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SubscriptionsColumn / Investigation: Identity, Empire & the Culture War
Byline Times explores the weaponisation of Britain’s past as a key tool in a dark project of division and distraction
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‘The Higher Education Act is a Culture War Tactic Designed by Right-Wingers to Ensure Their Views are Heard’
‘It is difficult not to regard the Act as a classic piece of doublethink designed to censor freedom of expression in the guise of protecting it’
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Conservative Frontrunner Robert Jenrick Plans to ‘Win a Culture War’ with Young People
The favourite to succeed Rishi Sunak as Conservative party leader plans to launch an “air war” with younger voters
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The Unpopular ‘Popular Conservatives’ Blame the Voters for Their Own Defeat
The ‘Popular Conservatism’ Conference exposed a party firmly stuck in conspiracy-driven denial about why it just suffered the worst electoral defeat in its history
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Conservative Politicians and Press ‘Driving Spike’ in Disinformation on Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and 15-Minute Cities, Report Finds
A landmark study on the LTN policy finds that Government figures have latched onto cynical fear-mongering
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‘We Need to Have New Conversations About the Colonial Realities of Our Rural Past’
‘Our Island Stories: Country Walks Through Colonial Britain’ reveals fascinating connections between colonial history and British rural life – but it isn’t expected to go down well with everyone
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Newspapers Knew New Team GB Kit Was Not a ‘Flag Redesign’ Project
A Team GB spokesperson told Nathan Jones-Sparkes that the British Olympic Association was very clear with the press that its new kit design would always feature the Union Jack
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Rishi Sunak’s Head Boy Energy
Becoming Prime Minister wasn’t the first significant position Sunak was handed – Winchester College taught him a thing or two about prestige without power, writes Richard Beard
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Michael Gove: The Extremist
Whether laughing at racism, or associating with the promoters of eugenics and anti-Muslim think tanks, the Communities Secretary is indicted by his own definition
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‘Rishi Sunak is “Living Proof” a Prime Minister of Colour is No Evidence of a Britain Beyond Racism’
By refusing to condemn Lee Anderson’s comments about Sadiq Khan as Islamophobic, the Prime Minister exposed the cynical fallacy at the heart of ‘the most diverse Cabinet in history’
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Scottish Green Minister Brands Lee Anderson and Conservative Right ‘School Bullies Who Love Punching Down’
The Scottish Green Party Co-Leader and Government minister says Islamophobia has been treated as less important than antisemitism, as he calls for media reform
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‘The Normalisation of Politically Expedient Racism: Rishi Sunak Cannot Call Out Something He Has Been Complicit In’
Lee Anderson’s claims that the Muslim Mayor of London has handed the city to Islamists is another unsurprising example of the political culture the Conservative Party has normalised, writes Hardeep Matharu
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‘Untold Damage to the UK’s Reputation’: Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights Slams the Rwanda Bill
Britain’s standing on human rights is in “jeopardy” and Good Friday Agreement undermined by the Safety of Rwanda Bill
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‘To Restore Trust, Rip Up the Astroturf’
As fake grassroots organisations continue their culture war – we need to fight back, writes Otto English
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Rishi Sunak Stumbles as he Takes the Knee to the Culture Warriors
The Prime Minister’s attempts to wage a culture war with Keir Starmer have ended up doing far more damage to himself than the Labour Leader
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Tufton Street-Linked Restore Trust Sees Surge in Funding from Undisclosed Donors
After failing to secure a single council seat for any of its candidates looking to take over control of the National Trust Board, Byline Times reports on recent changes at the Restore Trust – and a swell in company finances.
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‘In Fighting for the Cause of Refugees and Migrants, We Fight For Ourselves’
AC Grayling reflects on what immigration really means, how right-wing politicians are twisting that meaning to exploit xenophobia, and what can be done to counteract their rhetoric
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The Right-Wing Blind Spot Over Free Speech
A new report by the Institute of Economic Affairs think tank describes the emergence of the ‘culture control left’ – conveniently looking the other way when it comes to the right of politics
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‘Suella Braverman’s “Hate March” Rhetoric is Another Desperate Attempt to Hold onto State Power’
The crafting of ‘ceasefire’ marches as a transgression of Remembrance Sunday looks like a throwback to a top-down colonial mindset, argues Suriyah Bi
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Don’t Let the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Become Yet Another Front in the West’s Internal Culture Wars
What we are witnessing in the UK and the US is a weaponizing of the situation in Israel and Gaza to justify pre-existing right-wing or left-wing goals
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‘GB News, Grooming Gangs and Suella Braverman’s Racialised Tropes’
Why were sufficient numbers not outraged when the troubled broadcaster was giving a platform to dangerous views claiming Pakistani men are the main perpetrators of this form of child sexual abuse?
