MATTHEW GOODWIN: The hypocritical mindset of the woke elite

October 7, 2023

MATTHEW GOODWIN: The hypocritical mindset of the woke elite that exposes the huge ideological gulf between Labour and the Tories

At the eleventh hour, with the General Election perhaps less than a year away, the Tory leadership seems to have regained some fighting spirit.

That mood of determination is embodied by Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who almost daily bravely dares to attack the entire destructive ethos of the progressive elite.

Through its dominance of the public realm, she warned, this upper echelon of society has been able to impose its enthusiasm for soft penalties for criminals, for open borders, gender fluidity, EU control and net zero environmental policies against the wishes of the majority of the public.

For his part, Rishi Sunak is now stressing the need to challenge the failing consensus that has had a stranglehold on British politics for the last three decades.

Already a hate figure on the Left for her outspoken attacks on doctrinaire multiculturalism and uncontrolled immigration, Braverman last week denounced the smug ranks of virtue-signallers who, cocooned by affluence, are personally protected from the disastrous consequences of the policies they advocate, such as the abandonment of robust policing in inner-cities, the disintegration of the traditional family structure or the refusal to deport illegal migrants.

That mood of determination is embodied by Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who almost daily bravely dares to attack the entire destructive ethos of the progressive elite (stock image)

For his part, Rishi Sunak is now stressing the need to challenge the failing consensus that has had a stranglehold on British politics for the last three decades (stock image)

Braverman said the elite’s policies are not driven by any real desire to bring improvements in British society but by an eagerness to display moral superiority over the ‘bigoted’ mass of working people. She declared of these woke elitists: ‘The migrants won’t be taking their jobs. In fact, they are likely to have them mowing their lawns or cleaning their homes.’

And in a compelling phrase – which could determine the result of the next General Election if drilled home repeatedly – Braverman went on to say: ‘The luxury beliefs brigade sit in their ivory towers telling ordinary people that they are morally deficient because they dare to get upset about the impact of illegal migration, net zero, or habitual criminals.’

For me, the impact was all the greater because as a political academic I have written extensively about the chasm between mainstream public opinion, with its emphasis on traditional, patriotic common sense, and the narrow outlook of the progressive elite, with its attachment to deluded theorising. It is a division that I analyse in my latest book, Values, Voice And Virtue, which interested Braverman so much that she asked to meet me after reading it.

One of the concepts I cover in the book is that of ‘luxury beliefs’ –defined as ideas or values that confer status on the wealthy, but are not fully embraced or practised by them. The influence of ‘luxury beliefs’ as a means of winning social esteem has been charted by a number of academics, led by Rob Henderson, formerly of Cambridge University. Their fascinating research shows that in the past, members of the old elite derived their sense of status from physical manifestations of wealth, such as fine clothes, jewellery, foreign travel, servants, private carriages and large properties. But today, with prosperity spread across society, such ostentatious displays of riches have less significance. So, instead, the quest for social status now focuses more on ‘cultural capital’ than ‘economic capital’.

For the sophisticated, urban-dwelling, university-educated class that is overwhelmingly in the ascendancy across the media, the civil service, public management, quangoland, the voluntary sector and the arts, a certain set of fashionable beliefs has become the new signifier of a higher rank in society.

Adherence to the values of the progressive orthodoxy is now the surest way to win acceptance into the elite and gain applause from its other members.

The influence of ‘luxury beliefs’ as a means of winning social esteem has been charted by a number of academics, led by Rob Henderson, formerly of Cambridge University. Their fascinating research shows that in the past, members of the old elite derived their sense of status from physical manifestations of wealth, such as fine clothes, jewellery, foreign travel, servants, private carriages and large properties (stock image)

The affluent Left loves to trumpet its commitment to open borders, ‘safe routes’ for asylum-seekers and multiculturalism as a badge of moral superiority, while portraying opponents of uncontrolled immigration as xenophobes (stock image)

Alongside these ‘luxury beliefs’ are slogans such as ‘diversity is our strength’ as virtue-signallers spout jargon such as ‘intersectionality’ or peddle bogus concepts such as ‘heteronormativity’, ‘gender spectrum’ and ‘white privilege’.

This is a world in which social media hashtags or the use of pronouns show which side you are on in the culture wars.

Yet as the phrase infers, ‘luxury beliefs’ impose few costs on those who espouse them – even though the price paid by everyone else can be heavy. A classic example, as Braverman highlighted, is mass immigration.

But as research shows, the wealthy elitists are the least likely to suffer the financial and social costs of surging mass immigration.

They don’t have to compete with mainly low-skilled migrants for jobs and housing.

They don’t live in deprived neighbourhoods where rapid demographic change is eroding social solidarity and mutual trust.

The truth is that it is the working-class, the non-graduate majority, who are most likely to see their pay cut or have their rents pushed up by accelerating demand.

The same disastrous results from the elite’s posturing can be seen on a host of other fronts. Its determination to uphold the narrative of multiculturalism’s success led to a vast cover-up of sex-grooming gangs, often involving men from the Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Indian communities in towns such as Rotherham and Rochdale, while it was often vulnerable, white, working-class girls who paid a savage price for this deceit.

Similarly, residents of disadvantaged housing estates, not those of gated communities, suffer most from the elite’s ‘luxury belief’ that criminals are actually victims of society who need support rather than punishment.

Meanwhile, women prisoners are the ones in danger from the grotesque belief that a double rapist with a penis should be housed in a women’s jail because he ‘identifies’ as a woman.

There is also a huge amount of hypocrisy about the elite’s stance, especially on the issue of the family. Liberals dismiss attempts to uphold traditional, married family life as the best way to provide stability for child-rearing.

Meanwhile, women prisoners are the ones in danger from the grotesque belief that a double rapist with a penis should be housed in a women’s jail because he ‘identifies’ as a woman (stock image)

‘Families come in all shapes and sizes,’ they cry as they extol hybrid arrangements and sneer at monogamy. Yet for all their ideological disdain for the traditional family structure, the new elite are the most likely to get married and have children within marriage.

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A study by the Marriage Foundation discovered that 87 per cent of mothers from higher income groups are married, compared with just 24 per cent at the other end of the social scale. Once again, it is the working-class, non-graduate majority who are the most likely to suffer the effects of the breakdown in family values that the new elite condones but rarely practises.

But there is a danger for these ‘luxury believers’.

The lesson from America is that even wealthy ideologues risk being caught up in the turmoil that is fanned by their own misguided theories.

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, there were widespread demands from the Left to ‘defund’ the police. The result? A cataclysmic rise in violent crime and several Left-wing campaigners are among the roll-call of the dead.

In Britain, people are already profoundly concerned about the effect of luxury dogma. One survey showed that 66 per cent of voters support Braverman’s view that uncontrolled immigration is ‘an existential threat’ to the West. Support, too, for transgender rights has collapsed.

As so often has been proved by history, the mainstream majority has more common sense and pragmatism than their ruling elites.

Over the coming months, the Tories have a great opportunity to expose the ‘luxury belief’ class as hypocrites who shamelessly try to garner status among their fellow elites without having to live, like the rest of us, with the pernicious effects of their virtue-signalling.

Matthew Goodwin is author of Values, Voice & Virtue: The New British Politics

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