Given these circumstances, the election has attracted much commentary. Yet beyond the immediate implications, the election offers a chance to take stock of the longer-term trajectory of Welsh politics. The architects of devolution (i.e. the transfer of power to Wales) underlined the importance of future development – famously, Ron Davies asserted that devolution was ‘a process, not an event’ – and, 27 years after the first devolved election, we may ask whether Welsh politics has matured.

The long era of Labour-led governments suggests that, until this point, things have not been working as they should. Liberal democracy, of course, involves the alteration of governing parties, reflecting the tendency of power to produce diminishing returns and for voters to tire of the status quo. In no other Western country has a party enjoyed such dominance at national level in recent times, even if certain regional parties boast such records (examples include the Christian Social Union in Bavaria and the Social Democratic Party in Madeira).

This latter fact provides a clue about the nature of previous Welsh elections. Rather than being first-order elections (i.e. elections to which voters, parties and the media assign primary importance), Welsh elections have tended to have a second-order profile, like council and European elections. Therefore, Welsh politics has suffered from a lack of attention. For example, the 2019 Welsh Election Study (WES) asked voters for their comparative interest in Welsh and UK politics. On a 1-4 scale, voters reported an average interest of 2.77 in UK politics and 2.48 in Welsh politics. In the 2021 WES, voters rated their knowledge of UK politics at an average of 5.45 (out of 10), compared to 4.73 for Welsh politics. The state of the Welsh media has compounded such problems. Wales has never had a developed press and, in recent years, the decline of the more serious Western Mail and rise of the clickbaity Wales Online have exacerbated this problem.

Such lack of interest and coverage have created further challenges. Many voters are motivated by UK politics rather than Welsh politics, as they might prioritize national developments over local ones in council elections. This has frustrated the development of specifically Welsh political cleavages (i.e. the party embodiment of social differences) and is a key reason for Labour’s electoral hegemony. For much of the period of devolution, the Conservative Party has governed in Westminster, allowing Welsh Labour to present itself as a kind of opposition. However, this defeats the very point of Welsh elections as polls on Welsh governing records and plans.

Of course, such issues are long-term challenges which were never likely to be solved immediately. As we have seen, the architects of devolution recognized this. Therefore, the current election raises the question of the extent to such challenges are relenting. Undoubtedly, there are signs of progress. Following the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic, Welsh voters could not fail to notice the extent of devolved powers and, to a great degree, the 2021 Senedd election was a referendum on the management of the pandemic. Voter attention shifted accordingly and, in the 2021 WES, there were smaller differences in interest in Welsh and UK politics. Developments during the 2021-26 Senedd consolidated this trend. Though the introduction of a 20mph speed limit negatively affected the popularity of Welsh Labour, it helped to increase the profile of Welsh politics.

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What will emerge at the end of this process? Short of the coming of independence, Welsh politics will never escape the shadow of Westminster. For example, the deep unpopularity of the UK Conservative Party continues to constrain the growth of the Welsh right. Despite this, a party system is emerging which reflects Welsh conditions. In this week’s election, the populist Reform will be the right’s standard bearer, rather than the Welsh Conservatives. Notwithstanding their emphasis upon British identity, Reform articulate Welsh concerns such as opposition to the 20mph regulation and the desire to assert a post-industrial identity.

Developments on the left are equally complex. Certainly, Labour’s decline in popularity reflects disappointment with the UK Starmer government. However, Welsh factors are also important. As we have noted, many voters are disillusioned with Welsh Labour’s long tenure and record in government. Moreover, Plaid’s popularity may reflect a desire for greater Welsh autonomy, itself an achievement of devolution. Overall, Welsh politics seems to moving towards an equilibrium which reflects Welsh governing records and cleavages, rather than UK ones.

Of course, this is not to say that Welsh politics no longer has challenges. Rather, the problems which affect a second-order polity are turning into those that afflict a small country. As with other small countries, intimate relations between government and civil society can encourage cronyism. Like Scotland and Ireland, the unbalanced profile of civic organizations allows policy entrepreneurs to introduce policies which have little popular legitimacy; in recent years, such policies have been radically progressive ones. Wales has problems which other small countries do not have. Some of the most talented young people leave the country and, as we have seen, the state of the Welsh press is regrettable.

Nonetheless, Wales has made real progress. This week, the probable end of Labour hegemony will be a further milestone; in liberal democracies, no single party should dominate elections.

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Bluesky featured two types of reaction. On the one hand, radicals relished the change. Such people regard Churchill as a war criminal and advocate the radical takeover of the public sphere. Yet on the other hand, liberals could not be so cavalier. After all, liberals advocate a neutral public sphere and have a more nuanced opinion of Churchill. Therefore, liberals tended to mock conservative anger. Why, they asked, were conservatives so dismayed over a mere image on a banknote? How could pictures upset them so?

Few Bluesky users reflected on a scholarly consensus; symbols are foundational to political life. In the centre of my hometown Cardiff, there is a zebra crossing painted in Pride colours. If a Reform council painted over it, we may suspect that liberals would understand the value of symbols. Why should conservatives not be attached to symbols, just like other groups?

Given that this observation is basic – as I note above, scholars unanimously acknowledge the importance of symbols – our attention should turn to a fascinating phenomenon; the failure of liberals to appreciate this. Recently, such misunderstanding has been a prominent characteristic of liberalism. Sometimes, liberals misunderstand the motivations of opponents. When voters in low immigration areas make sociotropic (i.e. society-level) objections to immigration, loud scorn focuses on the lack of an egotropic rationale (‘There are literally no immigrants in your area!’). Yet if such voters were to make sociotropic arguments against (say) child poverty, liberals would understand immediately.

Sometimes, such misunderstandings extend to whole ideologies. Famously, many liberals refuse to acknowledge the existence of social justice ideology (or what others call ‘wokeness’). Despite the obvious differences with liberalism, many liberals merely regard woke as a conservative slur and do not consider it to be a distinct ideology.

Though all ideologies have dubious habits, misunderstanding seems unusually prominent in modern liberalism, not affecting other ideologies to the same degree. Conservatives have their own faults – many embrace a crude style and genuinely lack cognitive refinement – yet they seldom misunderstand intentionally. And as we will see, misunderstanding appears to have become more central to liberalism, compared to previous decades.

Others have observed this trend, remarking that liberals ‘play dumb’ or do not notice. Yet misunderstanding is a more formal term and covers a wider range of behaviours; therefore, I prefer it. To some extent, economic liberals (i.e. neoliberals) of the 1990s behaved in this way – they were famously dismissive of alternatives – but here I focus on liberalism in the cultural dimension of politics (e.g. immigration, patriotism, LGBT+ rights). After all, contemporary politics is primarily fought on this cultural dimension.

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Often, people debate whether such misunderstandings are deliberate. However, this is something of a dead end; one can never establish this definitively and, in any case, this would vary from person to person. Therefore, evaluation of the functions of liberal misunderstandings is more appropriate. From an ideological perspective, such habits are examples of decontestations. As Michael Freeden argues, all ideologies decontest reality, i.e. assert that their concepts are the correct ones. The decontestations of sophisticated liberalism are more rarefied – for example, Rawlsian liberalism might decontest the nature of freedom and equality – yet popular ones achieve similar ends. When liberals on Bluesky mock conservative reaction to the banknote, the message is the same; ‘There is nothing to see here!’. Indeed, the habit has auxiliary functions. For example, several topics associated with social justice ideology divide liberals – transgender rights is the most notable – and misunderstanding prevents conflicts from coming to the surface.

The practice of misunderstanding is also consistent with the trajectory of liberalism. As an established ideology, liberal concepts tend to be institutionalized and widely understood. But in recent years, there have been (conservative and radical) challenges to liberalism. Given that the challenge is to liberalism, the challenger must define the relevant terms. Therefore, misunderstanding frustrates the progress of the challenge; explaining takes time, particularly to an opponent with raised eyebrows. Misunderstanding may be less effective in seminar rooms – here, there is more time and audiences are more sophisticated – yet it thrives on social media platforms with limits on the lengths of posts and the attention spans of users.

Of course, sophisticated and unsophisticated decontestations occur in all ideologies and are nothing new. However, there are three points which are notable about the liberal tendency to misunderstand. Firstly, liberal misunderstanding appears to be a symptom of ideological decline. Decades ago, the challenges to liberalism were confined to the fringes. The mixed capitalist economy was producing high returns, entailing greater confidence in liberal-democratic elites; limited immigration was successful; liberal democracy was buoyant and spreading. Certainly, liberalism had its challengers, yet their arguments were much easier to dismiss. And arguably, liberalism was less ambitious and evangelical than it would later become, this limiting the scope of potential attacks. Of course, a certain degree of misunderstanding took place, yet there was less need for it; with less difficulty, liberals could dispatch challenges to the ideology.

Today, liberalism must negotiate a much more difficult environment. As economic growth has slowed, discontent with liberal-democratic elites has grown; multi-ethnic societies have obvious tensions; transgender rights are a more difficult sell than LGB rights. All of these things (and others I have not mentioned) are considerable problems and, unlike the challenges to liberalism of decades ago, cannot be argued down with any great degree of ease. Misunderstanding them is easier. Therefore, liberals indulge in habits which, though not addressing challenges to the ideology in a meaningful sense, serve as sticking plasters. Sometimes, challengers to liberalism do not help themselves. For example, modern conservatism is associated with low formal education and many of its critiques of liberalism have a crude and swaggering character which makes them easier to dismiss.

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But if such misunderstandings are so obviously unfeasible, how do they persist? This is inconsistent with the ‘marketplace of ideas’ interpretation of intellectual life, in which the ‘best’ ideas win out. Yet as readers of this Substack may know, I am sceptical of this explanation. Rather, ideas serve interests and are path dependent. Though the lower sophistication of contemporary liberals helps explain this phenomenon (see below), a second point is crucial; liberal misunderstandings are rooted in echo chambers. Our stratified societies have many of these, yet social media is the most notable. Recently, this characteristic of social media has become more pronounced; many liberals have left X for platforms such as Bluesky on which almost no conservatives are active.

Of course, liberal misunderstandings may characterize ideologically mixed platforms, such as the old Twitter. There were echo chambers on these old platforms, which defined themselves against ideological opponents who were present on the same platform. Nonetheless, there was greater chance of moderation on such a platform; moderates straddled the different sides and promoted restraint.

On a site such as Bluesky, there is little appetite for the correction of liberal misunderstandings; rather, the emphasis is on the demonization of opponents. Indeed, empathy with ideological adversaries can invite accusations of betrayal and few attempt it. In these circumstances, misunderstandings thrive.

Thirdly, liberal misunderstandings tell us something about the changing social base of liberalism. If one accepts the arguments of Marx and contemporary theories of cultural evolution, liberal habits are selected at group level and, therefore, maximize group efficiency. In turn, this raises questions about the constituencies of modern liberalism. As I have observed before on this Substack, the social base of liberalism has increasingly absorbed non-elites with lower levels of education and sophistication. Given the lower sophistication of such people, liberal ideas and habits have faced pressure to become less complex. To a certain extent, liberal misunderstandings resolve this problem; after all, many liberals find them satisfying.

We should not overlook the effect this has on elite liberals. Such elites are sophisticated enough to grasp the difficulties with liberal misunderstandings. However, the price of popularity on a platform such as Bluesky is the embrace of this style and many elite liberals are forced to go along with it. Perhaps I am being severe – many people would merely regard these practices as normal social media use – yet I think that they demean users such as academics; the primary duty of scholars is to the truth.