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Rishi Sunak Should End His ‘War on Woke’, Say Voters
Exclusive new poll finds the public is far more tolerant of diversity and cultural change than the Government appears to believe, Adam Bienkov reports
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Lords Report Slams Office for Students as a Potential ‘Smoke Screen’ for Post-Brexit Culture Wars
UK higher education qualifications have been suspended from the European quality standards body because of the way the Office for Students was regulating universities.
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Conservative London Mayoral Candidate Susan Hall Backs Fringe Right Wing ‘Restore Trust’ that Challenges Criticism of Empire
The endorsement thrusts her campaign into the centre of a debate about empire in what is a proudly multicultural city
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‘Making the ECHR the Bogeyman is the Conservatives’ Next Big Fear Campaign’
Calls for the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights shouldn’t be viewed as mere sabre-rattling – as many did with Conservative promises to leave the EU, writes Nicholas Reed Langen
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Climate Change and Culture Wars: Rhetoric Can’t Mask Reality
How the right-wing elites of politics and media want you to give up on the climate crisis
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The Government’s Blacklisting Policy: ‘My Partial Victory for Freedom and Transparency’
Renowned weapons expert Dan Kaszeta, who was blacklisted by the Government over his tweets, explores why we have not heard the last of the scandal of the Government ‘cancelling’ expert speakers
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‘The “Independent” Reviews on Race and Ethnic Minorities that Simply Mirror the Conservatives’ Divisive Party Line’
The strategy being employed by the Government seems to be clear: using the veil of impartiality provided by ‘independent’ reviews to legitimise its agenda, Adeeb Ayton argues
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The Twelfth: ‘Celebrating One’s Own Culture Should Not Require the Oppression of Another’s’
Bonfires to mark the day in Northern Ireland are often used not as a symbol of one’s national identity but as a marker of territory, writes Emma deSouza
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‘I Vote, Therefore I Am’: The Psychology of Belief and Brexit
There remains on both sides of the political divide an entrenched minority whose belief system serves as an extension of their identity
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Dead Cats and Transphobic Lies
The political and media firestorm over a school girl claiming to identify as a cat, turns out to be a story ‘too good to check’. Byline Times has spoken to a witness
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‘Creating a Space for People Who Find Themselves Between Cultures and Identity’
The team behind the ‘In-Between Lines’ initiative, which explores the adopted and mixed-race experience, share why it is so important to talk about the complexity of identity
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Unpicking the Government’s Blacklist Policy: ‘The Devil is in the Details’
A renowned weapons expert uninvited from a government conference sets out his concerns around the policy that has now appeared to justify experts being ‘cancelled’ in Whitehall
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‘Half Measures Will Not Decolonise International Development’
Genuine anti-racist internationalism calls for much greater radicalism, writes Sunit Bagree
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‘From Uganda to Rwanda: The British Political Class’ Ever-Present Hostility to ‘Aliens’’
Jon Bloomfield examines the similarities between the 1905 Aliens Bill and the current Illegal Migration Bill and inflammatory rhetoric around refugees
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The UK’s ‘World-Beating’ Rhetoric: A Distraction From Reality?
Iain Overton looks at the hyperbole around post-Brexit Britain, and how nationalist exceptionalism blinds us to our real problems and their remedies
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Rishi Sunak’s New Far-Right Ally and the International Authoritarian Elite
Sunak’s warm welcome of the far right Italian Prime Minister exposes the increasingly authoritarian direction of his own Government, reports Adam Bienkov
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Professors, Power and Projection: the Case of Matthew Goodwin
Martin Shaw looks at Goodwin’s new book and its claims that Britain is run by a ‘woke’ new elite
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Bannon, Brexit, Johnson and Cambridge Analytica: the Daughter of Time
Peter Jukes reports on more revelations about the transatlantic right-wing network, and why the Government is withholding key information on the former Prime Minister’s role
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‘Braverman Wants to Wage a ‘Culture War’ than a War Against Serious Criminality – It is Highly Dangerous for Potential Victims of Sexual Abuse’
The former Chief Prosecutor who brought the Rochdale ‘grooming gang’ to justice believes the Home Secretary’s rhetoric will have real life consequences
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Suella Braverman’s Race-Based Approach to Evidence Making
The Home Secretary’s comments about British Pakistanis and grooming gangs are contradicted by evidence uncovered by her own Department, reports Adam Bienkov
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The Fleet Street ‘Friendlies’ Climb On Board Braverman’s Prison Ships
The Home Secretary’s tabloid-pleasing plans to float desperate refugees offshore are designed to distract from the Government’s own failings, reports Adam Bienkov
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‘Where Tunisia Leads, Britain Follows’
Tunisia’s populism and racially-charged purges offers chilling context for the UK’s migration clampdown, writes Simon Speakman Cordall
