate it and require everyone living there to adopt the same values. Deport those that clutch their home origin cultural values. Immigration works, but not with multiculturalism. That has been proven 100%
You ask what does it mean to be British and then say we should celebrate it and require everyone to adopt the same values, but those things feel pretty unBritish to me. We’re not really into celebrating being British, most of us at least, not in an overt way like Americans celebrate being American, and requiring everyone to adopt the same values seems very unBritish. Isn’t that also quite unAmerican?
Having to enter a PIN code in order to post a comment is a pain in the backside, and is a deterrent to commenting. Not sure why you have this, since the comments are not restricted to paid subscribers only.
Why not switch it off?
Pretty sure that’s Substack verifying your login rather than a setting the writer can switch off. If you log in and read Substack through your browser or the app, the problem should go away. If you reach the page from an email link that opens in a browser where you’re not logged in, it will ask for verification.
Thanks for the tip. I am still trying to get to grips with Substack!
I think that’s a Substack thing. If you’re trying to post when you’re not logged in it sends a code to log you in.