Liberal misunderstandings are fascinating. They have characterized the ideology for years and raise many further questions. In analytic terms, how should one conceive of such misunderstandings? What are their origins? How does the habit map onto the morphology of liberal ideology? And crucially, for how long are such misunderstandings likely to be part of liberalism?

Certainly, the relationship between social media and liberal misunderstanding suggests durability. As we have seen, such habits thrive in the echo chambers of social media and, for the foreseeable future, social media will define our times. Nonetheless, I am sceptical of claims of great longevity. Primarily, liberal misunderstandings seem to reflect the reduced circumstances of liberalism. In conditions of diminishing returns, liberals have incentives to misunderstand. Once conditions relent - and historically, the fortunes of liberalism tend to ebb and flow – these habits should become less prevalent.

But until then, we may be living in an age of liberal misunderstanding.

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I should declare a personal interest. I was very active during the 2016 Brexit referendum, campaigning for Remain across South Wales. Indeed, I was involved in the early stages of the People’s Vote campaign. In the late summer of 2018, I helped my mother – an even keener campaigner than me and a Liberal Democrats parliamentary candidate in 2017 – hand out leaflets in South-West Wales.

In No Second Chances, Jones chronicles the curious world of People’s Vote. We learn about the different levels of the campaign, from eccentric online influencers to grassroots organizations to the profoundly divided leadership. Despite following the campaign closely, much was new to me and Jones narrates events in a lively and engaging style. Notwithstanding my opinion of the movement, I recommend the book without reservation.

Reading the book, two things struck me. Firstly, there was the extent to which the People’s Vote campaign spread ideological conflict among the British public. As Jones observes repeatedly, the movement was dominated by people with minimal background in politics.

‘None of these people had engaged in political activism very much beforehand, although they mostly profess a left-of-centre politics. They had largely sat out the referendum campaign, but their strong feelings about the result compelled them to action… This newly forged interest in politics had its upsides – dedication and vibrancy, an interest in art and culture – but it also had its downsides, such as evincing, as discussed, a “total misunderstanding of how the media works” or lacking a thoroughgoing understanding of how to effect political change in the UK.’

I was astonished by the case of Steve Bray, the anti-Brexit activist who became famous for his daily protests outside parliament. Despite dedicating his life to the campaign against Brexit, we learn that, on the announcement of the referendum, Bray was not sure which way to vote. Madeleina Kay, the ‘EU Supergirl’ activist, had a similar background.

Previously on this Substack, I have written about low liberalism. Following the expansion of higher education and diffusion of postmaterial values, liberalism is increasingly popular among non-elites. Whilst such voters think ideologically, their conceptual understanding is limited and they embrace populist methods and ideas which are not traditionally part of the morphology of liberalism.

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The People’s Vote campaign was ground zero for much of this. Reflecting their lack of political experience, the likes of Bray and Kay embraced the cause with a crude missionary zeal and made demands which far exceeded liberal boundaries. I will never forget, for example, the tendency of extreme People’s Vote supporters to aim for the jailing of prominent Brexiteers.

Such popularization of ideology is an established trend across the West and political scientists are divided over its merits. I appreciate arguments for its progressive variant – liberal democracy needs a base of popular defenders – yet am dubious about its record in Britain. Had people like Bray and Kay remained ideological innocents, I suspect our country would be the better for it. They encouraged participation among the unengaged, yet also promoted misunderstanding, conspiracy theories and division.

The second thing that struck me was the ethics of the People’s Vote campaign. If I have one criticism of the book, it is that Jones seldom reflects on this issue. The movement was, of course, highly controversial and I spent a long time thinking about its rights and wrongs. Certain issues became clearer on the campaign trail. In Llanelli, a post-industrial town which is now a Reform stronghold, one man promised me ‘a fucking riot if we don’t leave’.

These were fighting words and they stayed with me. Though one should never cede to threats of violence, I reflected on the man’s logic. Leave had won the 2016 referendum. During hundreds of conversations I had with voters prior to the referendum, not once had the prospect of a second vote come up. All along, the unspoken agreement had been that, if Leave won, the UK would leave the European Union. Though the People’s Vote campaign pointed to irregularities, they always ignored the biggest irregularity of all; the Cameron government had publicly supported and funded Remain. After the Llanelli event, my doubts overwhelmed me and I had no further involvement with the movement.

Indeed, I began to regard People’s Vote as a counter-productive and extreme campaign. Though the movement assumed a meek form – Jones vividly depicts its Waitrose and EU beret aesthetic – it was arguably a wolf in sheep’s clothing. A few weeks ago, Matthew Goodwin was widely (and rightly) excoriated for casting doubt on the integrity of the Gorton and Denton by-election result. With his strident tone and rabble-rousing media presence, it is easy to regard Goodwin as an enemy of liberal democracy. Yet the People’s Vote campaign had a much more sinister goal; the revocation of an entire referendum result. Had the movement succeeded, it would have dealt a body blow to British democracy. The current rise of angry populism is striking enough; a second referendum might have turbo charged this.

No Second Chances ends with the 2019 election. As its Waterloo approached, the People’s Vote campaign gave way to party-based electioneering and quickly fizzled out. I would have chosen an alternative ending. In 2024, the Liberal Democrats set out a four-stage roadmap to repair the ‘broken relationship’ with the EU. But as many observed, the party failed to support many of these steps when, in March 2019, the Commons held indicative votes on alternatives to the May Withdrawal Agreement. The People’s Vote campaign had moved the goalposts and its parliamentary supporters were in no mood for compromise. There are similar hypocrisies on the Labour benches.

Were it not for the People’s Vote campaign, Britain’s contemporary relationship with the EU would probably be closer. Rather than acknowledging the result of an epochal vote and working towards a compromise, the movement bet the house and lost spectacularly.

It may go down as one of the worst campaigns in British political history.

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For a summary of our motivations in writing this book, you can check out this post. Despite social justice ideology’s uniqueness and recent emergence, few scholars have studied the ideology using established academic theories and methods. In our opinion, this should change.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been busy promoting the book on other Substacks (explaining my recent inactivity here!). On Dan Williams’s Substack, we wrote an article which discusses why academics have been slow to study social justice ideology and, on my co-author Edmund King’s Substack, we published an extract from the book.

If you could support the book in any way, we’d be immensely grateful to you. And very soon, I’ll publish more posts (not necessarily about the book) on this Substack.

Yet much comment was more measured and thought-provoking. I received several interesting replies on X and the Oxford sociologist Colin Mills [hereafter C. Mills, to distinguish him from his near namesake J.S. Mill who also appears in this piece] amalgamated many of these objections in a Substack comment of almost 1,000 words. As with many X comments, C. Mills emphasized the right of Rowling to make such interventions,

‘[J.S.] Mill’s view is straightforward: a liberal society interferes with a person’s conduct or speech only when it causes harm to others. And [J.S.] Mill is emphatic that harm must be distinguished from offence. Hurt feelings, insult, shock, disgust or moral outrage do not count as harm; if they did, meaningful dissent would be impossible. On that understanding, I cannot see anything Rowling has said or advocated that breaches the harm principle.’

However, this concerns the right of Rowling to indulge in such discourse and I have never disputed this. The question of whether Rowling’s interventions are themselves liberal is a distinct one. In liberal societies, all citizens have an equal right to indulge in vituperative and offensive discourse, yet not all speech can be liberal in substance.

In other words, a thicker conception of liberalism is at stake. Later in his comments, C. Mills addresses this issue,

‘Kant and Rawls both stress the equal moral status of persons as free and rational agents... Kant, in fact, is severe on this point. Respect for persons consists in truthfulness and in recognising their rational agency, not in protecting them from discomfort. Indulging a belief one considers false is, for Kant, a failure of honesty, not an expression of respect. He expects civility of principle, not civility of tone. On that view, Rowling’s bluntness may be unwelcome, but it is not illiberal… Your appeal to “respect for dignity” needs the same clarification. If “dignity” simply refers to the equal moral standing of persons – the Kantian thought that individuals are ends in themselves – then nothing Rowling has said violates it.’

After Kant, numerous thinkers have expanded upon liberal conceptions of dignity and, in my opinion, Rowling’s proclivity for belittling transgender people, covered in the original piece, does violate these. Moreover, how exclusive are these criteria? Would such an understanding of liberalism exclude those who almost everyone would agree are not liberal? Let us imagine a GB News commentator who speaks about immigration for an hour, yet merely discusses the grooming gangs scandal and illegal boat crossings (both real phenomena) in an aggressive and binary fashion. Every one of their statements might be true and recognize the rational agency of subjects. Indeed, the commentator might consider their remarks to be a necessary means of disabusing opponents of false beliefs. Yet most people would not regard such a commentator as a liberal one. As I asserted in the original piece, liberal discourse organizes facts in a way which reflects concern with individual dignity and political pluralism; the commentator’s remarks would not meet these standards.

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How does Rowling compare to our hypothetical commentator? To be fair, her positions on the transgender issue do not consistently degrade transgender people, even if, as I argued in the original piece, she does this too often. Moreover, the question of her wider views complicates matters. To the best of my knowledge, Rowling’s positions on broader issues such as welfare and education policy remain liberal. Then again, she does not dedicate the great majority of her time to these other issues. And given the nature of her interventions on the issue on which she spends most of her time, regarding her as a liberal is difficult. The question of the truth of Rowling’s statements is something of a distraction. Countless statements about the world are true, as those of the GB News commentator might be; when diagnosing ideology, one is concerned with the organization of these statements.

Some argued that I was tone-policing. Mary Harrington emphasized the gendered nature of this issue. For Harrington, if women speak clearly on this issue they are condemned as ‘shrill’ or ‘hateful’; if they do not speak clearly enough, they are ignored.

I understand the concerns in this area, yet do not regard them as sufficient grounds for abandoning the analysis of tone. In politics, tone is highly revealing. For example, numerous studies find that Manichean and aggressive tones are associated with extremism. When the Sun newspaper sensationalizes a delicate issue or a Member of Parliament (MP) makes a spittle-flecked speech, their tone is rightly scrutinized; it is inseparable from the nature of the message. Rowling is a major figure and her X posts have a broadly equivalent reach to the Sun newspaper or the MP; analysis of her tone is entirely legitimate.

Such attention to the social context in which ideological discourse take place reflects my preference for Freeden’s semantic approach, rather than approaches rooted in political theory. Crucially, Freeden’s approach encourages analysis of what is, in my opinion, the driver of Rowling’s trajectory: focus on the single-issue.

As C. Mills says, focus on single issues is not in itself incompatible with liberalism. However, there is clear potential for the single issue to override all other concerns. In the last few decades, it is easy to think of single-issue movements (e.g. new atheism, the People’s Vote and Extinction Rebellion) which have overstepped liberal-democratic boundaries. In my opinion, this reflects the logic of the single issue; because of its importance, other considerations become secondary.

Correctly, C. Mills reminds us that Rowling has not explicitly called for measures which contravene liberal-democratic standards. Yet the tendencies which I underlined in the original piece – the Manichean tone, the simplification of complex issues, the identification of enemies – are classic symptoms of the single-issue campaign which, if not adequately constrained by liberal-democratic procedure, becomes quite dangerous. Future public inquiries into gender services for children may well be necessary and consistent with liberal principles of justice, yet they would be far from straightforward. And in cases in which similar processes have taken place – I am very interested in processes of historic justice in post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe – those who deal in Rowling’s rhetoric have not tended to advance the liberal cause.

