Tag: british politics

DIVERSITY DEBATES AND THE TWO DIFFERENT BRITAINS

December 8, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the census data and the debate about diversity data in Britain, was my Observer column this week. It was published 4 December 2022, under the headline “White Britons are declining and immigrants help prop up Christianity. Does it matter?” Ten million people living in England and Wales were born abroad. Fewer than half of Britons call themselves Christians. For some, the two main takeaways from the 2021 census for England and Wales – a more diverse nation and a more secular […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: british politics, census, christianity, conservatism, diversity, douglas murray, ngozi fulani, nigel farage, racism, religion, white decline

LIBERALISM, CLASS POLITICS AND THE CULTURE WARS

September 29, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on changing public attitudes and the culture wars, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 25 September 2022, under the headline “Britain is becoming a more liberal and open society. But we are ever more divided too”. “The ‘woke’ outlook on national identity, national sentiment and immigration now tends to be the more popular”; and “whereas it might once have represented a widespread view, now the ‘anti-woke’ position on ‘culture war’ issues often appear to be more of a […]

Categories: Britain, Class • Tags: anti-racism, brexit, british politics, british social attitudes, culture wars, john curtice, liberalism, social polarisation, wokeness

IN DEFENCE OF STRIKES

June 29, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the importance of trade unions and the right to strike, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 27 June 2022, under the headline “Enemy within? Hardly… most people see why we need unions prepared to strike”. The Tories love the working class. So long as workers can help them win red wall seats. So long as they can paint them as “socially conservative” and use them as alibis for legislation hostile to immigrants or welfare claimants. So […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Justice & Liberties • Tags: british politics, conservative party, inequality, labour party, levelling up, mick lynch, rail strikes, rmt, strikes, tony blair, trade unions, working class

CYNICISM & CRUELTY DRESSED UP AS LAW

July 13, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the government’s new immigration proposals, was my Observer column this week. It was published in the Observer, 11 July 2021, under the headline “After Priti Patel has finished, which refugees will carry a torch for Britain?” “Before I died I contemplated how drowning would feel.” So opens Gulwali Passarlay’s 2015 book The Lightless Sky. Passarlay was, in 2006, a 12-year-old boy in a rural village in Afghanistan, caught in the crossfire between Taliban and American forces. After his father was shot […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: asylum seekers, british politics, gunwale passarlay, immigration, nationality and borders bill, people smugglers, priti patel, sabir zazai, the lightless sky

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND MEDICAL DATA

June 9, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the the new NHS medical database, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 6 June 2021, under the headline “Tell me how you’ll use my medical data. Only then might I sign up”. Would you allow your medical data to be anonymised and used for research into cancer or to aid future pandemic planning? Most people would probably say yes. I certainly would. But what if that data could be accessed by tech giants such as […]

Categories: Britain, Politics, Science & Technology • Tags: british politics, data, medical data, medical privacy, nhs, nhs digital, privacy

INEQUALITY AND POLITICAL DIVIDES

March 3, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on perceptions of inequality in Britain, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 28 February 2021, under the headline “The left/right divide still exists. But it’s struggling to escape the lure of identity politics”. First, the good news. Britons see inequality as a major problem and divide broadly along traditional political lines in their attitudes towards it. Then, the bad news. Britons are also inclined to see inequalities as driven by individual behaviour as much as […]

Categories: Britain, Philosophy & Ethics, Politics • Tags: bobby duffy, brexit, british politics, conservative party, covid 19, identity politics, individualism, inequality, labour party, pandemic, racism, reluctant individualism

FAIRNESS IS A POLITICAL JUDGMENT, NOT A THING IN ITSELF

August 25, 2020 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on algorithms, political judgments and fairness, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 23 August 2020, under the headline ‘The cruel exams algorithm has laid bare the unfairness at the heart of our schools’. . What children know and too many politicians seem not to: a few years ago, the psychologists Alex Shaw and Kristina Olson ran an experiment in which they told young children about two boys, Dan and Mark, who had cleaned up their […]

Categories: Britain, Philosophy & Ethics, Politics • Tags: algorithms, boris johnson, british politics, education, fairness, michael gove, ofqual, scottish qualifications authority

