Historian Matthew Goodwin on the realignment of British politics

hello everyone my name is Justin riesh I am the executive director of the International Church society and the director of the national Churchill Leadership Center at George Washington University and thank you for joining me for this conversation today before I introduce my guests let me first thank you for joining wherever you are um this is the society's first time on YouTube live so if there's a few technical difficulties we appreciate your patience but I do want to tell you that both myself and my guest Matthew Goodwin Goodwin would like to hear questions and answer questions from you and the best way to submit your question is to email questions at Winston churchill.org but don't worry you don't have to remember that web that email address it will be posted here on the YouTube channel shortly so my guest today is Matthew Goodwin who is Professor of politics at the University of Kent and author of many books including the one we are discussing today titled values voice and virtue the new British politics Professor Goodwin thank you for your time today well thank you for having me along Justin I'm looking forward to our discussion so Matt your book has has generated a significant amount of interest and conversation in the UK at least from what I've seen um and I've seen you in a few disputes on Twitter and instead of rehashing those and and you know discussing those conversations I just wanted to you know make a you know remark on just like this book touching a nerve um and then the if I can give the briefest of synopsis your book is essentially trying to explain why there has been a populist political revolt against the political leads specifically in the United Kingdom so why do you think uh this book and this topic has generated so much conversation and is it actually a product of what you describe in your book yeah I think it's a great starter question I mean obviously you think about British politics you know the the common saying in Westminster is where five years behind American politics in terms of seeing many of the same disputes and division over um many of the same issues um the way that I think about the country Justin is I think we've had 10 years of um unprecedented political turmoil we've had three big um public revolts in British politics we've had the rise of of populism with the figure uh of Nigel farage a close Ally of Donald Trump we've had um the vote for brexit which obviously shot the world and then we had the post-brexit realignment of British politics which was led by Boris Johnson somebody who obviously models himself or would like to think that he's in the churchillian uh mold um and those three revolts really um reshape the country reshape the country's foreign policy which shaped its economy appreciate much of its domestic policy and what I'm trying to do in this book is to really step back from them and say well what caused this uh what led to this this decade of of turmoil and political churn and my argument essentially is that what we've got in Britain like I think what you've got in America in some respects is a political media and cultural class that has steadily been losing touch with the values that are held by millions of Voters particularly working class non-college educated uh voters we've got um the same groups that are dominating really the institutions and not giving voice to to those groups in the National conversation and then we're also steadily embracing this identity politics this very divisive way of seeing the world which is really focused on promoting people's identities as as racial ethnic sexual all gender groups rather than individuals and and I think that's encouraging politicians to see different groups as having different um moral um moral value in society and so what I'm really doing with this book and why it's caused such a storm in Britain is I'm really taking aim at that group and I'm saying look if we want to avoid becoming America in terms of the polarization and the division I think we really need to ask our ruling class to to make some compromises be more responsive to to public opinion and begin to better reflect the wider country so that essentially is what is what the book's about so thinking of the Three B's uh values virtue and voice can you briefly describe why you identified those three V's as the you know pillars if you will of uh you know of this new sort of a division within politics yeah I mean I think if you look at you know I'm a political scientist I'm I'm an academic I think if you look at all the literature on why voters across not just Britain but the West have been abandoning the main parties have been rebelling against the political establishment um you know cultural values are at the center of that lots of Voters feel uncomfortable about issues like immigration borders how we think about national identity um also how we think about issues like political correctness or or woke type issues um and what we're seeing I think in France in Italy and Sweden in Britain and elsewhere is I think the rise of movements that are doing a better job of tapping into those concerns and grievances among voters so for example if you want to understand why so many Brits voted for brexit um you know really it came down to two issues one was wanting decisions about the UK to be taken in the UK um you know as Churchill once said we're we're we're not uh we're not of Europe um we're with Europe we're not of Europe we you know we do have a distinctive identity history and culture and I think many voters would probably share that view and secondly they wanted the overall level of immigration into Britain to um to uh decline uh and and it was really those two motives over sovereignty and migration that led many people to vote for brexit of course those values were not really reflected or shared by much of the political and media class in Westminster and when I talk about this notion of voice I also talk about this idea that you know whether you look at politics whether you look at media whether you look at the creative Industries cultural institutions uh they are overwhelmingly dominated by Oxbridge um Oxford Cambridge Elite University graduates who tend to lean left on cultural questions uh tend to be