The ‘culture wars’ are a distraction from issues like Brexit – but it is all Oliver Dowden has to give

The co-chair of the Conservative Party, Oliver Dowden, was demoted at the last major ministerial reshuffle – being shifted from his post as secretary of state for culture, media and sport in favour of Nadine Dorries. Leaving aside for a moment what that might have done to Dowden’s sense of pride, he seems unable to leave the culture wars alone.

Maybe he is trying prove to anyone who cares that he’s just as doughty a warrior as Dorries, and that he is ready to take up the flame of gaslighting minorities, so to speak, recently abandoned by ex-Downing Street policy boss Munira Mirza. Or perhaps this partially sidelined figure is trying to revive his party’s fortunes as well as his own by responding to a crisis in western civilisation that probably doesn’t exist.

The government, in other words, is in a tight corner with Partygate (ie, double standards and alleged law breaking), escalating NHS waiting lists, a very real and present cost-of-living crisis, a Brexit failing as yet to unleash “Global Britain”, and a refugee and migrant crisis quietened only by inclement weather. Some “culture wars” distraction tactics are required to remind the new Conservative working class base about what really matters. Or so critics may think.

Even though no statues have been toppled recently, flags burned, racist speakers disinvited by student unions, or even Piers Morgan being rude about the Duchess of Sussex, suddenly Dowden has popped up at the Heritage Foundation in the United States to declare the imminent collapse of western civilisation. He does not minimise his scorn for the “snowflakes”. Dowden detects “a painful woke psychodrama” is apparently sweeping the west, where people should not be “obsessing” over pronouns or “trying to decolonise” maths.

To Dowden, “woke” ideology is a “dangerous form of decadence” at a time when “our attention should be focused on external foes”.

“The US and the UK may certainly be very different societies. But we are joined by the same fundamental values. Neither of us can afford the luxury of indulging in this painful woke psychodrama … Too many people have already fallen for the dismal argument that standing up for freedom is reactionary or that somehow it’s kind or virtuous to submit to these self-righteous dogmas. Well, it plainly is not.”

A few problems immediately present themselves with Downden’s intervention.

The first is that he overstates the case somewhat. He even gives few concrete examples to wind people up. “Woke culture” and “cancel culture” are abstruse, disputed terms. Does Jimmy Carr’s joke about the Holocaust count as acceptable free speech? Or not? Politically, it cuts both ways as public tastes and tolerance have moved on since the days of Bernard Manning. There seem to be no shortage of platforms for opinions. Social media remains mostly free, and in fact the government is trying to cut down on death threats and online harm. Is that “woke”?

In any case, the last thing on the minds of what used to be called the “just about managing” in the Midlands, the north and indeed anywhere in the UK is what Dowden describes as the “woke psychodrama”. His argument has a sense of unreality to it, despite its intended political force. As Dowden put it last year, Labour “has got woke running through it like a stick of Brighton rock”. People might just not care that much.

The decadence and psychodrama that swing voters in marginal seats are more concerned about is their distress at disintegrating high streets and local economy. If “levelling up”, “build back better” and “Brexit opportunities” fail to live up to the promises raised at the last election, then it is unlikely that arguments about pronoun preferences will save many Tory seats won for the first time in ages in 2019. The sense of disappointment is already palpable. All people in these places want above all else are good, well-paid skilled jobs and responsive public services. Instead they get slogans and tax hikes. And speeches about “wokery”.

Second, the most potent weapons in the culture wars arsenal are Brexit and immigration, and on both counts the government is in a more vulnerable position than in 2019. The refugee crisis, though not as dire as the government makes out, doesn’t look as though it is under the control of ministers – no matter what they may claim about what the opposition would or wouldn’t do.

Brexit, on the other hand, is supposed to be “done” and on the verge of delivering its rich global rewards. Or, sometimes, it is not yet done, in the Conservative playbook, because of Brussels’s treachery. Either way the winning formula of 2019’s “oven-ready deal” to “get Brexit done” cannot be replayed to much advantage. Dowden and his colleagues might claim a secret Labour plot exists to reverse Brexit. Some disillusioned Brexiteers might not think that such a bad thing. Most voters will surely not believe that Labour would really try to do that, and it is not even in Labour’s gift in any case – it does require EU agreement. But it plays to a certain paranoia, and in a tight election this faint echo of the real psychodrama of Brexit might play out.

The best that can probably be said for the “culture wars” strategy is that it will help solidify sections of Conservative support. It is “dog whistle” politics. It decidedly won’t win the party back many votes in the kind of more prosperous Remain-voting socially progressive and tolerant constituencies in which it lost ground in 2017 and 2019. Dowden is mostly preaching the old religion to the already converted.

Rather diffident and understated, Dowden doesn’t do it as well as Dorries, Kemi Badenoch or indeed Boris Johnson, but, with the economy, NHS, Partygate, Brexit and immigration all going badly, it is all he’s got to give.