I assume you have been a reader for while? I noticed a downturn towards woke dogma almost a decade back.

I don’t buy newspapers, haven’t done for a long time. I follow a broad range of news outlets and commentators on Twitter and Bluesky and rely on U.K., Channel 4 News for broadcast news. Along with U.K. LBC radio, as I mentioned before.

In the U.K. what is referred to as Woke has been present since the early 1980’s and hasn’t increased particularly. In the 80’s, it was called the “looney left” and in the 90’s it was called “political correctness” What has increased is a populist backlash against it as a means to turn the electorate to the right. But the reason for this is not as an alternative, or correction to woke in our culture. That is a scape goat. The real reason is to steer the country towards a free market, neo-liberal agenda and follow the lead of the US. towards an Oligarch ruled, free market, utopia*.

Regarding immigration, the 4% is the proportion of the net migration who came in on the small boats. Roughly about 30,000 per year whereas the total net migration is around 600-700,000 per year.

I do see this as problematic, but more in regard of the increased pressures that we will face in the future due to climate change, than the current rate of immigration.

The small boats issue is symptomatic of this trend. As Asian and African countries struggle with the current economic climate, climate collapse and the spread of failed states. The flow of desperate migrants will only increase and countries on the front line, like Greece, Italy, Romania, Spain etc have it much worse than the U.K.

This is fertile ground for the rise of race based populism.


*Thatcher took up the neo-liberal ideology from the US in the 1980’s and we have been drifting in that direction ever since.

The grooming gang / rape gang scandal, these are a minority of migrants, but they also have to be considered a national scandal, no? A clear example of the worst sort of immigration policy - one that people refuse to discuss, for fear of giving offense?

The grooming gang scandal is a social problem, due to the cultural differences between the British population and the Asian, mainly Pakistani and Bangladeshi people who came in to the U.K. in the 1970/80’s. Although in terms of grooming gangs, it wasn’t such an anomaly as is portrayed in the media. There were and are many such gangs amongst the British community, which are not talked about. The problem which you highlight is the way it was responded to. The police turned a blind eye to it and let it go on too long with out bringing them to book. But this wasn’t due to politeness, or woke rationale, but fear of being labelled racist, or prosecuted for racial discrimination.

I taught ESL in high school for years here in Toronto. I loved those kids. It was a different era of immigration, and we were lauded for our points-based system. I think naive, open-door approaches to immigration do a disservice to kids like the ones I taught.

In the U.K. there isn’t an open door policy, again this is a populist lie. There are strict controls on migration, the reality is that governments want skilled workers to come in to bolster the economy and fill the gaps left by a dismantled and failing vocational training policy at home. But it is political suicide to say that you want to encourage immigration, so they all just go along with the claims of wanting to reduce immigration, while secretly not restricting it.

There are problems with abuse of the system, but this is largely the result of a failing and dysfunctional migration system. Rather than a policy choice. You see the migration system along with all other public services are either failing, under resourced, or dysfunctional as a result of the 14 years of Tory austerity and cuts. Compounded by their abandonment of any real government following the Brexit vote in 2016 and the years of Tory Brexit chaos and clowns like Boris Johnson and Liss Truss, Royaly f*cking the country over for Kompromat, or looney ideology.

So the Labour Party inherited a broken country and it’s going to take a lot of hard work to put it back together again.

@Punshhh Have you also considered that as populations increase so too does the number of cognitively defunct individuals in the local population? There are not many jobs for these people. There will be less sooner still. Confounded this with how easily manipulated this proprortion of the population can be and it is no wonder more radical views seem more front and centre than usual--especially when social media rams such thoughts directly into their heads.

Either we figure out how to make people smarter OR those with enough cognitive clout step up. I am more optimistic about the former than the latter if I am honest.

Also the Japanese are probably a little less prone to revolting than the western world. — ChatteringMonkey

Japan is a great example because the population decrease has already dramatically started, the economy has underperformed for a very long time, yet there hasn't been a collapse. It indeed may show how countries with enough social cohesion can weather this storm without any collapses.

Yes, there is a large cohort of cognitively challenged people in the U.K. There is a legacy issue here, alongside the media issues. The political culture in the U.K. has been skewed by the Tory establishment using a sophisticated range of techniques to persuade the poor, the working classes, to vote to keep wealth in power. This has included keeping the population at large ignorant about politics and vulnerable to manipulation.

There is hope though, which was tackled head on by Starmer’s keynote speech at the Labour Party conference yesterday. To expose Farage as a racist, running a party fuelled by the politics of grievance. When the above cohort realises the extent of the racism, sufficient numbers of them will turn away from becoming associated with it. Also to expose the faux patriotism used to disguise overt racism, which Farage also hides behind.

Hiya Punshhh.

The grooming gang scandal is a social problem, due to the cultural differences between the British population and the Asian, mainly Pakistani and Bangladeshi people who came in to the U.K — Punshhh

That's an awfully charitable way to put it. Another way is to say that certain cultural groups viewed poor western girls as beneath contempt, and due to clan / familial hierarchies, entire closely related groups engaged in predatory grooming and rape over decades, throughout England. Lots of evidence on these points, including direct quotations from victims, abusers and authorities. Happy to provide sources if you want.