very socially liberal if not radically Progressive tend to live in the cities University towns and tend to really derive their status today from aligning themselves with this radical progressivism with this kind of um you know woke world view that they they view now as being integral to their social status so you know what I'm saying really in the book is if you look at at just the last 20 years in British politics I think actually we've got a pretty big problem in that lots of Voters have been really drifting away from the main parties on lots of these issues both the left and the right both the conservative party and the labor party uh lots of Voters drifting into apathy saying they're not going to vote at all maybe they're going to vote for a populist or or a new party um and you know if I'm being honest with you Justin I'm also one of the reasons I wrote this book is I'm concerned about the state of British politics I think you know we are we're not a happy country I think we're a fragmented country at the moment with Scotland Northern Ireland and England moving in different directions and I think also the the ruling class not being as in touch with the country as I'm arguing in this book it should be and really if anything it's a rallying cry to say can we try and close this golf that that's open between these two groups well you so if I'm hearing you correctly Matt you're you're you're more concerned with groupthink over representation is that a fair fair assessment of your concerns representation in the sense of using your elected representative in in a town in a city in a shy or whatever to really represent those citizens and those in that electorate versus more of a a party first point of view yeah I mean I think so I think in more more even I say more generally than that I think what I'm what I'm pointing at is is when we talk about diversity when we talk about increasing representation in in politics we often in Britain today we really only talk about that in terms of race and gender we don't really talk about that in terms of education class and values so you know you look at the political institutions we really don't have that much intellectual or Viewpoint diversity at all in fact most people in the House of Commons tend to come from the same backgrounds that hold the same values and of course you know that's that's a problem uh I would argue so so I think you know I would I would say really the point is is trying to think about yeah diversity in a much broader sense and try to ask why do we have so few voices from different political and social backgrounds in the system why do we have so few voices that are advocating different different values in British politics and that's really ultimately what what the book's about so I I was really struck by the amount of data you present in your book you know certainly well researched well argued um is was there a significant assumption that you held before doing your research or something that you thought you would find that was then significantly challenged you know by the by the data one of the things I thought is that um maybe things I suppose I suspected that things were not quite as bad as as maybe I feared they'd become and I sort of thought I'd I'd maybe overstated the case but actually when you look at the extent to which our political system has really excluded a large number of Voters from the corridors of power it's no longer really reflecting what many people want to see in British politics um I think probably a lot of Americans would see a lot of overlaps actually actually in in this book I was pretty surprised by uh you know by by the extent to which you know my thesis was validated I think if you also look at just how much American culture and American politics has sort of seeped into Britain um you know whether it's through corporations whether it's through politics whether it's through the celebrity class or whatever you know we have really I think steadily imported American culture at quite a quite a significant degree and I think that is now reflected in many of the political debates that we're having over these culture wartime issues so you know um a couple of years ago I remember an American pollster Frank Luntz came over to the UK and concluded that you know the UK was not yet America um I'm sort of now thinking that actually the difference between them is becoming narrower by the day we don't have your levels of polarization yet but I would argue that we do have the basis for them uh in terms of these very distinctive political and social identities that people are taking on partly shaped by brexit but also shaped by you know these issues that you're also grappling with you know the issues of immigration who we are our history our identity and I think you know these these are things obviously we've debated around the 20th century but today they're getting much greater salience you know they become much more important to voters they become more important to political parties and I think you know that that explains really the the the um the dislocation that we've had in our politics over the last decade can I ask on you know your conclusions on the role of individual leadership you know this being the International Church of society and the National Church of leadership Center you know taking this back a century when specifically in the UK you had numerous political parties at the Liberals the labor labor wasn't really you know in in being but of course he had the conservatives and you had others in it and it seemed like that leader political leader specifically at that time um were in the service of the public good in a different way that you would think politicians are now and maybe that's recessing recency bias but it does seem like there are more career politicians if you will rather than public servants you know akin to Winston Churchill do you do you have that is that a fair Affair assessment I think in Broad terms it is I think if you look at some of the survey data that we've got we've definitely seen an increase in the share of British voters who will say now the politicians are mainly in in politics for themselves and I'm and I'm not in politics to serve the interests of the country uh 1945 1950 you know you had more of that I think a lot of