MIGRANT INVASIONS AND CULTURE WARS

August 18, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debate over undocumented Channel migrants , was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Kamala Harris, birtherism and identity.) It was published on 16 August 2020, under the headline ‘Inventing a “migrant invasion” is part of a toxic rhetorical ploy’. It’s a title of which Captain Mainwaring would have been proud: ‘Clandestine Channel Threat Commander‘. The man responsible for saving Britain from the threat of a migrant invasion. If you invent an invasion, […]

Categories: Britain, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: british politics, channel migrants, colin yeo, immigration policy, paulette wilson, priti patel, racism, undocumented migrants, windrush scandal

POLITICIANS, VOTERS AND THE VALUES GAP

July 7, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the values gap between voters and politicians, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 5 July 2020, under the headline ‘What are politicians for if they can’t change public opinion?’ ‘We look towards the other England and wonder how it could be so provincial, so backward, so completely out of step with the times. And then we turn our backs on it… That is the really alarming thing about this national division.’ That might have been […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Politics • Tags: british politics, conservative party, labour party, social liberalism, values gap, working class

THE NEED TO TRANSFORM THE IMMIGRATION MINDSET

June 30, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the fundamental problem with the way British officials view immigration, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 28 June 2020, under the headline ‘That Clayton Barnes is still not a citizen shows the ongoing cruelty of ‘hostile environment’. Clayton Barnes came to Britain from Jamaica in 1959. He spent a lifetime in this country, working, paying taxes, raising a family. He was in his mind British, as he was in the eyes of his family, his […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: british politics, clayton barnes, colin yeo, hostile environment, immigration policy, priti patel, windrush scandal

CULTURE WARS CAN MAKE YOU BLIND TO SOCIAL CHANGE

June 23, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on how the fog of culture wars can obscure the degree to which societies have become socially liberal, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 21 June 2020, under the headline ‘Culture wars risk blinding us to just how liberal we’ve become in the past decades’. ‘Prime minister Boris Johnson stirs culture war over Churchill statue.’ So ran a recent New York Times headline. The Washington Post agreed. As ‘counter protesters’ took to the streets to ‘protect’ statues and as controversy […]

Categories: Britain, Philosophy & Ethics, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: black lives matter, british politics, culture wars, immigration, racism, social liberalism, statues, usa, working class

THE IGNORANCE AND THE CRUELTY

May 30, 2020 by Kenan Malik

I have written two short pieces in the Observer over the past couple of weeks about immigration rules. They reflect on similar themes, so I am publishing here together. The first was published on 31 May under the headline ‘Boris Johnson is a picture of ignorance on immigration’; the second on 24 May under the headline ‘Despite U-turns, migrants to Britain are being failed miserably’. The ignorance and the cruelty Imagine a Prime Minister who comes to power promising […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: boris johnson, british politics, coronavirus, deserving, essential workers, immigration policy, migrant workers, no recourse to public funds, stephen timms, undeserving

WHEN CITIZENS ARE NOT ALL MADE EQUAL

February 17, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the transformation of the meaning of citizenship, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on changing scientific theories.) It was published on 9 February 2020, under the headline ‘Deportations to Jamaica, the Shamima Begum case and Windrush betray a woeful regard for the notion of citizenship’. ‘A transcendental power, more than any man should possess.’ So said Lord Houghton in 1870 in response to William Gladstone’s plan to acquire the ability to revoke the […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: british politics, citizenship, deportation, immigration, shamima begum, shiraz maher, statelessness

FROM REFERENDUM TO BREXIT (WELL, SORT OF)

February 1, 2020 by Kenan Malik

So, farewell then, EU. Well, sort of. Almost four years ago, on the eve of the 2016 referendum , I wrote about why, whatever the result, the underlying issues would not be addressed: But, if the world will not end for Britain, neither will the key issues at the heart of the Brexit debate have been resolved – or even properly addressed. Hostility to the EU, not just in Britain, but throughout Europe, has been driven by frustrations about democracy and […]

Categories: Britain • Tags: brexit, british politics, immigration, labour party, left, populism, racism, working class

WHITENESS, CLASS AND THE WHITE WORKING CLASS

January 6, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the controversy over the funding of scholarship for white working class boys, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece onthe happiness industry.) It was published on 5 January 2020, under the headline‘Bursaries don’t help when it’s not their colour that thwarts these boys’. There is a scene in Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses in which one of the central characters, Saladin, finds himself incarcerated in a detention centre for illegal immigrants. Saladin […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Politics • Tags: british politics, education, race, racism, white identity, white privilege, white working class