Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics

their values were no longer recognized or respected by the people who now rule over them.

Pushed out of the institutions, many people have spent years watching the transformation of Britain and its prevailing culture with a palpable sense they are now on the outside looking in –

Over the last decade, many of the people who run Britain were confronted with the realization they do not know a large part of the country at all. Repeatedly, leading politicians, journalists, commentators and intellectuals were stunned by a succession of revolts they failed to see coming. In response, many turned inwards, blaming these upheavals o

This new elite is defined by very different things: their degrees from one of the most prestigious Oxbridge or Russell Group universities; their strong liberal cosmopolitan if not radically progressive cultural values; their increasingly loud and dominant voice in Britain’s most important and influential institutions; and their growing sense of mor

fairy tales which people who have found themselves outflanked in politics tell each other to try and explain away election or referendum results they do not like.

Seen from this perspective, the upheavals of the last decade are not rooted in people’s rational or coherent concerns about the country but an irrational outburst among bigots, racists and xenophobes who are no longer in control of their own emotions, who yearn to return to the days of empire or who simply did not know what they were voting for.

In turn, they sought to reassert their values by rallying around populism, Brexit and Boris Johnson, and will continue to do so unless we find a better way of recognizing their beliefs.