other things have changed too I mean for example you go back to Churchill's time there was a a prominent working class Elite in politics you know their words were unionists there were non-graduates there was a A diversity of views in the House of Commons I mean certainly there were lots of Elites I mean Churchill was a great example of that Clement Atlee you know to some extent as well great friends great Rivals obviously um but but more generally I think there was a plurality of views in in the House of Commons when it came to to class not so much you know when it came to men and women women were almost completely absent in the House of Commons but there you know there was a working class Elite uh in in British politics and I think basically what's happened since then is is that that range of voices has has narrowed trade unions have become weaker local Regional media has become weaker um the the ladders into politics and the corridors of power have have steadily broken down um The Graduate classes basically take taken over so in my discipline of political science you know we now talk about the rise of so-called diploma democracies democracies that are now dominated by you mainly Elite graduates from Oxbridge or or Russell group institutions or what you might call Ivy League institutions um and I think alongside that we've also seen you know media creative Industries cultural institutions and Civil Service films television publishing also increasingly be dominated by by graduates from from Elite universities and and I do think partly if you want to really make sense of the populist rebellions in British politics you've got to really make sense of that and what I talk about in the book is a is a sort of a lost notion of voice that many people just feel that they're not in this National conversation anymore um their values are not reflected back at them in the adverts they watch on television or the commercials they're not reflected back in the in the movies they watch in the books and the bestseller lists in the um debates in the House of Commons or on the BBC and I think there are lots of Voters that are that are feeling that they're excluded now of course America is different in that respect you know you've got this kind of polarized media you've got a polarized education system you've got new universities that are setting up to represent different viewpoints and so on I think Britain in some respects is quite different I don't think Britain has that full diversity of of viewpoints that that America does um and I think that's why lots of people have felt that they're they're shut out from the conversation you brought up a very astute Point regarding media and then but specifically local media um you know here in the United States pretty much local media is either the outlets are they're owned by national media companies or just simply don't exist and I know that to be true also in the United Kingdom and you know I thought it was so fascinating you discussing you know how so let me ask you what role did local media play in representing and giving the voice to to communities that you know are simply uh not on the mainstream's radar yeah sure I mean of course you know Winston Churchill is a journalist wrote lots of lots of articles that essentially is is partly how he how he made his money at a certain point in his life um if you go back and you read some of the books by you know very influential journalists um you know you read my trade by Andrew Marr among others you know they did talk about you know fairly ordinary people coming into journalism that had passed through the local Gazette the regional newspaper and had then gone I've gone down to to Westminster or London Fleet Street and had you know started working for the national papers and they'd often not pass through the universities they were often you know old school journalists with a with a strong understanding of the communities that they came from I think where we are now and I've just finished reading a book in America an American by an American Author called bad news which is about the transformation of U.S media and I think you know she makes a very similar point which is that actually increasingly over the last 20 years rather than have that kind of local provincial or Regional media provide a sort of buffer to what you might call the elite um what we've had now is a kind of narrowing of the range of voices within media we've had you know most most young journalists now go straight from Oxford or Cambridge Into The Newsroom they often don't really have many strong connections to particular local communities they don't really have um much experience outside of outside of that media room and you know often view themselves more as activists than than independent objective journalists and I think you know this is a real problem in media more generally um and it's no coincidence that levels of Trust in Media have also been falling over the last you know 10 15 years so I think the the collapse of of that intermediary buffer really matters I think obviously that the changing business model in media the rise of social media clickbait the the need for newspapers and television channels to get clicks has also kind of driven this um and we're in we're in a position now where as you you mentioned earlier on before we came on this call Justin that you know you've been to London recently you probably noticed that you know we've become a very anti-intellectual Society you know there is there is might be maybe two a sweeping statement but there are no interesting intellectual discussions and debates in in British politics and British Society really we're not like the French or the Germans we don't really have extended interesting conversations about public policy challenges and where we're going as a society it's all very short and um reactive and uh the new cycle is incredibly narrow in its focus and I think that's really part of the problem if I'm honest with you I think we're not really interrogating the state of our society to the full to the full extent that we should be um and that again you know partly is what I talk about and the book is saying well you know if you really want to think about how do we close this polarization and division one thing we could think about