Overall, Rowling’s case is ambiguous. Clearly, she is far from being unequivocally illiberal; as we have noted, her stances on many issues are straightforwardly liberal ones. Yet her binary approach, willingness to deprecate transgender people and laser-like focus on this issue mean that, in my opinion, she is no longer a liberal public figure.

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But over five years after the publication of the essay, I have been looking for an opportunity to take stock of the evolution of Rowling’s stance, the state of this broader topic and the implications from an ideological perspective. Last week, Rowling published a shorter essay on X which, in my opinion, illustrates some of the ways in which her position has changed. As I will argue, I have reservations about these changes and, given Rowling’s 2020 views were a reference point for my own, would like to set out my grounds of disagreement. Though many others have analysed Rowling’s changing stance (often in hostile terms), I hope that my particular perspective (still somewhat sympathetic, but critical) will be of interest.

To do this, we must analyse the basis of Rowling’s stance(s). On one level, the gender-critical position is a set of attitudes. Answering the YouGov questions in the table below, the Rowling of 2020 and 2025 would disagree with almost every question. As the table shows, high proportions of the British public have similar attitudes to Rowling, as do I.

Yet taken in isolation, attitudes convey limited information. Rather, their organization (or not) with distinct ideologies is more important and, considering this question, we may usefully apply Freeden’s morphological approach to ideology. This stipulates that ideologies have core, adjacent and periphery concepts which ideologues (a non-pejorative term here) combine in different ways. Conservatism, for example, combines core concepts such as organic change with adjacent concepts such as patriotism. Alternatively, liberalism combines core concepts such as freedom and individual fulfilment with adjacent concepts such as democracy and equality.

Several ideologies are consistent with disagreement with the YouGov questions. For example, radical right populists and conservatives would also disagree with them. Yet in the case of Rowling’s 2020 essay, I was attracted by its liberalism. Individual fulfilment is a core liberal concept and, in her essay, Rowling emphasized the right of transgender people to live safe and happy lives. There might be certain conflicts with the rights of biological women, yet these could be resolved through careful trade-offs, as is customary in liberal democracies. She spoke of a transgender woman friend (‘I’ve always found it hard to think of her as anything other than a woman’) and asserted that transgender people deserved respect and protection,

‘I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection. Like women, they’re most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. Like every other domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor I know, I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who’ve been abused by men… I want trans women to be safe.’

Elsewhere, Rowling expanded on this. In an X (then Twitter) post during the same period, she promised to ‘march with [trans people if they] were discriminated against on the basis of being trans.’

More broadly, the 2020 essay was an assertion of the right to dissent. At the time, disagreement with transgender rights activists was very difficult; dissenters could be sacked and/or subject to physical threats. Of course, the right to dissent is fundamental to liberalism, part of the core concept of freedom. From Thomas Paine to Anna Politkovskaya, many liberal heroes have refused to submit to authoritarians and, in its firm but measured manner, Rowling’s essay was in this tradition,

‘It would be so much easier to tweet the approved hashtags – because of course trans rights are human rights and of course trans lives matter – scoop up the woke cookies and bask in a virtue-signalling afterglow… Huge numbers of women are justifiably terrified by the trans activists; I know this because so many have got in touch with me to tell their stories. They’re afraid of doxxing, of losing their jobs or their livelihoods, and of violence. But endlessly unpleasant as its constant targeting of me has been, I refuse to bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm.’

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Five years is a long time. Since then, Rowling has faced abuse which I cannot imagine. In November 2021, she wrote of having ‘received so many death threats I could paper the house with them’. Here, I have nothing but sympathy for Rowling and appreciate that such experiences can focus one’s mind. Nonetheless, those of us who agreed with her in 2020 are under no obligation to continue doing so. Legitimately, we may ask whether Rowling has stuck to the liberalism which characterized her initial interventions.

In recent years, one is struck by the extent of Rowling’s focus on this issue. For example, about three quarters of her recent X output concerns the transgender issue. In itself, concentration on a single topic does not herald a move from liberalism; many single-issue groups are liberal.

Yet in practice, one worries that laser focus on a single issue can lead away from liberalism. Typically, single-issue communities argue that their cause is of the utmost importance. If this is not the case, why invest so much time in it? But from a philosophical perspective, such attempts are problematic. As Marius Ostrowski notes, reality is multi-faceted and narrow ideological readings can never capture its complexity. In the case of the gender-critical movement, there are obvious objections. What about an existential threat such as climate change? What about international conflicts? What about socio-economic equality? Rowling’s cause is an important one, yet it has multiple competitors and some of them are more important.

But to maintain the impression of hyper-salience, the single-issue campaigner must present their cause in Manichean terms which attempt to force one to pick a side, thus expanding the conflict. For years, progressive activists such as Greta Thunberg have used such tactics. In last week’s essay, Rowling struck a similar note,

‘Either a man can be a woman, or he can’t. Either women deserve rights, or they don’t. Either there’s a provable medical benefit to transitioning children, or there isn’t. Either you’re on the side of a totalitarian ideology that seeks to impose falsehoods on society through the threat of ostracisation, shaming and violence, or you’re not. The alternative to being ‘blunt’ - using accurate, factual language to describe what was going on - was to surrender freedom of speech and espouse ideological jargon that obfuscated the issues and the harms caused. We’ve always needed blunt people, but we need them most of all when being asked to bow down to a naked emperor.’

Here, the logic of the single issue leads Rowling away from liberalism. Reflecting their pluralism, liberals should be suspicious of attempts to divide society into rival groups, precluding compromise. In this case, Rowling conflates the genuinely binary matter of biological sex with ones concerning women’s rights and the importance of the transgender issue which are much more complicated.

We may have broader questions. What if people do not regard transgender rights as an immediate priority? As we have noted, the world faces multiple challenges, many of which are more important than the transgender issue. What if people do not want to speak publicly about this topic? The tone of the debate is scarcely attractive and liberalism also stands for the right to remain silent. What if the silence of some reflects their commitment to other campaigns which they do not wish to jeopardize? What if the success of the gender-critical movement conflicts with liberal-democratic rights? In the event of a public inquiry into gender services for children, one would worry about Rowling’s (‘the doctors involved [should] all be in jail’) priorities.

In other ways, Rowling’s position has hardened. The respect for the dignity of transgender people, evident in the 2020 essay and part of liberalism’s core concept of individual fulfilment, has receded. On several occasions, she has dismissed transgender people in derogatory terms – referring to a transgender woman as a ‘man’ is far from the language of her 2020 essay – and exposed individuals with no public profile to the ire of her 13 million X followers.

Unfortunately, this is a broader trend in the gender-critical movement. The case of Graham Linehan, whose negative partisanship has even led him to troubling positions on other issues, is the most extreme. Certainly, Rowling has not gone as far as this and, of course, is not responsible for Linehan’s positions, yet the pattern is clear. Rather than being organized with liberalism, gender-critical attitudes are increasingly being arranged with conservative and/or authoritarian ideologies.

What happened to the movement of dissenting liberals, embodied in Rowling’s 2020 essay? Several factors have played a role, not least the appalling behaviour of some of the movement’s opponents, yet one notices the changed societal dynamics. In 2020, the gender-critical campaign was a movement of plucky underdogs; the law, media and political classes were broadly against it.

This is no longer the case. The law has become more favourable and the media is more sympathetic. In politics, the case of the UK Labour Party is illustrative. In 2020, transgender rights activists were ascendant in the party and few dared oppose them vocally. In 2025, the party has adopted several gender-critical positions. I am aware that the picture is not unambiguous – in sectors such as academia and the arts, conditions remain difficult – but, overall, the gender-critical campaign is winning.

Yet the movement is struggling to come to terms with its success. An odd dynamic prevails; the environment is becoming friendlier, yet the campaign is becoming more militant. As with other movements – the parallels with the 2010s LGBTQ+ rights campaign are strong – the gender-critical movement has struggled to come to terms with its success. As worthy victories have been won, a large and energetic movement has found it difficult to pause. Rather, momentum has taken it to less defensible causes and tactics.

Some of Rowling’s 2020 admirers will agree with such strategies. Others will not and have the right to dissent.

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But over five years after the publication of the essay, I have been looking for an opportunity to take stock of the evolution of Rowling’s stance, the state of this broader topic and the implications from an ideological perspective. Last week, Rowling published a shorter essay on X which, in my opinion, illustrates some of the ways in which her position has changed. As I will argue, I have reservations about these changes and, given Rowling’s 2020 views were a reference point for my own, would like to set out my grounds of disagreement. Though many others have analysed Rowling’s changing stance (often in hostile terms), I hope that my particular perspective (still somewhat sympathetic, but critical) will be of interest.

To do this, we must analyse the basis of Rowling’s stance(s). On one level, the gender-critical position is a set of attitudes. Answering the YouGov questions in the table below, the Rowling of 2020 and 2025 would disagree with almost every question. As the table shows, high proportions of the British public have similar attitudes to Rowling, as do I.

Yet taken in isolation, attitudes convey limited information. Rather, their organization (or not) with distinct ideologies is more important and, considering this question, we may usefully apply Freeden’s morphological approach to ideology. This stipulates that ideologies have core, adjacent and periphery concepts which ideologues (a non-pejorative term here) combine in different ways. Conservatism, for example, combines core concepts such as organic change with adjacent concepts such as patriotism. Alternatively, liberalism combines core concepts such as freedom and individual fulfilment with adjacent concepts such as democracy and equality.

Several ideologies are consistent with disagreement with the YouGov questions. For example, radical right populists and conservatives would also disagree with them. Yet in the case of Rowling’s 2020 essay, I was attracted by its liberalism. Individual fulfilment is a core liberal concept and, in her essay, Rowling emphasized the right of transgender people to live safe and happy lives. There might be certain conflicts with the rights of biological women, yet these could be resolved through careful trade-offs, as is customary in liberal democracies. She spoke of a transgender woman friend (‘I’ve always found it hard to think of her as anything other than a woman’) and asserted that transgender people deserved respect and protection,

‘I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection. Like women, they’re most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. Like every other domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor I know, I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who’ve been abused by men… I want trans women to be safe.’

Elsewhere, Rowling expanded on this. In an X (then Twitter) post during the same period, she promised to ‘march with [trans people if they] were discriminated against on the basis of being trans.’

More broadly, the 2020 essay was an assertion of the right to dissent. At the time, disagreement with transgender rights activists was very difficult; dissenters could be sacked and/or subject to physical threats. Of course, the right to dissent is fundamental to liberalism, part of the core concept of freedom. From Thomas Paine to Anna Politkovskaya, many liberal heroes have refused to submit to authoritarians and, in its firm but measured manner, Rowling’s essay was in this tradition,

‘It would be so much easier to tweet the approved hashtags – because of course trans rights are human rights and of course trans lives matter – scoop up the woke cookies and bask in a virtue-signalling afterglow… Huge numbers of women are justifiably terrified by the trans activists; I know this because so many have got in touch with me to tell their stories. They’re afraid of doxxing, of losing their jobs or their livelihoods, and of violence. But endlessly unpleasant as its constant targeting of me has been, I refuse to bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm.’

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Five years is a long time. Since then, Rowling has faced abuse which I cannot imagine. In November 2021, she wrote of having ‘received so many death threats I could paper the house with them’. Here, I have nothing but sympathy for Rowling and appreciate that such experiences can focus one’s mind. Nonetheless, those of us who agreed with her in 2020 are under no obligation to continue doing so. Legitimately, we may ask whether Rowling has stuck to the liberalism which characterized her initial interventions.

In recent years, one is struck by the extent of Rowling’s focus on this issue. For example, about three quarters of her recent X output concerns the transgender issue. In itself, concentration on a single topic does not herald a move from liberalism; many single-issue groups are liberal.

