It’s time to wage war on Woke | Ethan Thoburn
Many times Boris Johnson has said that he is going to war on Woke. I have a message in response — the Prime Minister needs to act more swiftly to combat the rise of the bitter leftists and cancel culture. After apparently defending President Biden’s wokeness, the PM said, on a conference call to Conservative Party Association Chairs, he was, “more Wokingham than woke”, now is the time to prove that!
I was recently pleased to see that Oriel College, Oxford opted to keep the statue of the great Cecil Rhodes standing above the building; however, it is a shame that the University of Liverpool cannot stand up to the Woke Mob and retain the name of the Gladstone Hall. If we are to win the war on Woke, we must make a stand against cancel culture enthusiasts. We need to stand firm against them and preserve our history and heritage. That is the job of the conservative.
The University decided to rename the hall after a petition of 4,000 voted in favour to rename the hall after Dorothy Kuya — a so-called anti-racism activist, who was formerly an infamous Communist — was preferred over the former Liberal Party Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone : a passionate advocate of better rights for slaves and former slaves; and who was eventually a staunch abolitionist during his time as Prime Minister. Gladstone revolutionised trade policy to encourage fair trade rather than dealing in the slave trade; and he passionately encouraged people not to deal with firms who still used slaves, before ultimately calling for the end of the slave trade.
The reality of this situation is just not good enough for the cancel culture vultures. Instead, Gladstone ought to be perpetually tarnished for the crimes of others; and his record is not set straight, despite Mr Gladstone himself being a staunch opposer of the slave trade.
However, we cannot simply just stand by and watch so-called activists destroy our heritage. We conservatives must stand up to defend British history and culture from the pernicious and insipid individuals who wish to destroy our institutions. The government, especially the relevant Secretary of State, Oliver Dowden, must set out a plan to protect our values; our heritage; and our British culture. These are the things we cherish. These are things we will defend.
The culture of no platforming in universities is fundamentally anti-British. The government needs to form a robust plan to combat this issue, which has already been detailed in an early stage by Gavin Williamson. The Education Secretary would also appoint a new Free Speech and Academic Freedom Champion to investigate potential infringements, such as no-platforming speakers or dismissal of academics, and higher education providers would be legally required to actively promote free speech. Now this all sounds good but we need action now to combat this. Just last year, one of the most ‘centrist’ Conservative Home Secretaries, Amber Rudd was no-platformed by students at Oxford University — an example of the absolutely ludicrous atmosphere on Britain’s top university campuses. It makes one wonder at what length will the cancel culture mob go to?
The Secretary of State has great rhetoric but we need to see action. We need to see the government robustly defending freedom of thought and speech both in universities and in schools: from the whole debacle of the Batley Grammar School teacher to the disastrous Hate Crime Bill which the SNP passed through the Scottish Parliament.
A good example of what we should be doing as sensible and ordinary conservatives was detailed in a letter to Mr Williamson by the Free Speech Union with regards to the Batley teacher. The FSU advised the Department for Education to “make it clear that freedom of expression should take priority over the avoidance of giving offence: “Schools should also ‘actively promote’ the British value of free speech and in the event of some people being offended by a school’s upholding of that right, freedom of expression within the law should take priority.” There is of course an argument the other way, that protection from offence should take precedent, but at what point do we stop, if we take that line? We have a proud history of upholding freedom of thought and freedom of speech in this country and that age-old tradition should continue to be instilled in British values.
It’s not just freedom of ideas and speech we should be protecting; it is very much our physical heritage from statues to buildings and from museums to the very traditions and principles which Britain made itself great. In January of this year, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government announced plans to safeguard statues from woke left wing Councils, intent on driving a bus through our history, which can be learned from either way.
This was perhaps a long overdue intervention from central government, especially after 2020 was the year which saw ‘Black Lives Matter’ invade our towns and cities, citing everything which didn’t suit them was a beacon of racism in Britain. I’m the first to admit, some of the statues they targeted weren't the most affable of figures, but to surrender to mob rule was a folly. Take Edward Colston for example, in Bristol, the local authority there done next to nothing to combat the utter shameless thuggery of some of those involved in the protest; if one doesn’t approve of a statue then there are democratic channels to go through, you don’t just simply get a rope and haul it down!
To make things worse, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, went on a one man mission to rip down every other statue in the capital, with very little challenge at first from the DHCLG, his nonsense was only urged to be haluted by Chris Pincher, the junior Minister in question. Fortunately, Robert Jenrick introduced the aforementioned bill in January this year and hopefully we will see a huge drive to protect our history and monuments from the cancel culture driven local Labour authorities.
As a lover of history, we should be making a conscious effort to conserve the history of our nation, whether that be in museums, which should be given extra funding and play a bigger role in the education system, or with statues or monuments with a plaque or explanatory board nearby, it is paramount we teach our children about not just the failures of Britain and our Empire, but the good that we done also.
A victory for common sense also occurred recently and thanks to a group of National Trust members who had plotted a revolt to force out Chairman Tim Parker. This was to do with the extremely worrying Woke Agenda which Mr Parker had embarked the National Trust to embrace. A dangerous trajectory which should animate the fears of the ordinary British public. Fortunately, before the AGM of the organisation could even be held, Parker submitted his resignation, hopefully this will be a start for the National Trust to actually get on with what us members pay for, protection of our national heritage and buildings, not telling us how an 18th century building may have been racist in some way, shape or form!
Only time will tell on how well this government will perform in standing up to the woke elite how are mad keen on discrediting and downplaying Britain. That is why we need to stand up for the good of common sense and robustly defend free speech and ideas. We must look to groups and organisations who are willing to lead from the front and wage the war on Woke.
The rhetoric and early actions of the government are a step in the right direction, but action speaks louder than words. Let’s hope that they will be implemented robustly and that our Conservative government can give the British people a dose of sensible and ordinary conservatism.
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