doing is getting a much wider range of voices into our national media and getting a much wider range of voices into our politics into the creative Industries the cultural institutions and so on and if we did that I think you know it would be a good start um although I'm not holding my breath do you think that you know one of the questions I wrote here is what role does social media play in this revolt and you know I'm always nervous to talk about the actual impact of social media I'm sure as a data researcher you've seen the you know the actual data that's something like three percent of Twitter you know accounts are actually active on Twitter and one percent of those you know produce 80 of the tweets or something like that per day so it seems very skewed but it does have an outsized influence and I wonder you know how how Insidious is social media to this sense of us verse them well obviously social media I think is probably an accelerator of some of that I think if you look at the evidence on the role of social media and polarization I'm I'm pretty won over by the by the suggestion that it's contributing certainly but I you know I was also influenced by the exchange between some academics and and researchers at Facebook and on the one hand the academics were saying look social media is driving polarization and on the other hand Facebook researchers were pulling together a lot of evidence and saying well political polarization began long before we had social media you know really you can trace it in America to 1980s in Britain you know a little bit later but certainly before we were all on Twitter on Facebook and I think if you look at you know key rebellions that we've had in this country and I think probably Americans would would maybe connect with this um you know in the aftermath of the brexit Rebellion people were looking for very simplistic easy explanations for why so many voters had rebelled against the establishment and the instinctive reaction was to say it's Facebook it's Twitter it's Shady big tech companies that have been um misleading and manipulating voters um but ever since those initial narratives have come out those initial arguments you know the evidence really has pointed elsewhere and it's you know it's shown pretty consistently for example that the Brits are among the the least trusting of social media in in the Western World um most of the people who have voted for these anti-system movements um are not are not usually active on social media they certainly don't view it as a reliable source of information so I'm not denied for a second that it might have exacerbated um social tensions but the idea that it's a causal driver I I think is is misleading to say is to say the least and you know if you think about going back to Churchill for a minute if you think of fundamentally what was at the root of of brexit you know ultimately it was Britain's status as being an awkward partner with the European community in the European Union I mean going back to the 19 late 1940s early 1950s many British Elites you know certainly some pushed for European integration but many felt that geographically culturally politically diplomatically um Britain was distinctive from Europe that it was um it was outward looking it it was a maritime Nation it had a very different history it's the foundation of its national identity was completely different you know the Brits didn't really have any need to feel um ashamed or embarrassed about their national identity after the second world war they were a maritime Nation trading with many other parts of the world that have been shaped partly by Empire and and then over over time you know I think that sort of seeped into the into the British Consciousness and how people began to think about the European Union and began to think about European integration and as you went into the 1990s you went into the ERM crisis you went then later went into the sovereign debt crisis in Europe the idea that this was a a secure safe and prosperous Club um you know was really you know increasingly undermined by the reality of membership you know Refugee crisis in 2014 2015 in many respects continues today I think is also underlined this fact that for many Brits you know this was this was not a uh an organization that was bringing them that that sense of security so you know the roots of brexit what I'm trying to say go back much further than social media um certainly what a long time coming um and uh and I don't think for that reason we'll be rejoining the club anytime soon may I ask a question about your research and if something came up through it um did you was there a way to gauge um the respondents point of view on the accountability of of political leaders and you know you think of um you know what the reason I thought of this was the 350 million pound money back to the NHS you know on on that during that campaign and and you know I wonder if part of their uh as part of the revolt and their untrusting uh or districts excuse me of political leaders is based on these campaign promises or or what have you and that there's zero accountability for these for these things not happening or happening did that come across at all in the research is that easy to to measure I mean I think when when I hear the word accountability and also representation I think basically that's one of the reasons why we ended up leaving the European Union to begin with I think many voters felt that it wasn't sufficiently accountable it wasn't sufficiently transparent and it wasn't sufficiently Democratic and I think you know they had some good reasons to think that way I think if you look at the European Union you know it it certainly has elections every five years it gives people representation in the European Parliament but it is not substantively Democratic voters cannot have any meaningful influence over the exchange of executive office right so that's why people had a problem with the European Union politically um in the aftermath of brexit that they get accountability well look I mean one of the arguments is yeah they did I mean if you look at Boris Johnson's behavior during partygate and covid he was removed by his reality if you look at this trust her her handling of the economy and inflation she was essentially removed