Yet in practice, one worries that laser focus on a single issue can lead away from liberalism. Typically, single-issue communities argue that their cause is of the utmost importance. If this is not the case, why invest so much time in it? But from a philosophical perspective, such attempts are problematic. As Marius Ostrowski notes, reality is multi-faceted and narrow ideological readings can never capture its complexity. In the case of the gender-critical movement, there are obvious objections. What about an existential threat such as climate change? What about international conflicts? What about socio-economic equality? Rowling’s cause is an important one, yet it has multiple competitors and some of them are more important.

But to maintain the impression of hyper-salience, the single-issue campaigner must present their cause in Manichean terms which attempt to force one to pick a side, thus expanding the conflict. For years, progressive activists such as Greta Thunberg have used such tactics. In last week’s essay, Rowling struck a similar note,

‘Either a man can be a woman, or he can’t. Either women deserve rights, or they don’t. Either there’s a provable medical benefit to transitioning children, or there isn’t. Either you’re on the side of a totalitarian ideology that seeks to impose falsehoods on society through the threat of ostracisation, shaming and violence, or you’re not. The alternative to being ‘blunt’ - using accurate, factual language to describe what was going on - was to surrender freedom of speech and espouse ideological jargon that obfuscated the issues and the harms caused. We’ve always needed blunt people, but we need them most of all when being asked to bow down to a naked emperor.’

Here, the logic of the single issue leads Rowling away from liberalism. Reflecting their pluralism, liberals should be suspicious of attempts to divide society into rival groups, precluding compromise. In this case, Rowling conflates the genuinely binary matter of biological sex with ones concerning women’s rights and the importance of the transgender issue which are much more complicated.

We may have broader questions. What if people do not regard transgender rights as an immediate priority? As we have noted, the world faces multiple challenges, many of which are more important than the transgender issue. What if people do not want to speak publicly about this topic? The tone of the debate is scarcely attractive and liberalism also stands for the right to remain silent. What if the silence of some reflects their commitment to other campaigns which they do not wish to jeopardize? What if the success of the gender-critical movement conflicts with liberal-democratic rights? In the event of a public inquiry into gender services for children, one would worry about Rowling’s (‘the doctors involved [should] all be in jail’) priorities.

In other ways, Rowling’s position has hardened. The respect for the dignity of transgender people, evident in the 2020 essay and part of liberalism’s core concept of individual fulfilment, has receded. On several occasions, she has dismissed transgender people in derogatory terms – referring to a transgender woman as a ‘man’ is far from the language of her 2020 essay – and exposed individuals with no public profile to the ire of her 13 million X followers.

Unfortunately, this is a broader trend in the gender-critical movement. The case of Graham Linehan, whose negative partisanship has even led him to troubling positions on other issues, is the most extreme. Certainly, Rowling has not gone as far as this and, of course, is not responsible for Linehan’s positions, yet the pattern is clear. Rather than being organized with liberalism, gender-critical attitudes are increasingly being arranged with conservative and/or authoritarian ideologies.

What happened to the movement of dissenting liberals, embodied in Rowling’s 2020 essay? Several factors have played a role, not least the appalling behaviour of some of the movement’s opponents, yet one notices the changed societal dynamics. In 2020, the gender-critical campaign was a movement of plucky underdogs; the law, media and political classes were broadly against it.

This is no longer the case. The law has become more favourable and the media is more sympathetic. In politics, the case of the UK Labour Party is illustrative. In 2020, transgender rights activists were ascendant in the party and few dared oppose them vocally. In 2025, the party has adopted several gender-critical positions. I am aware that the picture is not unambiguous – in sectors such as academia and the arts, conditions remain difficult – but, overall, the gender-critical campaign is winning.

Yet the movement is struggling to come to terms with its success. An odd dynamic prevails; the environment is becoming friendlier, yet the campaign is becoming more militant. As with other movements – the parallels with the 2010s LGBTQ+ rights campaign are strong – the gender-critical movement has struggled to come to terms with its success. As worthy victories have been won, a large and energetic movement has found it difficult to pause. Rather, momentum has taken it to less defensible causes and tactics.

Some of Rowling’s 2020 admirers will agree with such strategies. Others will not and have the right to dissent.

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Sophisticated critiques of the electoral efficiency of Labour’s position cite two types of empirical studies. Firstly, there are international studies of the response of mainstream parties to the radical right. Though some argue that such studies demonstrate that social-democratic concessions to the radical right backfire, I need more convincing. Key studies tend not to arrive at firm conclusions about the influence of immigration salience and mainstream concessions. Indeed, one study finds that concessions to voters who have defected to the radical right can work, albeit at a high price. Older literature also suggests that mainstream concessions to niche parties can be effective.

Secondly, there are studies of the profiles of voters who supported Labour in the 2024 general election. Reflecting their narrower focus, these studies paint a clearer picture. In an important piece which uses data from the May 2025 British Election Study (BES), Jane Green and Marta Miori show that low proportions of Labour’s 2024 voting bloc are potential Reform switchers,

‘The vast majority of 2024 Labour voters and those lost since the election to other parties and “undecided” are not predisposed to vote for Reform… few Reform supporters have voted for Labour at any point in the 21^st century… just after May’s 2025 local elections, 18.9% of 2024 Labour voters said they were undecided, 9.4% would vote Liberal Democrat, 8.3% would vote Green, and just 7.9% said they would vote for Reform UK.’

But whatever the clarity of these data, strategic implications are not straightforward. Presently, Labour is performing very poorly in the polls – recent polls have put them as low as 17% and left-liberal critics regularly cite such results – but I am unconvinced that more liberal strategies would be more electorally successful.

Currently, incumbency in Britain is very challenging. Beyond the difficult economic conditions, low partisan identification has made party support more volatile; recent Conservative governments also suffered from this problem. Being in government entails making unpopular decisions and, even if Labour were adopting more liberal stances on immigration, they would probably be losing left-wing votes on issues such as the economy and Gaza war. Every previous Labour government has had bitter left-wing critics.

Generally, voters do not adopt liberal positions on immigration. According to the latest BES data, the mean score for British voters on a 0-10 self-reporting immigration attitudes scale (with liberal views scored high) is 3.11. Fewer than 20% of voters report above 5 and, even among (self-identified) left-wingers, the mean is only 5.18. Moreover, few left-wingers seem to be very concerned about immigration, only 6.05% identifying it as a most important issue; for right-wingers, the figure is 38.88%. This is consistent with YouGov’s regular polling, even if, as a British Social Attitudes report shows, voters take more liberal positions on specific policies.

Arguably, critics overlook the pressure for more restrictive policies from Labour MPs. If one is a Downsian – and much of political science is predicated on this – one must acknowledge the tendency for party positions to reflect voter preferences. Why are many Labour MPs, with their full mailboxes and careers on the line, recommending more restrictive positions? Their views may not be infallible, yet cannot be dismissed lightly.

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Of course, arguments about electoral efficiency are complemented by arguments about ethics; left-liberals have long made cases for open and humane immigration policies. Recently, such arguments have responded to developments on the right. In the past year, right-wing rhetoric has become considerably harder. Calls for the deportation of legal migrants, once confined to fringes, now appear with alarming frequency. The rise of Reform reflects such radicalization but, potentially more significantly, parts of the Conservative Party have begun to adopt it. Recently, Katie Lam, a Home Office shadow minister and rising Conservative star, proposed that legally settled immigrants should be deported to make the country ‘culturally coherent’. I share left-liberal concerns about such discourse and policies and wish for these trends to be reversed. For me, it is personal; my wife is a Polish immigrant with settled status.

Coupling ethical concerns with their reading of the electoral situation, certain left-liberals advocate unequivocal responses. In a stimulating and widely-read piece on ‘reactionary centrism’, Toby Buckle cautions against accommodation,

‘This desire to meet the hard right halfway, to find a middle point, is hopelessly exploitable. In an age of radicalisation, you simply get pulled further and further to the right, while tacitly validating those values at every step… Affluent countries the world over are balkanising into fascist and anti-fascist factions. One must simply pick a side… Starmer is—though you would never guess it—the captain of the liberal team. His job is not to find consensus, but to hold his own coalition together.’

Yet this is not social-democratic language. Traditionally, social democrats seek compromise and, in this area, there is a strong case for it. As we have seen, immigration is broadly unpopular in Britain. High rates of recent immigration can scarcely be ignored. According to the Office for National Statistics, net migration for the year ending June 2023 was over 900,000. This was a steep rise on previous years and is excessive. Left-liberal critics of Starmer could be more specific about figures. Is there a level of immigration which would be too high and electorally counterproductive? If so, what is it?

Left-liberal complaints about the right-wing media are common – in Buckle’s article, they feature prominently – yet are unconvincing. Not only do such arguments tend to overstate the role of media – to a great extent, the media reflects public opinion – but right-wing media is a long-term feature of the British political environment and must be factored into strategy.

In these conditions, the government’s existing policies to reduce immigration, such as those set out in May’s immigration white paper and the steps against unauthorised migration, appear broadly reasonable, as does the appointment of Shabana Mahmood as Home Secretary. Combined with opposition to radical right-wing discourse – the recent remarks of Starmer and Mahmood about Reform, in contrast to the ill-judged ‘island of strangers’ speech, have been important – such a strategy should give Labour its best chance of realizing its long-term goal: a 2029 election which is fought on public services and the economy, rather than immigration.

Quite aside from the electoral interests of the Labour Party, this may be in the national interest. Historically, British policymakers have prized moderation and judicious concessions. Currently, the topic of immigration cries out for such an approach; parts of society are highly dissatisfied and there is risk of disorder. I have not been optimistic about the ability of the Starmer project to transcend electoral self-interest, yet perhaps incumbency is exerting such an influence.

I hope, at least, that this is the case. In our polarized times, moderation has become unfashionable; but in this area, it seems more necessary than ever.

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Despite the centrality of the cat, it distracts us from the meaning of these sentiments. In reality, such commentary is about female childlessness and its ideological implications. As the culture war has intensified, competing visions of the family (or lack of one) have become central to it. In contrast to the ‘childless cat lady’, figures such as Vance favour large and patriotic families with traditional gender roles. On social media, the ideal of the conservative ‘tradwife’ contrasts with the progressive cat lady.

Beyond social media caricatures, the ‘heterodox’ commentators who share certain sympathies with Vance have made interesting arguments about parenthood and ideology. Some assert that lack of children encourages emotional immaturity, underlining neurotic trends in progressive ideologies. Others stress the influence of motherhood in inculcating resistance to progressive ideologies; parenthood involves duty and obligation and such values are central to conservatism.

To be sure, hypotheses about parenthood and ideology are crucial and, in various forms, scholars have long debated these topics. Such arguments tend to focus on women, yet one should not forget men; fatherhood can be equally transformative. However, heterodox arguments have considerable problems. Journalists advance many of these and such commentators lack familiarity with academic methods. A community of heterodox scholars has emerged, but many of these figures indulge in polemics and/or fail to use data and conventional methods.

Admittedly, established academia has its own problems with this issue. Though some work exists on progressive ideology and parenthood – a 2009 qualitative account argues that the experience of not being a mother can involve a sense of social exclusion, potentially kindling radicalism – this scholarship tends not to engage with recent developments in progressive ideology. As heterodox commentators grasp, recent changes in such ideologies have been profound.

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Our forthcoming book addresses such gaps. Within the broad tent of progressive ideologies, we distinguish between social justice ideology (others call this ‘wokeness’) – this emphasizes identity and anti-capitalist direct action and extends conceptions of harm – and liberalism; this stresses freedom, the common and equal basis of political participation and the legitimacy of rules.

