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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 Rwanda Scheme: Electoral Racism to Policy Racism
Decades of shifting political racism have created a rich reservoir of racialised attitudes for Boris Johnson’s regime to exploit, says Martin Shaw
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Young People As Prime Targets: Student Loan Hike is the Latest Frontier of the Conservative ‘Culture War’
By allowing student loan debt to soar, the Government is seeking yet more division between young and old, says Maheen Behrana
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How has the Black Lives Matter Movement Influenced British Education?
Dr Cheryl Diane Parkinson considers how grassroots campaigners are applying anti-racist principles to the schooling system
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Boris Johnson is Fighting a ‘Culture War’ to Cling On to Power
The Prime Minister’s divisive comments about trans people are part of a broader attempt to replace his losing political war with a winning cultural war, reports Adam Bienkov
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The Church of Putin
Reverend Joe Howard explores how the Russian President has won support from US evangelicals and his playbook matches that of the European far-right
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Backwards Britain: Having Rejected a European Future, We Can Only Hark Back to an Imperial Past
Hardeep Matharu explores how the Russian invasion of Ukraine has exposed the UK’s perilous retreat – at a time when collaboration and a new vision of itself is required to navigate the dangerous realities of a changing world
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GB News Lost £3 Million Before Launch
Sam Bright tracks the financial fortunes of the right-wing broadcaster
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Are the Royals Trapped in a Gilded Cage – Or Is Britain?
Is the Royal Family trapped by Britain’s past or is the problem our inability to conceive of a social order without monarchy?
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Jeremy Clarkson, The Sunday Times and the Slave Trade: Some Basic Failures of Journalism
In his eagerness to whitewash British history, Clarkson didn’t do quite enough research to get his facts straight, says Brian Cathcart
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Opening Our Eyes to the Cost of Empire: Why We Must Demand the Return of Nigeria’s Benin Bronzes
Paddy Docherty explains how research for his book on the 1897 invasion of the Kingdom of Benin left him ashamed – an emotion he believes must be converted into action
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The Far-Right Attack on Education From Poland to the UK and US
The superintendent of Poland’s Małopolska province is seeking to ban anti-racist, pro-human rights groups from working with students – but the attack on progressive education goes beyond Polish borders
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The Colston Four: It is the Attorney General Who Seeks to Set a ‘Dangerous Precedent’
The four defendants were found not guilty of criminal damage for removing the statue of the slave trader in Bristol – the rule of law in Britain will be significantly eroded, says Gareth Roberts
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‘A Deeply Dangerous Power Grab by the Home Secretary’: Conservative Peer Calls for Plans to Strip Citizenship Without Warning to be Scrapped
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi told peers that immigrants’ fears that future generations would be treated like outsiders and second-class citizens are not unfounded
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Plans to Strip Citizenship Without Notice Must Kickstart A Popular Movement Against the ‘Hostile Environment’
Building opposition to the Government’s controversial Nationality and Borders Bill must go beyond a focus on its clause on citizenship deprivation, says Liam Shrivastava
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Cambridge Faculty of Divinity Ignores Demands for Inquiry into Peter Thiel’s Far-Right Influence
Cambridge University fails to answer questions raised by staff and students after Byline Times’ revelation that racist pseudoscience is being promoted on campus under the guise of ‘freedom of speech’
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From Conrad’s Kurtz to Enoch Powell: Conservatism Takes a Dark Turn to the Past
Under Boris Johnson’s leadership, the Conservative Party has reversed half a century of attempts at post-imperial reform and is now embarked on a campaign of ‘othering’ – targeting enemies within and without
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Far-Right Echoes in Westminster: How Extremist Pressure on Migration Affects Government Policy
In the first part of an exclusive investigation into the far-right response to the migrants who tragically drowned in the Channel, Paul Mason and Sian Norris look at how political pressure from such activists risks fuelling Government rhetoric and policy
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The Nationality and Borders Bill is a Legacy of Empire
We need to start calling British immigration policy and law for what it is: a form of post-colonial, racialised nation-building, says Dr Maria Norris
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Lessons Still Not Learnt From the Windrush Scandal
Four years on, only 5% of victims have received compensation, a training programme is still not up and running , while the promised returning resident visas are being denied
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‘History Will Judge this Shabby Government’ and its Weaponisation of Refugee Lives, Says Lord Alf Dubs
The Labour peer – who fled the Nazis and came to Britain as a child refugee in 1939 – told Byline Times that Priti Patel’s plans “to penalise people for the way they reach safety is absolutely unheard of in the history of refugees”
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Colonial Amnesia: The Forgotten Victims of Transportation
Katharine Quarmby explores why Britain’s story of transportation – the biggest forced migration in its history – has largely been buried
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A War Christmas: What Exactly Are We Remembering?