and as we go from general election to general election from here on people will be able to exert degree of influence like a politics a degree of accountability that they simply would never have been able to exert while we're in the European Union and so you know the issue just in I think since brexit is the whole debate has been framed along the lines of the economy and um you know is this in Britain's economic self-interest and obviously there are a lot of people lined up to make the argument that that Britain has harmed its economic self-interest by leaving the European Union right and there are lots of people that can sympathize with that argument but my reply to that would be if you look at what voters wanted through brexit it wasn't really ever about the economy it was a notion of reclaiming Democratic power reclaiming sovereignty and reclaiming the notion that we can be a self-governing nation state again um so so you know economic self-interest doesn't really capture that so um I think looking looking at you know where we are going forward obviously you know that raises a whole host of questions around whether the country's political class can we position Britain so that it is a an effective vibrant prosperous democracy National democracy out of the European Union forging new relationships with other powers around the world whether they can make people feel as though the laws that are being passed in Westminster are reflective of public opinion and are making Fuller full and are taking full advantage of the Divergence of the country in our house from the European Union we're beginning to see that with the city of London we're beginning to see that with financial regulation we're beginning to see that with trade deals with parts of Asia and elsewhere and also I think they're going to be asking themselves do they now have a greater sense of efficacy that they can make a have a difference over the decisions that affect their daily lives um and and while we're in the European Union Justin you know and I went out on a limit as an academic and I never campaigned for brexit but in the after month of the referendum I did say that I felt that should be implemented you know I felt that for the purpose of democracy for the sake of British democracy we should respect and uphold and Implement that decision which put me you know on the opposite side of night ninety percent of my academic colleagues but the reason I felt that way was because of these issues around democracy and accountability that ultimately I think you know it was more important to see it through essentially and it would have been a lot riskier not to do that I think had we not pursued brexit after that referendum I think we would have seen an explosion of of populism division ranker um and a very ugly politics well if I can ask your uh let's let me let me ask about one part of your Book the values part coming in a real life example of course you provide real loud examples but a recent example of that coming into conflict with the very unique British uh system of governments with its Union of devolution so as you know two two months ago now a month and a half ago the uh Scottish um Parliament or excuse me whatever whatever the term is Scottish government past gender self-id which was then for the first time I believe in the history of the Union uh uh struck down for lack of a better word by the government um uh in Westminster is this a prime example of values coming into conflict with governance and what's your what's your take on that and you know I'm not I'm not meaning to provide a judgment on either side of of if you think it's right or wrong but it is a very interesting political development well it was very interesting in the sense that we had the Scottish national party which is a very um um Progressive Party or cultural issues um pursue a law that would have allowed 16 year olds to legally change their gender without any medical supervision or advice um and uh when you really ask Scots how they felt about that issue and I did at the time because I do quite a lot of polling only about 20 of Scots really supported that at 80 opposed it and I think really this is an example of um this divide that I'm talking about between a new Elite a sort of new Elite graduate class that tend to lean very left in in on culture and identity and a much larger number of Voters who are often looking at the decisions that are being made around you know identity uh gender history culture and are really either you know not recognizing those decisions or certainly not liking those decisions that are being made and I think Scotland was a good example sample of that um I mean it was interesting at the same time that you know Winston Churchill's party the conservatives opposed that piece of legislation because they were trying to uphold um uh the equalities legislation and be brought in by the new labor government so the argument against the Scottish national party was was not that it was pursuing a policy that was that was not conservative that was you know radically Progressive the case against the SMP was that if it had succeeded with that legislation then that would have um contradicted equality's legislation in other parts of the UK so the conservatives were actually leaning on um the labor party new labors uh Tony Blair's legislation to oppose what was happening in Scotland and this is partly why I think a lot of conservative voters in the UK are beginning to ask themselves a question as to whether the conservative party is what its name imply lies and I think there is there is a a considerable degree of unrest and disillusionment in the country about whether the conservative party is still a conservative party um and obviously in the U.S you know your debate is much more um is is much further ahead than ours the Republicans are being kind of reshaped in the post-trump era you're sort of seeing Republicans move in a different direction in their relationship with the state in their relationship with you know culture War type questions CRT schools and so on I think the British Tories are way behind on a lot of those issues and I think you can see you can see that partly reflected in the Scotland debate do you so there's a question submitted via the email and it's about the s p um and