Tag: labour party

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

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

THE RED WALL TRAPS TO AVOID (AND NOT AVOID)

January 5, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debate about “Red Wall” seats in England, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on India, Argentina and the potency of mass mobilisation.) It was published on 3 January 2021, under the headline “It’s too easy to lapse into stereotypes when we talk about ‘red wall’ seats”. “What will the ‘Red Wall’ think?” As Boris Johnson pivots from Covid-19 and Brexit towards his “levelling up” agenda, that is likely to be a […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Politics • Tags: boris johnson, conservative party, labour party, lynsey hanley, red wall, social conservatism, social liberalism, tories

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

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

SUNDERLAND TO LONDON: THE GEOGRAPHY OF SOCIAL DIVISION

January 27, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the relationship between class, race and geography in Britain, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on antibiotics, global poverty and the broken market.) It was published on 26 January 2020, under the headline ‘No history, no languages… the end of humanities only deepens divides’. Sunderland University wants to become more ‘career-focused’. So it is to shut down all its language, politics and history courses and promote instead degrees that ‘align with […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: centre for towns, cities, elite, humanities, labour party, poverty, privilege, social mobility, sunderland university, towns, universities, white privilege, white working class, working class

IMMIGRATION AND THE LEFT – A DEBATE

January 5, 2020 by Kenan Malik

I have been involved in a long debate on Twitter with the writer and activist Thomas Fazi, which began with his critique of my article on social conservatism and the working class and ended as a debate about immigration and the left. The debate consisted of very long threads from both of us (the four threads amount to more than 5000 words!), and inevitably was Twitterish in form and tone, peevish and crabby at times, but it got to the […]

Categories: Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: blue labour, identity politics, immigration, labour party, left, national identity, nationalism, racism, social conservatism, thomas fazi, working class

SOCIAL CONSERVATISM AND THE WORKING CLASS

December 23, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debate about social conservatism and the working class, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 152December 2019, under the headline ‘The idea that the British working class is socially conservative is a nonsense’. ‘It is easier for the right to move left on economics than it is for the left to move right on identity & culture.’ So tweeted politics professor and TV pundit Matthew Goodwin on the morning of the Tory election victory as […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Politics • Tags: british politics, conservatives, grunwick strike, identity politics, immigration, labour party, left, liberalism, matthew goodwin, metropolitan liberals, social conservatism, trust, working class

THE RETURN OF UNIVERSALISM TO SOCIAL POLICY

September 30, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debates about universal basic income and universal basic services, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the Naga Munchetty controversy.) It was published on 29 September 2019, under the headline ‘These radical ideas might seem utopian but at least they fire the imagination’. Back in May, the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, suggested that if Labour won the next election it would launch pilot schemes for universal basic income (UBI). The aim of […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties, Philosophy & Ethics, Politics • Tags: andrew percy, guy standing, howard reed, john mcdonnell, jonathan portes, labour party, ubi, ubs, universal basic income, universal basic services, universalism

SEEING THE MESSENGER NOT THE MESSAGE

September 23, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the dangers of being more agitated by the messenger than the message for both politics and journalism, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the global spread of AI surveillance.) It was published on 22 September 2019, under the headline ‘Boris Johnson’s confrontation: don’t lose sight of the real story’. ‘The problem with politicians and political activists is that they are trapped in their own little bubbles.’ If there’s one complaint […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: amelia gentleman, boris johnson, british politics, conservative party, journalism, labour party, laura kuenssberg, omar salem, windrush scandal

CLASS REALITIES AND CULTURAL DIVIDES

June 3, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the importance of class as a political issue, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Boris Johnson and lies.) It was published on 2 June 2019, under the headline ‘Forget culture wars. Class is still the defining force shaping British lives’. If you are a woman living in working-class Middlesbrough, you are likely to die seven years earlier than if you were living in affluent Hart in Hampshire. If you are a […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Politics • Tags: brexit, british politics, Class, conservatives, john cleese, labour party, working class

ANTI-ZIONISM IS NOT (ALWAYS) ANTI-SEMITISM

February 25, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the relationship between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Einstein, science and philosophy.) It was published in the Observer, 24 February 2019, under the headline ‘Antisemites use the language of anti-Zionism. The two are distinct’. Anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. So claimed France’s President Emmanuel Macron in a speech last week in which he promised to change policing regulations to criminalise anti-Zionism. The condemnation of anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism has a […]

Categories: International, Politics • Tags: anti-semitism, anti-zionism, civic nationalism, emmanuel macron, ethnic nationalism, israel, jews, labour party, left, nationalism, palestine, racism, tony judt, zionism

THE SCANDAL OF THE WORKING POOR

September 17, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the ‘working poor’, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on hypocrisy and the Church of England). It was published in the Observer, 16 September 2018, under the headline ‘Welfare was meant to help the poor, not subsidise exploitative employers’. It will mean fewer jobs. That was the chorus from many on the right, from Tej Parikh of the Institute of Directors to the chancellor, Philip Hammond, in response to […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Philosophy & Ethics, Politics • Tags: austerity, british politics, conservative party, gig economy, john mcdonnell, labour party, matthew desmoond, poverty, working poor

POST-ELECTION, NEW QUESTIONS

June 9, 2017 by Kenan Malik

Some quick, initial thoughts on the result of the UK general election, more raising questions than providing answers. . 1 It is in keeping with the lack of self-awareness and political nous that characterized Theresa May’s election campaign that she has insisted on staying on as party leader and Prime Minister, apparently to provide ‘certainty’, ‘stability’ and ‘legitimacy’. It is difficult to imagine, after the humiliation heaped upon her by the electorate, that she could seriously believe that she possesses […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: british politics, conservatives, election, european union, jeremy corbyn, labour party, theresa may, ukip

AN ELECTION BUT NOT A CONTEST

April 19, 2017 by Kenan Malik

An excerpt from my latest column for the International New York Times, on the upcoming election in Britain. It was published under the headline ‘The Foregone Conclusion of Britain’s Election’. This could, and should, have been a vital election, the focus for a great debate about the kind of post-Brexit Britain people want, a fierce contest over issues from austerity to immigration. But the void where an opposition should be means that little of substance will be debated. . To […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: brexit, british elections, british politics, conservative party, jeremy corbyn, labour party, theresa may, ukip, working class