Most of the book does not concern parenthood, yet some of our data speak to this debate. Generally, investigating the relationship between progressive ideologies and parenthood is challenging. Beyond the lack of established indices for measuring social justice ideology – we favour the recently developed Progressive Values Scale (PVS), yet this does not feature in established surveys – many surveys do not have suitable items on parenthood.

To address such problems, we fielded our own surveys in the US and UK which featured the PVS and items on parenthood. This investigation did not attempt to establish causality – the (quasi-)experimental manipulation of parenthood is next to impossible – but aimed to establish associations. Crucially, the PVS uses a sample of progressives (i.e. supporters of social justice ideology and/or liberalism); this means that the variable of age, which has a strong association with parenthood, has less influence on results than in samples of the general population in which there are major age differences between progressives and conservatives. Moreover, this approach enables comparison of tendencies within progressive ideologies, many associating the influence of childlessness with social justice ideology, rather than liberalism.

In both the US and UK, childlessness does not have a statistically significant relationship with social justice values. In other models, we created an interaction term between female gender and childlessness, this measuring whether the combination of childlessness and female gender increases the likelihood of respondents supporting social justice ideology. As with childlessness, the interaction term failed to achieve statistical significance.

We undertook similar analysis with the British Election Study (BES). This uses a sample of the wider British electorate, enabling comparison of progressives and conservatives, and, with its culture war index, measures social justice ideology differently. Though childlessness is associated with social justice values, the size of the effect is limited and, as noted above, also reflects the influence of age. Crucially, the interaction term between female gender and childlessness does not achieve statistical significance. Results for the BES liberalism index are similar. Overall, we find little evidence of a relationship between childlessness and progressive values.

The interpretation of such results requires caution. In an era of replication crises, single studies (though we analysed several datasets) are regarded as unreliable and this area has particular issues; for example, researchers disagree on appropriate measurements of social justice ideology and, to a lesser degree, liberalism. Quantitative methods have limits. Famously, such methods have difficulty with small numbers of cases. Potentially, the experience of childlessness may be important in certain cases and qualitative investigations, similar to those undertaken years ago, might ascertain this.

Whether such research will emerge is another question. About five years ago, when social justice ideology was growing quickly in influence, heterodox commentators made crucial points about emerging phenomena; the theory of luxury beliefs is another example. At that stage, hypotheses (rather than data) were welcome and acceptable; such phenomena were new, there had been no time to undertake empirical research and established academics were responding at an unsatisfactory pace.

As time has gone on, such hypotheses have gained much wider audiences, Vance’s comments reflecting this. But despite their popularity, evidence for such hypotheses remains unsatisfactory. One cannot entirely blame this dearth of evidence on the heterodox movement – the community has limited resources and, as I say above, this also reflects problems with established academia – yet this movement makes greatest use of such concepts.

And when longstanding theories have limited evidential bases, this becomes a problem.

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But after some time on the site, a more developed appraisal of Bluesky is possible. Given the very progressive profile of its users, the site has long attracted the charge that it is an ‘echo chamber’. People have different positions on this but, after a year on Bluesky, I have noticed something interesting. Rather than merely attracting progressives, the site appears to be making users more progressive and ideologically constrained (the latter refers to the restriction of the range of views which it is acceptable to hold). Often, Bluesky achieves this through pile-ons which act as examples to others and, recently, two people I know were subject to these.

Bluesky is far from the only site on which this is happening – as many observe, there are similar trends among conservatives on X – yet its case is a unique phenomenon and merits our attention. Specifically, I am interested in the case of Bluesky in the light of wider challenges to progressive ideology. However one understands progressive ideology – as regular readers will know, I distinguish between social justice ideology (which emphasizes identity and direct action and extends concepts of harm) and liberalism (which stresses freedom, the equal basis of political participation and the legitimacy of rules) yet regard both as progressive – its challenges are considerable.

Since its high-water mark of 2020, social justice ideology has struggled with popularity and some have declared its demise. This may be overstated – as we argue in our forthcoming book – yet the ideology has undoubted problems with public acceptance. For example, the campaign for transgender self-identification has long been unpopular and, as voters have become more aware of relevant issues, this trend seems to have accelerated.

The case of liberalism is more complex. Since the 2000s, this ideology has been showing its age – to some extent, this explains the rise of social justice ideology in the 2010s – but, in recent years, problems have accumulated. These issues are diverse – the success of Trump’s attacks on liberal democracy reflect weaknesses of liberalism – yet liberal positions on immigration have been the most vulnerable to challenges. On this issue, public opinion is often unfavourable and the topic has become more salient. Across the West, liberals are struggling to defend historic achievements.

In such circumstances, how do/should ideologies react? Many on Bluesky advocate ‘doubling down’, i.e. reasserting central tenets and bringing the fight to opponents. As we have seen, progressive radicalism and constraint are prominent features of the site. Certainly, there are historical precedents which support this approach. During inter-war crises, many progressives held firm and were rewarded with post-war hegemony. But as ever, historical comparisons are problematic. Today’s progressive movements are very different from such forebears. Many of us doubt that contemporary attacks on liberal democracy have the vigour of the 1930s and, in any case, post-war liberalism was very different to the pre-war variety, reflecting critiques of pre-war liberalism.

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And a future renaissance of progressive ideologies is not inevitable. One would be brave to predict the end of all progressive ideologies – liberalism is hundreds of years old and has survived many crises – yet parts of contemporary progressive ideologies have long-term problems with public acceptance. From this perspective, less charitable interpretations of Bluesky are possible.

For certain scholars, ideologies go from youth, in which they are vigorous challengers; to mid-life, in which they are dominant and accepted as common sense; to old age, in which they are moribund and assailed by challengers. How does an ‘old’ ideology behave? Often, there is a tendency to deny the difficulty of external conditions and reassert old certainties among sympathetic fellows. In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn wrote about the end of scientific paradigms in similar terms. This behaviour is tempting; it is easier than confronting and negotiating difficult conditions.

In the age of social media, progressives have unprecedented opportunities to associate with like-minded people. Bluesky might be interpreted in these terms. As we have seen, one of the central dynamics of the site is the reassertion of those progressive beliefs which are under the greatest external threat. For many users, no ground may be conceded on issues such as immigration and transgender rights and the mere suggestion of this places one outside the fold. In the UK, the problems of this approach are particularly apparent; it involves bitter and quotidian opposition to the first social-democratic government in years.

Institutions perform multiple functions and Bluesky is no exception. But interpreting the site as a space of progressive consolation, i.e. one in which progressives convince each other that no concessions need be made to profound external challenges, resolves a key riddle of the site.

Of course, the adoption of such positions (or any) is the prerogative of Bluesky users and I admire individuals who dig their heels in; the tendency to follow political fashions is undesirable and a key charge against Starmer. However, I am less impressed when people impose constraint on others and, more broadly, suspect that progressives are making key strategic mistakes; successful movements make concessions to the times. If Democrats are to resist Trump’s attacks on liberal democracy successfully (as I sincerely hope), the party would do better to be a broad church.

Admittedly, conservatives are undergoing similar processes of radicalization on X and I agree that these are much more sinister. Yet this is a separate issue. Such processes may entail certain problems for conservatives – some have observed the tendency of politicians to mistake opinion on X for popular sentiment – but, currently, conservatives do not seem to have such systematic challenges with public opinion.

Recently, Bluesky has had problems with engagement, some asserting that the site is in terminal decline. Arguably, this reflects the problems which I have discussed in this piece. Despite these challenges, there is little prospect of a mass return to X and, in the medium term, sites like Bluesky will be with us.

Whether they are good for progressive movements is another question.

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Yet such authors do not address a more difficult question: the extent to which ‘wokeness’ – or, as we prefer, social justice ideology – represents a new cleavage among progressives. Liberals would certainly condemn the racism directed at Meynell’s friend but would differ from supporters of social justice ideology in several areas. For example, both would agree that statues of slave traders should not be on public display, yet would disagree on whether appeals to authorities or direct action against the statues themselves would be appropriate. Both would agree that speakers who praise colonialism are offensive, yet would disagree on whether such speakers should be tolerated or no-platformed on university campuses. Both would agree that minority cultures should be respected, yet would disagree on whether someone wearing ‘native’ dress (at a costume party, for instance) amounts to ‘harmful’ cultural appropriation.

On the other hand, an anti-woke camp emphasizes the distinctiveness of ‘wokeness’ and its threat to liberal democracy and/or the West. Intellectually, a ‘heterodox’ movement defends this position and is becoming increasingly organized; this June, the Buckingham Heterodox Social Sciences Conference featured key figures from the movement and there are plans for an annual event.

Yet this school has considerable problems. Many researchers bear the scars of cancellations and, mirroring patterns in those social justice fields which they criticize, can end up adopting activist stances with little empirical support and/or engagement with academic theories. The inclusion of anti-woke polemicists with minimal academic credentials – such figures were prominent at the 2025 Heterodox Conference – further reduces credibility.

Given these problems, we argue that there is a need for academic literature which investigates social justice ideology from an analytic perspective. Pace certain left-liberals, such work would recognize the distinctiveness of social justice ideology. Pace certain heterodox scholars, such work would adopt an impartial tone and be anchored in empirical evidence. Research on radical right populism is a striking example of the potential of analytic work to contribute to the study of ideology. Across hundreds (if not thousands) of studies, researchers have established both the support base and economic and cultural drivers behind this particular ideology.

In our new book, Beyond Woke and Anti-Woke: Explaining the Rise of Social Justice Ideology, Edmund King and I develop such an analysis of social justice ideology, building on our expertise in ideology, political economy, employment relations and digital culture studies. This entails the development of appropriate measures of social justice ideology. Using multiple surveys such as the American National Election Study, British Election Study and Cooperative Election Study, we develop scales which complement existing ones such as the Progressive Values Scale.

This enables us to identify the drivers of social justice ideology. In recent decades, the West has undergone profound demographic change. Mass higher education has spread progressive values. As women have entered public life, the feminine-coded values of care and equality have become much more influential. Mass migration has made societies more racially diverse. Gradually, this has created the preconditions for ideological change. Our analysis shows that demographic variables such as female gender, youth, education and race have strong and consistent associations with support for social justice ideology. The relationship with youth is particularly conspicuous, being prominent across datasets.

Demography alone does not make ideological change inevitable, yet an ideology which corresponded with the needs of such groups predated such trends. For decades, social justice ideology had been popular in parts of academia. Slowly, its appeal widened, particularly in sociocultural sectors. Though data show an ambiguous link between economic variables and social justice values, the 2008 Great Recession had a disruptive effect. Among certain groups, it discredited important parts of the justificatory frameworks of both capitalism and liberalism, encouraging the search for an alternative ideology. The rise of social media tipped the balance in favour of social justice ideology.

Crucially, social justice ideology met wider social needs, facilitating its emergence as a mass ideology. Following the 2008 financial crash, capitalism faced a generational legitimacy crisis. Social justice ideology (or at least a diluted version) is such an alternative, renewing the spirit of capitalism; therefore, corporations ran advertising campaigns and undertook audits inspired by parts of social justice ideology, despite tensions with the preferences of some consumers.

Certain political trends were complementary. In recent years, the electoral successes of radical right populists have threatened liberal democracy, creating a need for defence mechanisms. To some extent, social justice ideology offers such a defence; certain surveys indicate that supporters of the ideology tend to hold pro-democratic values and social justice movements have undertaken important mobilizations against radical right populism.