we talked a little bit about obviously specifically about this gender ID law but they're asking you know is the s p one of the major uh products of British realignments and is that this is that the same with you know those parties in in what in Wales the National Party in Wales and how do those do you think uh fit into this conversation I mean those are are they not populist by definition or certainly a case to be made that Nicola sturgeon uh was more than more than happy to press a few populous buttons every now and then and if anything what's happening in Scotland at the moment with the uh allegations of corruption and financial uh impropriety certainly would suggest that she's indulging in a little bit of uh populist Behavior shall we say um I think you know in some respects what we're seeing obviously is a fragmenting United Kingdom is a weakening the UK a weakening Union as essentially and I'm painting some very broad Strokes here there are obviously some outliers and exceptions the Scotland and Wales Northern Ireland to some extent are gradually moving away from non-london England and the value sets that are driving those those uh those areas so I think you can see that most visibly in Scotland where essentially Scotland has come to sort of embrace a kind of pro-european liberal Progressive Outlook um partly in response to brexit and and Boris Johnson and things that we've seen in Westminster and that that Trend was already on the way prior to the um brexit referendum but it's certainly been exacerbated by it so you know the question remains how can you how can you hold the union together and I think the the current as we're talking now in uh sort of mid mid April early mid April 2023 I do think that um you know the current implosion of the Scottish national party the internal difficulties that it's experiencing um you know the the fact that many voters in Scotland feel that the SMP has been too obsessed with Independence and and it hasn't dealt with the the very real issues that are that are pressing in Scotland with Healthcare education cost of living and so on I think probably that will give the union a few years you know of of of of respite we'll give the union a few years of relief where it can gather itself um but you know these issues are not going away I mean how can the UK endure as a multinational stay in an increasingly diverse non-european um Global um Society I think you know is the million dollar question uh and it's it's it's going to be a difficult one to answer whoever leads the country so quite a few uh questions have come through regarding the role of the king um you know in in I'll try to summarize all three because they're kind of the same but basically what is what do you think the role of the monarchy is in terms of attempting to bridge this divide and and do you think it's possible in that sense for for the monarchy to retain its uh removed status above politics if you will in present day yeah I mean it's a great question I mean historically the monarchy has always provided stability and continuity that's essentially the kind of function of the monarchy so continuity in a changing World stability in a world in flux and I think the Elizabeth II the late Queen Elizabeth II was the sort of you know the the real example of that um and I think probably you know if you look at the the recent debates that we've been having in British politics around issues to do with um diversity racism the legacy of History Empire Commonwealth you know the royal family has found itself at the very Forefront of that and is really has really been struggling I think it's fair to say to to find um or to carve out an Avenue or a path forward that will allow it to um um respond to that in a in a meaningful sustainable way right I mean it's got to take the whole country with it it can't just lean into one side of what you might call the culture War so you're seeing through King Charles III through William and and Catherine to some extent through through Harry and Megan albeit in maybe not a more successful way um you're seeing an attempt to try and reshape the monarchy around Britain in the early 2020s and the early 21st century and I think it's fair to say you know the consensus in Westminster and London is that nobody's quite figured out what that role is going to be and what it's going to look like um the only thing that I think people really accept is that in some shape or form the monarchy will will change I mean it will either you know slim down and it will be more sort of you know flexible responsive maybe a little bit less Pomp and Circumstance a bit a little bit more you know what you might call social activism um a little bit more intervention on on some issues perhaps um and uh it will certainly I think be very conscious of the fact that you know as an institution it's going to be all too easy to get dragged into many of these contentious debates um now if I if I look at the polling on the royal family which I which I do fairly regularly you know my conclusion to you know the Royal Family's pristine would be it's still an incredibly popular Institution um in the aftermath of what we might call me exit Harry and Megan's departure um you know willing Kate will and Catherine's popularity has gone up Prince Charles is very popular he's adapted to the new role Camilla is is seen much more favorably than she was in the 1990s and the 2000s so you know in terms of numbers and data I would say things are looking looking okay um for the royal family but there are some enormous challenges for King Charles that I think you know are pretty obvious to everybody and he's going to have to tread delicately while dealing with them sorry Justin I can't quite hear you there I was on me so in your book you uh allow me to quote you state quote politics in short has moved from the old transactional debates about what we have to the far more existential debates about Who We Are now that's a a very macro statement and I appreciate it in your introduction you talked about in terms of data researchers you could be a micro or a macro and you certainly fall into the macro but what is you know if you can pinpoint it and maybe you can but what are the one or two drivers of that transition is it the abundance of uh relative abundance of opportunity