Thread by @Race_Class

NatCon UK🧵

What does this week's UK National Conservativism conference reveal about global trends amongst the international Right?`

Follow this THREAD for a collection of Race & Class and @IRR_News resources on the so-called 'war on woke'

NatCon 2023 brought together a number of conservative politicians, academics and commentators who decry 'woke dogma' as an existential threat to society. Many of them feature in this crucial new article, 'An anatomy of the British war on woke' journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03…

As @huwcdavies and @wsi2016 show, motifs such as 'cultural marxism', 'critical race theory' and 'woke ideology' are framed as pseudo-religions that pose a threat to 'western civilisation', generating a modern moral panic about perceived leftwing cultural hegemony.

After US BLM protests in 2020, Critical Race Theory became a favoured bogeyman for Donald Trump and the Right, with nine states passing legislation that bans CRT from being taught in schools.

Anti-CRT rhetoric has also made its way across the Atlantic bylinetimes.com/2020/10/22/kem…

UK schools are not immune from the culture wars, with govt guidance (bit.ly/3BQd2IN) telling teachers to 'not under any circumstances’ work with groups or use resources from organisations that take anti-capitalist or ‘extreme political stances’ irr.org.uk/article/clippi…

Higher Education is a key battleground, with the now passed 'Freedom of Speech' Act enabling the Office for Students to impose sanctions on Universities & Students Unions for barring speakers whose positions they fear oppose racial justice or LGBT+ rights bylinetimes.com/2021/08/19/the…

Where did this bill come from?

One key influence was a 2020 Policy Exchange report on Academic Freedom and the need to 'protect viewpoint diversity'.

Several recommendations made their way into the bill, with report author and NatCon speaker Eric Kaufmann giving evidence to MPs

Legal experts told @timeshighered the Act could see groups & individuals take legal action against Universities or Students Unions for failing to protect 'free expression'.

The Free Speech Union, whose founder spoke at NatCon, confirmed they would consider supporting a test case

Defending 'Free Speech' on campuses is another well-worn tactic of the Right in America, as discussed in Liz Fekete's interview with @isaac_kamola and Ralph Wilson, authors of 'Free Speech and Koch Money: manufacturing a campus culture war' journals.sagepub.com/share/JYTTDCMI…

One educator who continually leans into the culture wars is 'Britain's strictest headteacher' Katharine Birbalsingh, who told NatCon attendees to pull their children out of 'woke schools'.

The government made her Social Mobility Commission Chair in 2021 irr.org.uk/article/social…

Birbalsingh has since resigned, but two Social Mobility Commissioners, Matthew Goodwin & David Goodhart spoke at NatCon

Goodwin is a fellow of the Legatum Institute which in 2018-19 received $154,000 from the Koch Foundation. He also gave evidence for the Freedom of Speech bill.

Former teacher and now Tory MP Miriam Cates has warned of the dangers of 'gender ideology' in schools.

But Cates' main fear at NatCon was declining birthrates - a key vector in the 'traditionalist' Right's civilisational fixation on 'demographic change'
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…

Right-wing leaders across Europe have said that declining birthrates are a threat to the family and ‘Christian culture’, whilst Orban’s Hungary and Meloni’s Italy pursue ‘natalist’ policies to incentivise 'desirable' citizens to have more babies

Cates has argued that sex education in schools is causing a 'social contagion...driving pupils to identify as trans'.

Siddiqui has shown how reproductive racism often involves attacks on the trans community and anyone placed outside the nuclear family irr.org.uk/article/femini…

Anti-LGBT+ and racialised demographic scaremongering was heard regularly at NatCon. Home Secretary Suella Braverman declared '100% of women do not have a penis' and 'biological sex is vitally fundamentally important'. thepinknews.com/2023/05/15/sue…

Danny Kruger MP went further, arguing that the 'normative family...a mother and father' were the 'only possible basis for a safe and successful society'.

Such Christian conservative values reflect NatCon organisers Edmund Burke Foundation's restoration narrative: for nation-states to return to 'religious tradition', restrict immigration, reject individualism and 'foster stable family & congregational life' nationalconservatism.org/national-conse…