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A recent report in the Financial Times highlighted rising divisions in society due to “culture wars”. In a poll carried out by The Policy Institute at King’s College London, over 80 percent of British adults said they feel the UK is divided, marginally up from five years ago.
In the same period of time however, there was a 21 percent increase in people who think this division comes from the culture wars, making up two-third of the population. A similar two-thirds believe that these culture wars are “a serious problem for UK society and politics”.
The right-wing media loves focusing on these issues. They emphasise one side of the study which shows that half of British people think “the UK is changing too fast”, and highlighting the increasing nostalgia towards the past, even across the youth.
What is not brought up is how things have indeed changed in Britain. The economy has been crisis-ridden since the 1980s, and this process has accelerated since the 2008 financial crisis.
Government debt has soared as a percentage of GDP, reaching a hundred percent.
People of all ages have seen over 15 years of Tory and Labour austerity, with no end in sight.
People of all ages have seen over 15 years of Tory and Labour austerity, with no end in sight. The NHS, schools, universities and public infrastructure are falling apart.
The capitalists have not been investing in Britain. UK investment rates have been three percentage points below the OECD average since 1990, an investment gap of about £35bn per year.
Unemployment has just hit 5 percent, with youth unemployment reaching a staggering 12.5 percent.
It is no wonder people of all ages, and especially the youth, think the UK has changed and long for a past they perceive as secure. These are the real things people are concerned with, not Britain’s racial makeup!
The side ignored by the British establishment is that two-thirds of Brits believe that the media and politicians are exaggerating, or outright inventing, those culture war divisions.
In fact, in the last five years, an increasing number of people (at least 60 percent in 2025) agreed with the statement “politicians invent or exaggerate culture war as a political tactic”.
Here lies the crux of the matter.
As the Director of the institute, Bobby Duffy, put it: “People are not seeing progress and that creates a genuine concern about how the country is changing, which is encouraged by an increasingly divisive rhetoric in politics, media and social media.”
Couldn’t have said it better! The lack of future and hate towards the establishment is driving the polarisation to both the left and right in Britain. But people are also clearly seeing the culture wars for what they are: a tool of the ruling class and their lackeys to divide the working class.
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