Otto English explores how Remembrance Sunday has been commercialised and weaponised to feed hollow national myths
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The Today Programme and the War on the National Trust: An Episode in Shameful Journalism
A discussion about wokeness, colonialism and the National Trust on the BBC’s flagship radio show came across like a public school reunion dinner, says Brian Cathcart
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Lost At Sea: Untethered Britain in the Age of Emotion
As international leaders gather in Glasgow for the COP26 summit, Hadley Coull and Chris Ogden consider Britain’s unmoored identity in a volatile world
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Luftwaffle: Fantasy Nostalgia Betrays the Past, and the Present
Otto English explores the trend among Brexiters to summon myths about World War Two It’s a day of the week, so right-wingers are busy invoking World War Two again. In a country where virtually no-one goes to church any more, ‘The War’ has become a de-facto religion for many a Brexit-minded Conservative. And several have…
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More Right-Wing Public Appointments As Two GB News Presenters Awarded Culture Roles
Sam Bright reports on the latest in a string of Conservative allies appointed to public bodies
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Rebalancing the History Books: Why Learning About Colonialism Matters
To mark the start of Black History Month 2021, Almaz Ohene meets inspirational leaders in the younger generation fighting back against the Government’s divisive ‘culture war’
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The Real Culture Divides Being Masked by the Government’s ‘Culture War’
Nadine Dorries’ appointment as Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Secretary is said to be turbo-charging the culture war – but a new report has found the real issue facing the cultural sector is structural inequality not ‘wokery’
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Metrified – or Petrified? The Return of Imperial Measures is the Ghost of a Dead Cat
Though it stands no chance of return, trading standards officer Pippa Musgrave explains why the nostalgia for imperial measures is a deflection from the problems of Brexit
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Murdoch and Morgan: The Reunion From Hell
Mic Wright unpicks the announcement of a new right-wing, Rupert Murdoch television station in the UK – and how it may have spotted a gap in the market following events at a certain beleaguered anti-woke news channel
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‘Ready for a Culture War’: Meet the ‘Common Sense’ Conservative MPs Behind the ‘Anti-Woke’ Manifesto
Otto English investigates the MPs behind the Common Sense Group, modelled on the ERG, which seeks to bring the vitriol of Brexit to the ‘War Against Woke’
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Poll Position: Survey on GB News Bias Reveals Bias
As Andrew Neil officially quits the right-wing television channel, Brian Cathcart reveals the spin on a recent opinion poll
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Fake History: The New Brexiter Great Crusade
In the second part of his look at Brexit ‘campaigning’ groups, Otto English explores the attempts of those trying to weaponise their versions of British history and turning it into an orthodoxy which cannot be challenged
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A Royal Cover-Up: The Hidden Hand of Monarchy Blocking the Public’s Right to See Lord Mountbatten’s Diaries
David Hencke reports on the long-running battle of historian Andrew Lownie against the Government over the release of documents which were bought on behalf of the public for millions of pounds by Southampton University The hidden hand of the Royal Family is behind the Government’s determination to stop the publication of some of the diaries…
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The History Racket: Blowing the Whistle on the Official Versions and Perversions of the Past
Peter Jukes and Hardeep Matharu explore the real threats to history – emanating not from ‘wokeists’ intent on rewriting the past but an establishment elite regularly burying inconvenient truths to maintain Britain’s mythic narratives
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Past Imperfect: Astroturfing History
As the battles of Brexit morph into a culture war, Otto English detects a pattern among the ‘concerned citizens’ demanding Britain ‘takes back control’ of its past
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Why We Need New Statues Reflecting Britain’s Diverse History
MP Preet Kaur Gill explains why she is backing a new campaign for public artwork commemorating people who are under-represented and forgotten in the country’s narratives about its past
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The Government is Crying Crocodile Tears Over Free Speech On Campuses
The Government’s Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill will limit, rather than protect, academic freedom, argue Liz Fekete and Liam Shrivastava
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‘Deserving’ or ‘Undeserving’ Refugees? Johnson and Patel’s Afghanistan Problem
With a key pillar of the Government’s ‘culture war’ protecting our island nation from unpalatable ‘others’, Hardeep Matharu explores the crass and complex classifications at the heart of the Government’s neocolonial immigration policy
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Right-Wing Media’s Manufactured Fears Over ‘Blasphemy’ are Another Arm of the Culture War’s White Jingoist Agenda
Constructed fears around the return of blasphemy laws enable Islamophobia and distract from a reactionary recasting of British values, says Dr Richard McNeil-Willson
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Kicking Back: Why the Conservative ‘Culture Wars’ Backfired
Jon Bloomfield and David Edgar analyse a historic victory for anti-racism but warn that the ‘War on Woke’ isn’t over and that new alliances are needed
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The National Trust and the Culture War: A Dissection of Dishonest Journalism as a Tool of the ‘War on Woke’
Again and again, newspapers hounding the heritage body refuse to let facts get in their way, reports Brian Cathcart
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The Prime Monger: Johnson’s ‘Culture War’ is a Core Part of his Strategic Racism
Martin Shaw explains how Boris Johnson’s racist remarks are far from casual, and that fighting ‘woke’ anti-racism is an essential part of his ethno-nationalist electoral strategy
