The War on Woke: How Right-Wing Populism Is Distracting and Will Inevitably Fail Voters

As a student studying and living in Bristol, prior to the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) mayoral election my flatmates and I received a brochure in the post. It contained voting and candidate information for the upcoming election. But flipping through the leaflet, I noticed that both the Conservative and Reform UK candidate described their respective policies as “common sense”. Unfortunately, I was unsurprised to see the party of Farage and Tice employing vague and rhetorical language, and view it as symptomatic of a wider political trend in the UK — one of right-wing populism. 

Reform candidate Arron Banks pledged in one of his six bullet points “To deliver real services and common sense policies, not play petty politics”. I mean, “real services” and “common sense policies”, could it get more vague? The promise is a deliberately empty one. It sounds agreeable and appealing, whilst refusing to actively commit to a specific policy or a plan for the future. This makes it hard for voters to provide effective scrutiny or hold politicians to account as their campaign pledges are non-commital and intentionally blurry round the edges. On the national stage Reform are most vocal on the issue of immigration, but their four-point plan to “stop the boats” has been described by former UKIP MEP Patrick O’Flynn as “merely a series of saloon bar talking points and totemic top lines”. Farage and his party maintain a facade of pragmatism whilst refusing to draw a clear blueprint for the future.

Additionally, the constant invocation of “common sense” is a rhetorical trick that is enabling Reform to criticise incumbents without establishing an alternative policy themselves, and highlights how right-wing populism will inevitably fail voters through a lack of accountability. Claiming policy to be common sense suggests that there is a universally accepted solution to complex political and economic problems, allowing populists to sidestep debate and portray opponents as irrational. Reform’s labelling of the Greens and Labour in the WECA election as the “loony left” is further indicative of this — rather than criticising their manifesto or past policies explicitly, opposition parties are simply made out as unreasonable and dismissed.

Indeed, the Reform party loves to juxtapose their supposed common sense with the apparently nonsensical approach of the “Guardian-reading, tofu-eating, wokerati”, to quote the always delightful former Home Secretary Suella Braverman. This flippant and dismissive culture war rhetoric fails entirely to address the problems most affecting voters. 

45% of Britons said that the rising cost of living was the most important issue in deciding their vote at the 2024 general election.

According to a YouGov poll, 45% of Britons said that the rising cost of living was the most important issue in deciding their vote at the 2024 general election. Despite this, half of Arron Banks’ mayoral pledges focused on cutting bureaucracy and uncovering waste in local councils. Reform gestures at efficiency whilst providing minimal substance on how they will tackle issues of affordability and deteriorating public services. Perhaps looking to ride the populist wave of Trump and Musk’s newly established anti-woke, anti-waste Department Of Government Efficiency in the US government, Reform UK continues to scapegoat initiatives like diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and work-from-home programmes.

After years of cuts that have failed to improve public services and driven up the cost of living, Reform repeatedly looks to manufacture moral outrage. Labelling anything they oppose as a symptom of the “woke virus”, inclusive hiring practices and environmental safeguards are framed as existential threats to the country. Arron Banks recently criticised the “woke capture of every institution”, demonstrating Reform’s attempts to induce moral panic among voters and escalating the “us and them” mindset populism thrives on. The party’s War on Woke is not a matter of substantive policy. Instead, they look to stir up anger and misdirect frustrations towards “wokeism” in order to justify further spending cuts and deregulation. 

When populist rhetoric distracts from material issues, the concerns of voters will fail to be addressed. DEI programmes and work to tackle climate change among local councils are not the root cause of the cost of living crisis, and are merely being used as scapegoats for the failure of neoliberal policies. Reform stokes the cultural War on Woke to gain support, but their populist campaigning will inevitably fail to address the most important needs of the electorate.  

What more can you expect from a political party full of businessmen and shameless grifters that was originally founded as a private limited company?

Words by Arthur Clinton

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