US political pollster FRANK LUNTZ warns Britain woke is coming

On April 18, 1775, the great American patriot Paul Revere rode through the night to deliver his countrymen a simple warning: ‘The British are coming! The British are coming!’ Today, as an American pollster returning to spend time in the UK after several years, I bring you an equally urgent warning: ‘Woke is coming!’

Over the past decade we in America have seen two destructive forces creep up and poison our democracy, our society and even our economy: populism on the Right, and Wokeism on the Left.

The rise of populism has shredded the political fabric of the country. The rise of Wokeism is undermining the principles of economic freedom and meritocracy.

And thanks to social media, these forces know no borders, seas or oceans. Faith in democracy itself is at an all-time low.

We all know about the damage done by populism. Even today, about half of Republicans – a quarter of Americans – continue to believe Donald Trump is the legitimate President. They are objectively incorrect but they believe they are right and righteous. And that makes them dangerous.

But less well-known and potentially even more damaging is Wokeism.

To put numbers behind the terminology, 38 per cent of the UK population doesn’t know what ‘Woke’ means. Just over a third, 34 per cent, know nothing about ‘cancel culture’.

And if the remaining two-thirds of the population have heard of it, many think it’s about toppling statues or choosing your pronouns.

Some of the elite in this country claim Woke doesn’t actually exist, or that it’s just like any other pressure group, or that it is purely a political movement for electoral gain. There is some legitimacy to each assertion. 

Yet Woke really is here. Like an as-yet-undiscovered tumour, slowly but steadily metastasising as it did in my own country.

It is like coronavirus, impacting different people in different ways and there’s no known antidote.

And as a pollster, my job isn’t just to measure the present. It’s to see the future with clear eyes… and then inform and enable people to control it. At its core, Woke is an ideology that classifies us into tribes and disrespects our individuality. 

It judges us not by our actions but by our appearance, seeking to create the perception that our history, our economy, and our society have been built on – and are defined by – exploitation, grievance and victimisation.

It labels whole groups of people as co-conspirators in crimes committed generations or even centuries ago.

Walking through London and observing the astonishing buildings – some of them older than my entire country – still fills me with reverence. But through the eyes of the Woke community, one would never see the majestic beauty of British architecture or the staggering accomplishments of your society. 

They bury their heads in shame, convinced by the premise that these buildings exist only because of the wealth stolen from other countries through imperialism and greed.

In their view, the founding sin of America was slavery. Yours was the British Empire.

That may seem like ancient history. Literally. But not to the Woke.

There is real inequality in Britain and America today. We must be clear about that. Discrimination is still too common, a cancer that infects everyone and everything around. I’ve seen with my own eyes what it does to the human condition. Where it is found, it must be eliminated. No exceptions. No excuses.

For the past two months, I’ve been conducting public opinion research in Britain to quantify precisely where the country stands.

Our surveys and focus groups covered a range of topics, from politics to business, from society to culture, in collaboration with the Centre for Policy Studies, the think-tank co-founded by Margaret Thatcher. We had a simple mission: to listen to what all Britons truly think and feel – not just the loud ones with their social-media-enabled megaphones – and then report the information.

We stayed clear of fear and negativity. There’s been enough of them already. We highlighted points of unity, though they are admittedly few. Prepare yourself… Our polling found that when asked to choose between the statements ‘The United Kingdom is a nation of equality and freedom’ and ‘The United Kingdom is an institutionally racist and discriminatory nation’, more than a third of the British public (37 per cent) say that this is a racist country.

Similarly, if you ask whether British society ‘gives people a fair chance to get ahead if they work hard and take responsibility’, or ‘is full of injustice and inequality that holds too many people back’, 42 per cent (and 58 per cent of Labour voters) say the country is full of injustice and inequality.

These are disturbing findings. Yes, the clear majority still believe that Britain is a good place. But many millions of Britons do not.

Of course, some people will argue that Woke is a concern, but not the main concern. And in the short term, both sides are right. When British people go to bed at night, they don’t lie awake worrying about the rise of cancel culture. If they’re thinking about politics at all, they’re thinking about the rising hospital waiting times, crime, or the rising cost of living that makes it difficult for some people to pay their bills.

So why am I ringing the alarm bells? Why am I acting like Paul Revere in reverse?

Because once you dive into our findings, an even more alarming picture emerges – particularly when you break down the country by age, party and community. Britain, for example, is increasingly voting according to culture, not economics.

The way to reach Conservative voters used to be through ideas such as entrepreneurship and wealth-creation. Now it’s about stability and security.

Today, the way to reach Labour voters is to talk about (in)equality rather than economic opportunity.

It’s been said that Americans and Britons are two nations separated by a common language. In the same way, Britons are two peoples separated by uncommon priorities.

Labour voters are much more likely to say that Britain is racist, unequal and generally broken. Unlike Tory voters, they believe that the political and economic system are stacked against them.

Among those who think they know what Woke means, more Labour voters would say they are very or totally Woke than not, and more would say they are proud to be Woke than reject it as divisive – the opposite of the public as a whole.

But the most alarming finding is when you break down the country by age. The people who told us that Britain is institutionally racist and discriminatory were overwhelmingly the young.