and privilege in Western democracies that allow uh these you know these democracies to actually start thinking about existential versus how do we create you know a living standard for most of our people you know where would you say are the two major drivers in terms of this shift into from transactional debates yeah well to be honest with you Justin what I argue in the book is that essentially Britain has gone through a political revolution from from the late 1970s until today um now you know most people won't think of it as a revolution they'll think of it as different Prime Ministers but um what I argue essentially is that we've had these two transformative leaders in Margaret Thatcher on the one hand and and Tony Blair on the other and essentially you know they're they were very different politicians they came from great different backgrounds but what they did between them is really put into place what I call this liberal consensus Margaret Thatcher injected the country with a very radical dose of economic liberalism you know deregulating Finance liberalizing the economy integrating it into into you know globalization and Tony Blair followed that out with a radical dose of cultural liberalism that was chiefly oriented around large-scale migration and an economy that was even more tightly wrapped around London the service sector and it was dependent upon ongoing migration in order to feed consumption and that basically is what led to you know this model of of this liberal consensus that I talk about in the book and you know that worked well for lots of people I mean it worked well for you know Elite graduates middle class professionals londoners people in the city you know it worked really well for those groups it was less well for many other people and that's really what I talked about in the book and said that you know if you look at non-land London England if you look at working class non-college educated voters older voters you know they really looked at this revolution with a growing sense of alarm and by the time that we got to the 2010s this had really kind of galvanize these cultural issues in British politics so you know immigration became one of the top issues in the country people began to get concerned about whether people were really listening to their voice in in politics and the institutions you know they began to get very concerned about the pace of Social and cultural change they began to get anxious about how we were thinking about britishness you know is our national identity just about a celebration of diversity or is it actually about celebrating a distinctive history a distinctive identity a distinctive culture and of course you know many voters feel that because of the legacy of history and because of things you know to do with Churchill in the second world war and else and so on that there is something unique and special about the country there is something that goes back a long way that should be celebrated and maybe they don't share this view that actually the only celebration of britishness uh should really be a celebration of of diversity I think they you know there's nothing wrong in saying a country is welcoming of others I think you know it's a great thing but it can't be the basis of a of a national identity because then it's like saying the country has no identity of its own and I think many voters probably feel that way and of of and that's partly what's what's been driving the concern that we've seen so um you know this is really why I talk about politics as moving away from kind of the old Left Right economic debates over redistribution into this new era where really we're debating now like you are in America you know who are we I mean who are we in a rapidly diversifying rapidly globalizing uh society and economy um what are the shared values that hold us together what are the shared tradition and culture ways of life that hold us together um how are we going to bridge you know this polarization um how are we going to hold different groups um together over the long term what is what is this experiment you know how is this experiment going to work um and I think that debate is one that many of our leaders have been reluctant to get into I was just going to say yeah because it is so big and it's complex but I think it is a a debate that's not really going anywhere I mean if you compare British Society to Churchill's time I mean you know would he recognize British society today I think is an interesting question I think you know it is radically different I think he'd immediately spot the challenges and the tensions that would need to be overcome yeah uh Matt a few more questions and and you know I'm I'm conscious of your time and I appreciate well what I appreciate about your book is that your data is you know like most data even the data can't be manipulated but the data is you know it's it's non-partisan and it and it's really um speaking on behalf of groups that you could you know not say where they're from you could not say how old they are you could not say if they're men or women and what religion they are and you know but but the but the Crux of the matter comes out do you find that in your you know promotion of the book and your work as a you know as a local researcher and Professor you just talked about the reluctance to have what you think is a you know what you argue is a very important debate um do you think that's what why do you think there is a reluctance why is there reluctance you know for people for you in the public sphere to debate with people uh in various forums about your arguments um I think I think there is a there is definitely a willingness to have a limited discussion about about these issues I think you know looking at the last couple of weeks since the book came out certainly you know the BBC and um some of our main channels are at least you know willing to have limited discussion about these issues but I think when you look at some of the specific groups that I'm talking about in this book so what I call radical progressives you know very left-leaning um very um often privileged um Elite graduates um who sort of you know push a very particular view of the world um you know you might you might relate to that if you look at some of the politicians in your politics