I disagree with Kemi’s about Brexit, but I agree with everything she says in this article in today’s Times about identity politics, cancel culture and free speech :
”Too often people feel that whoever is elected, the answer is more government. By promising too much and trying to solve every problem, politicians don’t reassure and inspire, they disappoint and drive disillusion. More taxes. More rules and regulations. And ever cheaper borrowing to keep government afloat no matter the cost to savers or the wider economy.
Instead, we need strong but limited government focused on the essentials. Lower taxes yes, but to boost growth and productivity, and accompanied by tight spending discipline.
Meanwhile our country is falsely criticised as oppressive to minorities and immoral, because it enforces its own borders. We cannot maintain a cohesive nation state with the zero-sum identity politics we see today.
Exemplified by coercive control, the imposition of views, the shutting down of debate, the end of due process, identity politics is not about tolerance or individual rights but the very opposite of our crucial and enduring British values.
And if we are to see the change we need in this country we need an intellectual framework which recognises that in politics, there is no division between the cultural or economic sphere. It is no surprise the fiercest proclaimers of “social justice” usually believe in the power of government over the people, in the power of the bureaucrat over the individual, and have a distrust of people making their own decisions in the economic sphere just as much as the social.“