OPINION
Prime Minister Keir Starmer (Image: Getty)
In the years leading up to the 2024 general election, political discourse in the UK was obsessed with the so-called culture war. From statues to slogans, from pronouns to patriotism, politicians, pundits and online provocateurs waged noisy, symbolic battles over
identity and values. It was headline-friendly. And ultimately superficial.
I used to think the culture war was a fight you won by not engaging. A political sideshow, full of bile and fury from extremists on both sides, usually getting offended on someone else’s behalf. And, to an extent, that’s true. Raging online about which toilets someone uses doesn’t help the tiny, tiny minority of people genuinely struggling with their identity and needing support, love and counselling. That still holds.
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But what if there’s a deeper, darker element to the culture war that’s only now becoming clear? What if the real culture war didn’t begin with a bang on social media, but with the quiet, calculated decisions of a Labour Party now comfortably in power? What if the real ideological conflict isn’t over hashtags or statues or toilets, but over the economic and social foundations of communities that, for decades, have been seen by Labour as class enemies?
Recent headlines have focused on Labour’s apparent turn to the right on immigration, or Starmer’s choreographed visit to the White House. These are designed to project control and moderation. But these performances are a smokescreen. Behind the curtain, Labour is waging a far more consequential campaign: a systematic dismantling of the Britain that never voted for them.
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Take business. Labour’s tone towards industry is publicly conciliatory. Before the election we had ‘The Prawn Sandwich Offensive’. Now, Starmer talks of “working hand in hand” with employers. But in practice, it’s another story. New taxes on jobs, like the National Insurance hike, are a direct penalty on employment.
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The proposed Employment Bill, framed as a worker protection law, threatens to bury small businesses in costly legal obligations and compliance demands. A clever trick: punish enterprise, then claim you’re defending workers. Or consider pensioners. A reliable bloc of Conservative voters, they now find themselves quiet victims of a cynical recalibration.
Labour’s move to effectively means-test the winter fuel allowance, under the guise of “fiscal responsibility”, isn’t about saving money. It’s about redefining the social contract with those who’ve paid into the system their whole lives. This is a targeted erosion of dignity in old age, aimed at those least likely to send a Labour MP to Westminster.
Then there’s rural Britain. Labour’s hostility to the countryside is nothing new, but it’s never been so methodical. Farmers, already on the ropes after years of uncertainty, now face a knock-out combination-blow from Labour: slashed subsidies, inheritance tax changes, huge levies on fertiliser.
These policies aren’t just economically damaging—they’re culturally destructive. They threaten to sever the intergenerational ties that hold British farming together. To the urban policymaker, it’s about climate or fairness. To the farmer, it’s a clear message: your way of life doesn’t belong in our future.
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And what of the fishermen? Long held up as a Brexit success story, they’ve now been hung out to dry. Labour’s decision to grant EU fleets twelve more years of access to UK waters, with minimal protection for domestic industry, isn’t just a betrayal. It’s a message: your sovereignty was temporary, and your loyalty won’t be rewarded. None of this is accidental. This isn’t the result of economic hard choices, it’s strategic.
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Labour is quietly executing a retributive vision: if you’ve stood against Labour, Labour will now stand against you. This isn’t Corbynite fantasy, it’s something more efficient and sinister. A punishment beating dressed as competence. This is the real culture war. A war not over language, but livelihood. Not over tweets, but tradition.
Starmer may present as a technocrat, but he governs as a quiet ideologue, methodically redrawing Britain in Labour’s image by squeezing out those who represent the old order. We need to wake up to the long-term strategy. While the right gets drawn into shadow-boxing with student union slogans, Labour is redrawing the lines of power. Unless we realise where the real fight is, there may soon be nothing left to defend.
The real culture war isn’t on television. It’s on farms, in fishing ports, business parks, and retirement homes. And unless we call it out, it will be won: quietly, ruthlessly, and without a shot fired.