Publication and promotion

Bristol University Press (BUP) will publish the book in February 2026 and it is now available on preorder. As is customary with academic publishers, the book will be initially published as a hardback (i.e. with a price aimed at libraries), but a much cheaper Kindle/electronic version will be available at the time of publication and, in February 2027, BUP will publish a cheaper paperback. The book is aimed at an academic readership, yet we have tried to make the book as accessible as possible and hope for many non-academic readers.

Prior to its publication, we are very keen to promote the book. If you are interested and feeling very kind, you could do a few things…

• Obviously, you can buy the book. If you are an academic, please think about ordering copies for your library. If you are outside of academia, do consider getting the Kindle version or (when it comes out) the paperback version. On this Substack and elsewhere, there will be periodic discounts of the book; do look out for these.

• You could also help promote the book more broadly. We would be extremely grateful for amplifications of this Substack post on platforms such as X and Bluesky.

• We also hope that the book will be featured in podcasts, conferences and newspaper/journal reviews. If you would be interested in helping with this, I would be more than happy to send you an advance copy; just get in touch!

Recently, there was also the 40^th anniversary of the 1984-85 miners’ strike. This event is central to Welsh/British industrial history – despite an 11-month strike, the miners were defeated and coal mines eventually closed – and there was an exhibition at the Welsh National Museum. Entry was just £3, the museum is on the way to my office and, during the exhibition’s six month run, I went three times.

Naturally, I reflected on the similarities and differences between these actions and some of my thoughts are relevant to this Substack’s focus on progressive ideologies and the political economy. Of course, differences between mining and academia are profound and my own interest in mining does not reflect first-hand experience. I come from mining stock – my brother is researching our family tree and has found five ancestors who died following mining accidents/illnesses linked to the occupation – yet have no direct experience of life in such communities. Indeed, my upbringing and life in middle-class Wales could scarcely be more different.

There are also differences between the trade unionism of miners and public sector workers – technically, UK academics are not public sector workers, yet effectively they belong in this category – and these differences are nowhere starker than in the treatment of those who cross picket lines. During the miners’ strike, ‘scabs’ were the enemy. If a miner crossed the line, they might suffer physical attacks and their children might be bullied at school. To this day, former friends do not speak with each other. To be clear, I abhor such behaviours, but one thing is undeniable; they helped keep a strike going.

By contrast, public sector unionists have no such means at their disposal. Aside from structural differences – workers tend not to live in the same communities and remote working can make the breaking of a picket line impossible to detect – there are profound legal-cultural differences. Public sector workers are bound to behavioural codes – these forbid the calling of names, let alone the breaking of arms – and open conflict lies in tension with occupational identities and notions of professionalism.

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Coinciding with these factors, I have been thinking about the influence of distinct ideologies. Historically, most trade unionists combine left-wing economic values with authoritarian cultural values (the term ‘traditionalist’ is more neutral/euphemistic than ‘authoritarian’ but, for this piece, I prefer the latter). For those used to Western politics, left-authoritarianism is a curious mix – Western elites tend to be either right-authoritarian or left-liberal – yet it remains the default position of ordinary voters. Left-authoritarians come in different forms – they range from working-class Trump/Reform supporters to far-left revolutionaries – but let us say that such voters favour hierarchies and authority and divide the world into ingroups and outgroups.

I suspect that left-authoritarianism lends itself to the defence of picket lines. The tendency of authoritarians to seek ingroups and outgroups is relevant. Left-authoritarians may have different outgroups to right-authoritarians, notwithstanding certain overlaps, but, in contexts in which strikes are salient, strike breakers would be a primary outgroup. And if one has a worldview which revolves around authority, the identification and punishment of outgroups comes naturally; the miners’ strike shows this.

Contrastingly, public-sector workers tend to be left-liberal. Famously, liberalism is suspicious of hierarchies and rejects divisions between ingroups and outgroups. In recent decades, Western liberalism has become very averse to judgements of the choices of others; unless your actions are harmful, others should not judge you. This, of course, is based on the Millian harm principle.

Some liberals would argue that the worker who breaks a picket line is harming others, but this argument is more difficult to make. Aside from their dislike of moral judgements, liberals can find it difficult to be prescriptive. Consider, for example, the Jack London poem which is famous in union circles – ‘No man has a right to scab as long as there is a pool of water deep enough to drown his body in, or a rope long enough to hang his carcass with.’ – and imagine liberals reciting this. By contrast, such discourse comes more naturally to authoritarians; they are far more comfortable with judging and imposing their standards on others.

On one hand, this helps explain the weak levels of strike participation in certain public sector occupations. Many other factors are relevant (as I emphasize above) yet the liberalism of such workers seems germane. From this perspective, certain tendencies in liberalism do not bode well for unions. For example, some liberals now emphasize the fragility of certain groups; yet to win a strike, one must be strong rather than fragile.

On the other hand, this sheds further light on tensions between left and liberal aspects of progressive ideology. Recently, I appeared on a podcast with David Goodhart, the intellectual who is most associated with this argument. Goodhart emphasizes incompatibilities between progressive support for ethnically diverse societies and the welfare state. Ostensibly, this is a convincing argument – some people show greater solidarity with members of their own ethnic group – yet the extensive empirical research on this question has arrived at a stalemate. In important ways, immigration and ethnic diversity also help consolidate the welfare state. I am not aware of any research on ideology and the picket line – indeed, operationalizing this might be a challenge – yet suspect that research would confirm my hunch; liberalism is not conducive to union solidarity.

This is a very interesting area. As Westerners, it is our fate to live in political space in which left goes with liberal and right goes with authoritarian. But such coupling may not be natural – indeed, conditions in other regions suggest it is not – and, as Western politics realigns, tensions may become more obvious.

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Unsurprisingly, WVS shows that young women tend to be more left-wing than young men but, more interestingly, has questions which ask respondents to choose between (i) freedom and equality and ii) freedom and security. The tendency for young (15-29-year-old) women to favour equality over freedom compared to young men is predictable – others have written about this – yet the question which asks about freedom and security produces fascinating results. On this issue, left-liberal ideologies have tended to be unambiguous, favouring freedom over security (notwithstanding certain forms of left-wing authoritarianism). Contrastingly, authoritarian ideologies favour security over freedom. If young left-liberal women have different positions on this question, this may entail changes to left-liberal ideologies.

According to WVS, young left-wing women have greater preference for security over freedom, compared to young left-wing men (see chart below). The difference of 0.13 (on a 1-2 scale) is quite considerable; the difference between all right and left-wingers is less than 0.03. But what does this mean? By necessity, survey questions are brief and respondents interpret them in different ways. And this is a cross-national survey, deepening this ambiguity.

Such preference for security over freedom might appear in attitudes to civil liberties. Historically, this area involves trade-offs between freedom and security. In a question which asks about the importance of civil liberties to democracy, young left-wing women regard civil liberties as important (7.82 out of 10), but assign them less importance than young left-wing men (8.02). WVS has three more specific questions on civil liberties (‘Does the government have the right to… keep people under video surveillance?; monitor emails?; collect information about citizens?). In all three questions, differences between young left-wing women and men are not statistically significant.

Transgender rights is another area in which concerns about safety are salient and different attitudes might become apparent. Among gender-critical activists, women seem to be over-represented and safety (in places such as public bathrooms) is central to the arguments of these women. Yet repeated surveys (unfortunately, WVS has no question) show that, among the general population, women are more supportive of transgender rights than men. This tendency is particularly strong among young left-wing women; they are one of the most supportive groups in the population. In this case, the motivation of care seems to be prominent; female defences of the right of transgender women to use female-only spaces emphasize the vulnerability of this group. Debates about freedom of speech are similar, young left-liberal women tending to be more supportive of restrictions.

Fairly or not, some regard transgender rights and freedom of speech as culture war issues, i.e. distractions which are peripheral to core dimensions of politics. If one is looking for an issue which is politically central and demonstrates the preference of young left-liberal women for security, the Covid restrictions are revealing. WVS has no relevant items, yet the US Nationscape survey contains questions (see chart) which show that, across issues, young liberal women were more supportive of restrictions than male counterparts.

As with the attachment of young left-liberal women to temperamental conservatism (see last post), this is an intriguing area. Young women tend to be more left-liberal than young men yet, despite security being a traditional conservative value, young left-liberal women have a more favourable attitude towards it and this is manifest in several policy domains. Of course, the meaning of security is highly contestable. When a group’s claims for security are regarded as invalid, as can be the case with gender-critical women, young left-liberal women tend to be less supportive. But when a group is perceived as deserving of protection, as with vulnerable groups during the pandemic, young left-liberal women tend to be more sympathetic.

Are such values reshaping the liberal left? On the one hand, this can be exaggerated. Looking at survey evidence, differences in certain values of young left-liberal men and women could be greater; as we have seen, there are no meaningful differences in attitudes towards some civil liberties issues. And as this Substack emphasizes, ideologies are path dependent, i.e. historical developments constrain future changes.

Nonetheless, changes in values can have a cumulative impact. As we emphasize in our book (on preorder soon!), a series of demographic influences have changed Western societies in recent decades, creating demand for ideological change; in this case, the growing prominence of women in public life is relevant. And if women are more supportive of the liberal-left, one would expect ideological changes to be more marked in left-liberal movements.

And this may be what is happening. Though the desire for security is most apparent in social justice ideology (or what some call ‘wokeness’), other progressive ideologies are scarcely immune from such developments. During the pandemic, liberals displayed a pronounced care instinct; probably, this reflected the ideology’s increasingly female base.

Perhaps changes to liberalism are most interesting. After all, freedom is the core liberal idea and emphasis upon security threatens this. Admittedly, some degree of emphasis is compatible with liberalism. As the ideology scholar Michael Freeden argues, ideologies have core, adjacent and peripheral dimensions and there can be greater stress on security without undermining the liberal core.

But of course, there are limits to this. Female support bases will entail gradual changes to left-liberal ideologies and, over a long timescale, such changes may have revolutionary effects.

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I am very interested in this topic. In our forthcoming book (on pre-order soon!), we find that female gender is one of the key predictors of social justice values. Our work concerns social justice ideology – this is a new ideology which emphasizes identity, emotional safety and anti-capitalist direct action – yet differences in traditional ideologies (i.e. left-right and liberal-traditionalist) are also fascinating. In this piece, I will examine data from the European Social Survey (ESS); this is a large, biennial survey of European countries and I have not seen it used for such analysis.

Changes in the values of young men and women are real enough. Chiefly, these emerge in the ESS’s (self-defined) left-right scale. As we see in the chart below, 18–30-year-old women have become more left-wing in recent years, whereas men of the same age have remained broadly the same. However, self-defined ideology is a problematic measure and individual questions on political attitudes can be more illustrative. Here, the picture becomes rather more ambiguous. Whilst there is a reasonable gap between young men and women in attitudes towards immigration, there is a smaller difference in attitudes towards LGBTQ+ rights; rather than diverging, both groups are becoming more liberal. There is certain diversity between countries – gaps between young men and women do not seem to be as prominent in south-east Europe, potentially reflecting lower levels of socioeconomic development – but national differences are quite limited.

Differences in political attitudes are underpinned by values and, if one examines ESS data on the values of young men and women, things become very interesting. For obvious reasons, conservative ideologies are associated with values such as respect for tradition and conformist behaviour. Contrastingly, left-liberal ideologies are associated with values such as creativity and self-expression. ESS contains a series of question on such values (albeit only until 2020) and I expected that results would reflect trends in self-defined ideology and attitudes.