But this wasn’t due to politeness, or woke rationale, but fear of being labelled racist, or prosecuted for racial discrimination. — Punshhh

'Wokeness' denies that intent matters, so I don't see how intent factors in here - the outcome of woke thought is this fear of being 'labelled racist'. Sure, this predates wide usage of the term, but it's the same project we called political correctness in the 90s, the same ideas going back to Marcuse and others in the 60s.

I see nothing kind towards immigrants as a whole in allowing a small subset to taint the whole project. Societies need immigration. But the models that exist do not reflect our global realities.

I just read "Infidel" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She was fighting against honour killings and female genital mutilation in the Netherlands decades ago, and faced the same issues - a public that refuses to confront dark elements of immigration. Nothing has changed today, as we pass the 20 year anniversary of the Danish cartoon controversy.

In the U.K. there isn’t an open door policy, again this is a populist lie. — Punshhh

I don't see the term 'populist' as automatically a negative, and I'm happy to use a different term if 'open-door' is too loaded to serve.

The entire WEIRD world empowered a boom in low-skilled workers during COVID. I would certainly argue that 'open-door' describes Canada, and we only have one neighbouring country to worry ourselves with.

In the U.K. what is referred to as Woke has been present since the early 1980’s and hasn’t increased particularly. — Punshhh

We radically disagree on this. Social media + smart phones essentially enabled woke institutional capture across WEIRD governmental agencies - public ed, universities, immigration, medicine, law, etc, etc. It's why your UK wokists talk about BIPOC, or chant 'hands up don't shoot' at cops. (And yes, of course, other institutions and sectors have seen the same tech trend empowering conservative institutional capture).

I agree with you that the right is weaponizing this. I find it harder to make my case under Trump v2 since he has gone all 2025 on the world.

But surely we can agree that Trump is a dreadful, destructive figure, that some conservatives are crass opportunists at best on woke issues, and that woke / leftist / progressive / whatever term you like ideology also has major flaws?

Thatcher took up the neo-liberal ideology from the US in the 1980’s and we have been drifting in that direction ever since. — Punshhh

Woke is inherently neo-liberal, and neo-liberals are not all conservatives - Blair and Clinton were the ones I saw a young guy coming up.

I read "When McKinsey Comes to Town" last year. I think we'd agree they are 'neo-liberal'? I kept reading their documents (the journalistic work was impressive, they had a lot of evidence) thinking, why does this language sound so familiar?

It's the legalese of woke. Check out McKinsey's own publications - they are, themselves, woke.

This McKinsification of world leader groupthink is to me a larger concern than the excesses of woke or the ____ right, whatever term you like.

To loosely paraphrase Marxist thinker Adolph Reed, who cares if the top leaders in the company are a diverse group if neoliberalism continues to propel income inequality?

These are the same people driving the conversation around immigration.

I'm sure you see it differently!

That's an awfully charitable way to put it.

Perhaps, but that’s what it boils down to. It’s just a few small groups of child abusers. Just like in the British white community. Maybe there isn’t much of it about over in Canada, but it’s been widespread here for a long time.

the outcome of woke thought is this fear of being 'labelled racist'.

Racial sensitivity is not a result of woke ideologies, it’s an inevitable result of having groups of immigrants living in an area. And if you think the police in the U.K. are woke, then you haven’t been paying attention. They are being widely described as institutionally racist and misogynist on todays news, following the Panorama documentary a couple of days ago.

We radically disagree on this. Social media + smart phones essentially enabled woke institutional capture across WEIRD governmental agencies - public ed, universities, immigration, medicine, law, etc, etc. It's why your UK wokists talk about BIPOC, or chant 'hands up don't shoot' at cops. (And yes, of course, other institutions and sectors have seen the same tech trend empowering conservative institutional capture).

This is right wing propaganda, maybe it’s different in Canada, but in the U.K. all these institutions already had what could be called woke policy.

I agree with you that the right is weaponizing this. I find it harder to make my case under Trump v2 since he has gone all 2025 on the world.

As I was just saying.

Trump is a stupid wanna be dictator, he should never have been given a second term.

This McKinsification of world leader groupthink is to me a larger concern than the excesses of woke or the ____ right, whatever term you like.

Well I certainly agree with this.

It’s just a few small groups of child abusers. Just like in the British white community. — Punshhh

This is false. Per capita, certain Muslim populations are far more likely to abuse children in Britain.

You are suggesting that there is no element of Islam, as currently practiced, that is more misogynistic than Christianity, as currently practiced.

Does that even sound plausible, if you ignore ideology?

I can provide data. Ask me, if you want some. That would indicate that you care to engage. Otherwise, not worth my time.

Racial sensitivity is not a result of woke ideologies, it’s an inevitable result of having groups of immigrants living in an area. — Punshhh

Yes. And we should ignore this? Pretend that if we didn't have so many dumbass poor white people around, it would all work out?

This is right wing propaganda, — Punshhh

I am not right wing. Prove your assertion with some sort of data / evidence, or I will continue to trust my years of research and front line experience. I fear you spend two minutes or less on your comments to me.

Any comments on the dude named Jihad who just attacked and murdered Jews in Manchester?

I assume it will amount to something like 'watch out, those dumbass poor white people are going to weaponize this'.

Note. I am not populist / conservative / neoliberal / Christian / etc, so you can't dismiss my points with broad generalizations about groups. As if that's how the social sciences work in the first place.

I appreciate that you reply to me man. I used to be progressive. I hope for substantive engagement though, not talking points.

Ok, who did they borrow it off? — Punshhh

Dunno. Banks?