um you know the sort of AOC view of the world when I suggested that you know I'd love to debate that side of the debate there's often been complete silence um or or rejection um and really when you look at when you look at progressives and and the sort of what I call the new Elite um the cultural Elite um what you often find in the evidence is that they are the most likely to unfriend block and distance themselves from people who hold different political beliefs to their own um and that certainly is is shown in the data in the evidence and that's certainly something that that I talk about um in the in in the book so that's been a frustration because you know I I really doesn't want to have that conversation with with that side of the debate and say you know you have to accept that the way you see the country the way you see the world is not really the way everybody sees it and it is it is a very at times it can be a very dogmatic way of seeing the world it can be a very um emotional and polarizing way of seeing the world um and it's been frustrating not being able to have some of those discussions I mean the book itself has gone into number two in the bestseller list so you know the argument that you know it's not a it's not a relevant text or whatever it's not it's not really valid um but I've certainly encountered this reluctance to to engage with with the substance active argument that I'm presenting and that you know that I think that's a shame actually um from your research you know what strikes me I think in in terms when when you talk about um you know a distinctive identity and I mean to your point I I I I I completely agree with you I I think somebody of Churchill's time would not recognize wouldn't recognize the UK wouldn't recognize the United States wouldn't recognize the globe in so many ways whether that's geopolitical changes or rise of certain countries and and uh in their sort of uh you know governance of their peoples namely China um what do you think you know is Britain because it's a secular society you know I've done a lot of research I haven't I've seen a lot of research on the decline of of church going if you will um it and how do you think that sort of sense of a secular society which is it is the United States as well do you think that has added to uh you know the division of of the elites versus everyone else and or what role do you do you give religion in this in this argument well I think it's a great question I mean I I talk in one of the chapters about the decline of Christianity and British society and the the rapid decline in the share of people who identify as Christian and if you look for example at gen z um you know people who were born after 2004 about one percent of that group identify with with the church of England um so you know there is a did you say one percent yeah one percent identified that's incredible my goodness so you've seen this remarkable collapse in uh in affiliation um and I think you know into that void um you know the kind of collapse of of robust ideologies the collapse of religion the collapse of class to some extent um I think has has stepped into you know what's got what what has stepped into that is this this new kind of ideology of uh you know whatever your favorite term is radical progressivism wokism whatever you want to to call it but this sort of performative you know victimhood this sense of moral righteousness that comes now from from really uh embracing embracing a new identity politics and I think that's a very unfortunate place for Britain to be I mean if you go back to Churchill's time and as as we were discussing before we started filming you know what what was it that defined British political culture in Churchill's time well one of the arguments was that it was a Civic culture the Brits were differential they were they they emphasized consensus they emphasized compromise moderation um they stressed the need to respect institutions um you know and uh they didn't really like politicians intervening in their lives um but it was essentially you know a big political culture that emphasized many you know many things that were absent in in France and Italy and Germany I mean the Brits didn't do Messianic emotional polarizing tribal politics in a way that the French and the Italians and the Germans and others did um what worries me about where we are today is that that Civic culture is is increasingly hard to find because I think whether it's from the kind of cultural left or the populist right um you know that Civic culture is increasingly under strain uh which isn't a good place I think for any for any society to be yeah yeah and my last comment is I you know I know I've noted that the decline of uh you know whether it be the community center or the public library you know at least here in the United States um has added to the sense of hollowness to the sense of you know kind of uh isolation and you know as you know Great Britain there are places in Great Britain that are incredibly remote incredibly isolated absolutely and I would think that that's that sense of isolation will probably add to the division would you would you agree with that well we certainly have geographical division like you do I mean we certainly have a growing divide between the cities and the small towns and the and the countryside absolutely um so that without question uh and that's partly compounding many of the divides that I'm talking about over education divides over generation as well so you know in that sense we're we're similar to to America I think we're a few miles behind America but but unfortunately I do think we're on the we're on the same road as America and I think you know it is only a matter of time until that that polarization that we're beginning to see now seep into the system becomes much more visible uh Matt thank you for your time um if you are thank you for having me we have a we have a link on our YouTube page take care Matt and thank you that's great thank you take care

Channel: The International Churchill Society

Views: 5,312

Keywords: Winston Churchill, Prime Minister, Great Britain, Allies, Leadership, WWII, Second World War, First World War, WWI

Id: 3Ln3i1SCIUc

Length: 54min 50sec (3290 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 18 2023