This is not so. On key values such as the importance of tradition and behaving properly (see chart below), young women are consistently more conservative than young men. Admittedly, this is not the case with other values. In their attitudes towards freedom, fun and following rules, young women have become less conservative, absolutely and (in the case of freedom and fun) compared to young men. As academic literature explains (see below), this may reflect the influence of modernization/the improving social position of women.

Despite these caveats, this paradox is worth exploring. The trend of young women being more politically left-liberal and temperamentally conservative is consistent with arguments which emphasize conformity among left-liberals. There are many internet variants of this point(!), but a recent paper by the political scientist Pippa Norris is most relevant. This finds that, in developed countries with postmaterialist political cultures, the tendency for left-liberals to form overall majorities can entail moral pressure on conservatives. Given this, conformists may have incentives to adopt left-liberal attitudes.

But other ESS data are not consistent with this. If one analyses the responses of European women under 30 at an individual level, left-wing self-identification and liberal attitudes towards immigration and LGBTQ+ rights have small to medium negative correlations with belief in the importance of tradition and behaving properly, i.e. the relationship is as would one expect. In summary, something curious is happening. On the one hand, young European women tend to be more left-liberal than young European men. On the other hand, these women also tend to be more temperamentally conservative (according to some indicators at least). But analysing the individual preferences of young women (i.e. excluding young men), left-liberal attitudes are negatively correlated with temperamentally conservative values.

This may indicate broader stratification within young women. Some may be combining political conservatism and temperamental conservatism (as was the case historically); others might be rejecting both; others might be combining left-liberalism and forms of temperamental conservatism.

Certainly, this suggests that the female embrace of left-liberalism is a distinct phenomenon, rather than a generic adoption of such ideologies. As we emphasize in our book, the prominent female influence on social justice ideology entails emphasis on values such as care and risk-aversion (‘I don’t feel safe!’). Interestingly, we find that females tend to dislike cancellations, potentially reflecting dislike of aggression.

But even with caveats about the types of left-liberal attitudes which women tend to hold, one is still confronted by a causal question; why has the traditional association between women and conservative ideologies inverted? In his article, Burn-Murdoch emphasizes the influence of the #MeToo movement. Notwithstanding the importance of this, it is difficult to attribute such broad trends to a single event.

Academics underline wider factors. According to Inglehart and Norris, modernization has changed the lives of women more profoundly, liberating them from traditional roles. Other scholars emphasize the greater education of women, rise in unmarried women and declining religiosity (traditionally, women are more religious). The ESS has relevant country-level variables such as fertility rate and percentage of women in parliament, but these variables do not reveal anything which academics have not already emphasized.

The endpoint of this trend is far from clear. Given progress in gender equality (and the smaller potential for future gains), will ideological differences between young men and women soon peak? Alternatively, will they deepen and reshape left-liberal ideologies with elements of temperamental conservatism? Future developments should be fascinating and I will return to them on this Substack.

Six years ago, the journalist Jesse Singal made a crucial distinction between accuracy norms and rightside norms,

‘Accuracy norms are about, well, accuracy: People who subscribe to accuracy norms are most concerned with spreading true claims, and with debunking false ones. Rightside norms are about being on the right ‘side’ of a given controversy: People who subscribe to rightside norms are more concerned with showing that they are on the right side of a given controversy, and that the people on the other side are morally suspect, than they are with accuracy, at least in a zoomed-in sense.’

Conservatives have their own problems with facts, yet rightsideism is mainly associated with progressives; after all, such ideologies emphasize a ‘right side’ of history and, at elite level, seem to be more constrained (i.e. exhibit less internal diversity in attitudes).

In public policy, what would rightsideism look like? Given that rightsideists are not primarily motivated by facts, one would expect their conduct to provide clues of this. As many have observed, emotion has played a prominent role in the case for the Assisted dying bill; parliamentary debates have been dominated by anecdotes about the death of loved ones. Some of these have approached parody, elevating the mawkish and trite over serious debate about constitutional implications.

A surfeit of emotional stories is not necessarily evidence for rightsideism. More generally, those with lower reasoning ability tend to use anecdotes and opponents of the bill have used such evidence. On another level, this reflects demand for such stories among the electorate. For example, it is difficult to believe that the lawyerly Keir Starmer regards a promise to Esther Rantzen (a terminally ill celebrity) as the primary motivation for allowing a debate and vote; rather, he is pandering to the spirit of our age.

Yet we might expect rightsideists to use such anecdotes more often. If facts are not a primary motivation, one must create and sustain a picture of one’s opponent, i.e. the wrongsideist, as morally deficient and worthy of opposition. Emotive anecdotes are a reliable way of doing this – what sort of person could oppose the last wish of a dying grandmother? - and, for those who are not primarily motivated by facts in the first place, such evidence is likely to be more impactful.

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Relatedly, we may expect rightsideists to adopt dismissive attitudes towards procedure and opposition. If someone knows they are on the right side, opposition can be seen as pathological and procedure as cumbersome. Admittedly, certain critics of Kim Leadbeater, the bill’s sponsor and public face, have overplayed their hand. To some degree, Leadbeater has reached out to opponents and, in response to concerns, has introduced safeguards such as the advertising ban.

Yet other practices have been concerning. Why were opponents of the bill numerically underrepresented and practically disadvantaged at committee stage? Why did the debate about the calling of committee witnesses take place in private? Why is Leadbeater so reluctant to answer straight questions? All politicians use tricks, but this campaign seems to have used more than usual.

As Singal acknowledges, few people are pure rightsideists. Rather, it seems to be an impulse which, at different times and to varying degrees, certain progressives indulge. Patterns in parliament are similarly messy. Some Conservative MPs act like rightsideists and, on the Labour and Liberal Democrats benches, there is a wide range of behaviours. Certain policy areas lend themselves to rightsideism, whilst others do not.

Of course, opponents of the bill have their own faults. Some critics seem to be entirely motivated by religion. There is room for faith in politics, but not to the extent that it overrides all other motivations; liberal democracy should be secular. Indeed, the curious parallels between rightsideism and religion raise questions about broader relationships with liberal democracy. Such religious motivations were once a primary threat to liberal democracy and, in certain parts of the world, remain so.

Does rightsideism present a similar problem for liberal democracy? It is scarcely the equivalent of religious fundamentalism, yet we should not dismiss its challenge. To be an effective legislator, one must be a servant of evidence. Such evidence may lend itself to multiple interpretations, yet at its core is a body of facts which parliamentarians must acknowledge and negotiate; this promotes transparency and accountability.

If MPs follow a vague sense of rightsidedness, one is left wondering where this comes from and how it might be contested. Who decides on the right side? In the case of the Assisted dying bill, who chooses which anecdote should be favoured? Why does the dying grandmother seem to be preferred to the disabled person who dreads pressure from the changed law? As with the phenomenon of ‘vibes’, certain positions and facts are conservative and progressive-coded. But this can be very dangerous. For example, such coding underpinned the grooming gang scandal.

Over two hundred and fifty years ago, the great thinker and parliamentarian Edmund Burke made his famous speech to the electors of Bristol. In it, he asserted that his duty was to the nation, rather than to a narrow group of electors. Yet the speech is more than the concerns of an 18^th century politician; it sets out the need for legislators to conceive of distinct interests in a careful and analytic manner and, resultingly, is of perennial relevance. We will never know what Burke would have made of rightsideism; but I suspect he would have stood against it.

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In an excellent piece, the Leiden political economist Alexandre Afonso discusses the supply and demand of right-wing academics. Afonso notes that such academics are undersupplied within academia, reflecting well-known factors such as the relationship between education and left-liberal values. Yet within media spaces, there is equal demand for right and left-wing academic commentators, reflecting the need for balanced representation of the public’s views. This creates distinct incentives. Given the rewards of media coverage and paucity of right-wing scholars, some may adapt their views to meet this demand. For radical right positions, the effect is more pronounced. Sizable proportions of the public hold such views, yet very few academics do and, for scholars who espouse these positions, rewards can be considerable.

Afonso’s essay made me reflect. Certainly, such incentives are a problem. Beyond the narrower issue of media exposure, there is a wider contrarian/reactionary ecosystem; scholars who are critical of ‘wokeness’ enjoy considerable social media followings, book sales and access to politicians. As we argue in our book, this has distorted the study of social justice ideology; the most prominent accounts are polemical, fail to engage with academic debates and lack empirical evidence. Crucially, they do not respond to the incentive structures of academic fields (see below), but to those of popular audiences.

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Yet Afonso does not reflect on the influence of differences in the supply and demand of right-wingers on academic fields themselves. Notwithstanding the importance of media engagement, such fields are the basic unit of academia. The spatial hypothesis states that gaps in research agendas drives the output of fields, akin to markets in neoclassical economic theory. For example, the hypothesis that immigration consolidates the welfare state creates the need for the counter-hypothesis that immigration undermines the welfare state.

Some use the spatial hypothesis to defend academia against charges of left-wing bias, i.e. fields dictate the structure of output and the political views of academics are irrelevant. But as Afonso acknowledges, it is not as simple as this. In an academia in which left-liberals are in the majority, the adoption of contrary positions can entail professional and social penalties.

In any case, I have problems with the spatial hypothesis (as I have problems with neoclassical economics). Rather than reflecting the interplay of supply and demand, fields follow path-dependent logics. The postulation of contrary theories can be more difficult - given the established profile of extant theories, it is easier to produce work which builds on existing assumptions – and the undersupply of right-wing scholars compounds such difficulties.

One sees this logic in political science. Arguably, there is an oversupply of studies of radical right populism. Such parties have limited electoral support – in Europe, their ceiling is about 20/25% of the popular vote and they seldom lead governments – yet their study occupies much more space in academic journals and conferences.

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Other sub-fields suffer – the studies of social democracy, conservatism and liberalism have comparatively small profiles – yet, in our book, we argue that the study of social justice ideology has been a particular casualty. Beyond the path-dependent commitment of resources to fields such as radical right populism, the prevalence of left-liberal values within academia entails a reluctance to interrogate certain parts of the political spectrum; humans tend to regard their own beliefs as self-evident and not requiring explanation. Of course, this reluctance also reflects the influence of popular contrarians. Such commentators have cornered this market and, for some academics, have sullied the mere study of such topics.

But as I have long argued on this Substack, social justice ideology is worthy of serious study. Clearly distinct from liberalism (which emphasizes freedom and gradualism), social justice ideology also differs from traditional left-wing ideologies, emphasizing identity-based oppression rather than class-based exploitation. Its rise (and arguable recent retreat) is fascinating and, in our view, merits an academic field which, rather than following the logic of popular-orientated contrarianism, adopts scholarly conventions.

In the book, we try to develop this field, building on the work of other scholars who attempt this. Evidently, social justice reflects demographic changes, our analysis of multiple UK and US datasets revealing consistent associations with female gender, education and youth. But contrary to received wisdom, we find little quantitative evidence of a relationship between social justice ideology and declining economic conditions. Nonetheless, our qualitative analysis suggests that post-2008 crises of capitalism acted as catalysts for ideological change. Economic crises discredited liberalism among younger groups and, for corporations, the embrace of social justice ideology provided renewed legitimacy. By the 2020s, social justice ideology had become a major rival to liberalism and, despite the attacks of the second Trump administration, it remains a major force in progressive politics.

I hope this has whetted appetites. Over the next few weeks and months, I will reveal more details.

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Fortunately, the book is almost finished and, by April 25, we will have submitted the final manuscript to our publisher. I will reveal specific details after this date.

Finishing a book is gruelling enough, yet an extremely concerning development has occurred alongside this: the collapse of UK academia. As many UK readers will know, Cardiff University (my employer) has announced 400 job losses. Though my job is not threatened to the extent of others – the university plans to close programmes in music, ancient history and nursing – long-term implications are ominous. Developments in the wider UK sector are not much better; many universities are introducing similar programmes and the academic labour market is moribund.

Many of us are thinking about alternatives. I do not wish to leave academia entirely, yet have been reflecting on a different relationship with the sector.

My thoughts have turned to this Substack. Though the paid subscriber model is common on this platform – typically, subscribers pay about £5 per month, entitling them to additional content – I have never used this option (though have raised hundreds of pounds for charity with occasional appeals). Rather, I have seen this site as a labour of love and have not wanted the pressure of providing regular content.

But in current circumstances, I am reconsidering. Were I to introduce a paid option, I would provide much more regular content (i.e. 2-3 posts a week). Though my substantive concerns would remain the same (i.e. popular and elite ideology, socioeconomic institutions, freedom of speech, academia), I would make greater use of data and might experiment with artificial intelligence.

I am writing to see what readers think of this. Might you consider taking out a paid subscription? On an expanded Path Not Taken, what sort of content might you like to read? Do Substackers who already use the paid option have any advice?

I would love to hear your feedback and look forward to the next stage of this Substack.

In 2024, I wrote 25 posts, with an average of just over two per month. Given my work and family commitments, I’m happy with this output. Popular essays include this empirical critique of the luxury beliefs hypothesis, this appraisal of the assisted dying debate and this review of Charlotte Gill’s campaign against humanities academics.

In other news, I’ve been raising money for the Malala fund, a charity which raises money for girls' education across the developing world. If you enjoy reading the Path Not Taken, please consider donating something. Every year, I devote hundreds of hours to this Substack but, unlike most Substacks, have no paid subscription option. When I’m able to raise money for good causes, it makes the effort worthwhile. Here’s the link: https://www.justgiving.com/page/thomas-prosser-1734872681966?utm_medium=FR&utm_source=CL

The coming year will be a big one. We’ve almost finished a (very empirical) book on the rise of social justice ideology which develops many of the themes in this Substack. Very soon, I’ll provide more details. Until then, please forgive me if my output is a little sparse; finishing this project is requiring lots of work!

All the best for 2025,

Tom

For Daub, ‘people talk about cancel culture so that they don’t have to talk about other things… [such as] problems of labor and job security, problems of our semi-digital public space, problems of accountability and surveillance.’ Therefore, a ‘moral panic’ has developed in which (mainly) conservatives exaggerate problems on university campuses. Daub thinks little of commentators such as Jordan Peterson, Chris Rufo and Dinesh D’Souza, dismissing ‘the often abysmal quality of their texts’ and their ‘sloppy and careless’ analysis.

When Daub critiques such writers, he is on solid ground. As I have said before, I worry about the tendency for commentators outside academia to exaggerate problems in universities for their own purposes. In the parts of the book which reviewed these authors and regretted their global influence, I found myself nodding in agreement.

Daub makes important points about methodology. Even if one acknowledges that the freedom of speech rights of certain people have been violated – and almost every campaign can point to cases of genuine victimization – the question is how much significance one should attach to these cases.

Of course, some conservatives do not reflect on this and exaggerate the importance of such cases, Daub dedicating several chapters to this phenomenon. Yet these culture warriors are easy to critique; instances of victimization are more difficult to explain. Though he acknowledges legitimate cases such as Alison Roman, David Shor and Greg Patton (‘something went seriously wrong when it comes to these individuals’), Daub dedicates little space to exploring what exactly went wrong. Given his point about the methodological significance of individual cases, this is quite an omission.

A section on self-censorship has particular issues. Many critics of cancel culture overlook this dimension of freedom of speech, yet it is pivotal and Mill dedicates a considerable part of On Liberty to the problem. Daub deserves credit for addressing it and acknowledges the (discouraging) results of polls on self-censorship. But in seeking to minimize such data, he makes some questionable assertions.

Unwisely (see below), he dismisses the methodology of relevant polling (‘One gets the impression that these surveys were created to precisely deliver the kinds of dramatic results that can then be ground up in cancel culture philippics’). Moreover, he points to much more indirect restrictions on self-expression (‘There was simply no space in this survey for the answer: “I censor myself—for example, by not making my race, gender, sexuality, identity, or culture an issue.”) and argues that, in certain cases, self-censorship is mere politeness (‘It is unlikely that, say, a Black man who is a fervent supporter of Black Lives Matter would go around sharing that position unbidden with, say, his pharmacist or his car dealer.’).

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These sidesteps are unconvincing. We should note Habermas’ concept of the public sphere, a space between state and society in which rational conclusions about the issues of the day are reached. This is a fundamental part of liberal democracy and broader questions of discrimination and private civility should not be conflated with it. Academia is a crucial part of this public sphere and, if researchers and students are engaging in public self-censorship – returning to Daub’s example, let us imagine that the fervent supporter of Black Lives Matter were self-censoring in seminars – this will not do. If such restraint is mere politeness, why do conservatives report higher rates than liberals?

The origins of the freedom of speech crisis (or panic) is a related question. Given Daub doubts the extent of this, he must demonstrate its spurious origins. Therefore, much of The Cancel Culture Panic concerns the spread of American discourse about universities to other Western countries,

‘[Cancel culture] discourse, which was once as quintessentially American as only a Fourth of July address at Mount Rushmore could be, has long since become an export item… this American idea travels the globe in journalism and books. Articles the world over have cast a gimlet eye on US campuses. An entire class of experts has emerged, even if their expertise mostly consists of having been to a US campus, or knowing someone who has.’

Yet despite America’s cultural reach, this can be overemphasized. Countries do not import American concerns indiscriminately; they adopt those which speak to national contexts. The Harvard political scientist Pippa Norris offers a more convincing account. In a survey of almost 2500 academics in over 100 countries, she finds a ‘fish-out-of-water’ effect. In developed countries with liberal cultures, conservative scholars report threats to freedom of speech. In developing countries with conservative cultures, liberal scholars report such threats.

Norris’ explanation is economical; those scholars who go against societal trends are vulnerable to kickback. The strength of this argument is its international data. Given the breadth of the trend, it seems to have an independent basis and (in many cases) to be weakly related to American cultural pressure. This explains recent trends in the West. As societies (and universities) have become more liberal, conservatives have perceived greater pressure.

Of course, it is not as straightforward as this. In the last fifteen months, radical left-wingers – who are not liberals and hold some very unpopular ideas – have faced great pressure over support for Palestine, particularly in Germany. Given Daub’s specialism in Germany and the space he dedicates to discussions of the German press, it is a shame he did not reflect on these cases (perhaps the publication schedule precluded this).

Overall, The Cancel Culture Panic advances debates about academic freedom and cancel culture, developing an interesting ‘moral panic’ hypothesis. When Daub addresses the likes of Jordan Peterson and Chris Rufo, he is convincing. But on more difficult targets, he lands few blows.

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Of course, these issues have been discussed extensively and my thoughts would add little to this debate. Yet I am interested in something more specific: the ability of Parliament to debate such a topic. This problem is key. In liberal democracies, parliamentarians are supposed to debate complicated issues which involve trade-offs and require the ability to decouple one’s emotions from the needs of the nation. Few would call for a referendum on assisted dying, worrying about the ability of voters to decide such a complex matter.

But prior to today’s second reading, the quality of debate has concerned me. Specifically, I have been worried by the predominance of anecdote and emotion. Welcoming the debate, Keir Starmer cited a promise to Dame Esther Rantzen, a terminally ill celebrity. As many commented, this is scarcely a basis for good policy. This week, a Labour MP justified his opposition to the Bill with this X post,

Such justifications are tempting. Like no other issue, assisted dying involves tales of suffering and vulnerability and such stories hit one viscerally. Certainly, anecdotes are an important form of evidence and a balanced judgement should take stories (from both sides) into account.

But stories should not lead one’s judgement; they are parts of packages which normally comprise superior forms of evidence. The tendency to be led by anecdotes is a hallmark of the uncultivated mind; the educated attempt to review competing explanations dispassionately and come to balanced conclusions. Decoupling, the ability to assess concepts independently, is related to this. It is essential that MPs are able to do these things and, if the current generation has difficulty doing so, we are in trouble.

In today’s debate, the opening remarks of Kim Leadbeater (the Labour MP who presented the Bill) did not inspire confidence. Leadbeater is passionate and her commitment to a civilized debate should be commended, yet her speech was dominated by emotive and graphic anecdotes. A little later, Kit Malthouse, a Conservative MP and co-sponsor of the Bill, opened his speech with very weak remarks,

‘I am married to a Canadian and… they love their children just as much as we do. The idea that the Canadians… care little for their relatives, or indeed for the wider society in which they live, is frankly offensive… Even if we think there will be an impact [on the NHS], are people seriously telling me that my death, my agony, is too much for the NHS to have time for, or too much hassle?’

This is not the reasoning of a cultivated mind. Marriage does not provide special insight into the politics of another country and the remark about love for one’s children is a strawman. Comments about the NHS are emotional and do not touch the complicated questions of resources and trade-offs which underpin health policy.

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Alas, the speeches of Leadbeater and Malthouse were flanked by similar contributions. A series of interventions led with personal experiences of the issue and some did not even bother to engage with policy issues. Emotion played too great a role. Peter Bedford (Conservative, Mid Leicestershire) reported that his grandmother’s illness had convinced him ‘there and then’ of the case for assisted dying. Prior to thanking Leadbeater (‘an absolute gem!’) for her contribution, Tonia Antoniazzi (Labour, Gower) told the chamber that she ‘had a packet of tissues and… made swift work of them’. I could give many other examples and urge readers to watch (or read) the debate.

Of course, some contributions were stronger. Parliament continues to have wise and impressive figures and, prior to the debate, I read many considered arguments for supporting (or not) the Bill. During the debate, I heard important points about the duties of the legislator, the meaning of a vote at the second reading and judicial implications (though these could have been more prominent and few MPs cautioned against anecdote and emotion). Certainly, Parliament remains a much better way to decide upon these issues than by referendum.

Yet such trends are worrying and suggest a decline in the quality of parliamentary debate. I am not aware of relevant studies – if you know of any, please tell me in the comments – but I suspect that this is indeed the case. From my reading of parliamentary history, the debates of recent centuries were more sober and rigorous, today’s parliamentarians not seeming the equal of predecessors.

Of course, this reflects societal trends. Recent decades have been notable for their self-indulgent and emotional character – as long ago as the 1970s, Christopher Lasch railed against this – and recent years have seen the rise of identity politics. Arguably, education has become less rigorous, fewer having the ability to think analytically and engage in decoupling.

At the same time, political culture has become less elitist. Once the preserve of the few, ideology has diffused throughout society, entailing a simplification and cheapening of politics. Increasingly, politics is consumed on social media, creating well-known problems. To a great extent, the challenge is not the quality of our politicians, but the kind of people they must address. Popular discussion of assisted dying is dominated by anecdotes which poorly decouple relevant issues. To communicate with such voters, MPs must engage with them on their terms.

Yet even granting these points, the quality of today’s debate remains deeply concerning. It is not as if few people in our society can think in dispassionate and analytic terms. Looking at social media, one observes many people who are disturbed by the tendency of MPs to reason emotionally and, at all levels of society, one encounters people who could do better. Of course, this matters desperately. As many remarked today, the business of Parliament is indispensable and, in this case, concerned a matter of life and death.

If MPs are unequal to this task, why are they in Parliament?

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