I have broken my now usual fortnightly, because the discussions around Matt Goodwin’s new book – which, according to his publisher, presents a ‘bold new theory for our ongoing political instability’ – on social media and in the British press both fascinate and annoyed me in equal measures. I have written a short piece for the Encompass web page criticising Goodwin’s limited understanding of the issue of social class. Here, I thought I would publish my other concerns with his ‘theory,’ which did not fit into the Encompass piece.
To reiterate, what I wrote on the Encompass web page: Goodwin’s theory explains national populism – a better term would be ‘nationalist populism,’ because that is what it really is – that has dominated British politics in the past years and that brough us Brexit is primarily a popular reaction against a ‘new elite’ or a ‘new ruling class.’ Over the past fifty years, that new elite increasingly has been shaping the country according to its radical progressive (‘woke’) values, while the ‘masses’ of ordinary people suffer from the consequences of the elite’s ill-informed relaxed attitude towards mass- and illegal immigration and towards the ‘breakdown of families.’
Goodwin then develops what I would call an ‘elite displacement’ theory: Since the 1970s, the new elite has progressively displaced the old elite, which was ‘mainly defined by its wealth, inherited titles, estates, “small C” cultural values and, often, its lack of university education,’ and was associated with ‘an old boys’ network of wealthy, right-leaning elites in the City, the Tory donor class and the private members’ clubs on Pall Mall.’ While ‘out of touch’ with regular people in socio-economic terms, the old elite shared cultural values with the masses, while the new elite does not. Therefore, the emergence of the new elite made non-elite people revolt, while – by implication – they were quite happy to be dominated by the old elite.
Goodwin’s elite definition is threefold: education, location, and inclination (values/opinion). Indeed, the key defining features of the new elite are their education (Russell Group university education), where they live (‘postcodes in the most affluent or trendy districts in London, the big cities or university towns’), and the values they hold (progressive-liberal, ‘woke’).
Goodwin’s ‘theory’ is confused, self-contradictory, and flawed in many respects. Including the very definition of the new elite. In terms of education – which Goodwin sees as the foremost determinant of the new elite. For instance, a quick look at the list of British Prime Ministers who graduated from Oxford University shows just how insufficient the education criterion is to distinguish a new from an old elite. Graduates from Oxford clearly are overrepresented amongst the country’s PMs all the way back to the 18th century. Goodwin may object that elite universities like Oxford ‘have swung sharply leftwards over the past 50 years,’ which makes recent Oxford graduates members of the new ‘out of touch’ elite. But keen observers will note that the PMs that have graduated from Oxford in the last 50 years were primarily Tories including Thatcher, Cameron, May, Truss, Sunak and Johnson (who Goodwin otherwise considers a ‘renegade member of the elite.’) Hardly people that have been successfully indoctrinated with ‘radical woke’ values.
The ‘postcode criterion’ is equally unsuitable to clearly distinguish the venerable old elite from the nefarious new one, given for example that the neighbourhoods of ‘West London’ that Goodwin sees as the ‘enclaves’ where the new elite ‘hunkers down’ are as much – probably more – populated by hedge fund managers and bankers, as they are by ‘lefty lawyers’ and other members of the new elite.
So, ultimately, all that is left of Goodwin’s distinction between new and old elite, is the former’s ‘out of touch’ progressive values about immigration, family, and the like. The bold new theory that Goodwin provides seems to be based on a definition of elites that is neither socio-economic, nor based on education, but merely based on opinion.
It is this ‘thin’ and ultimately banal definition of the new elite as those who embrace progressive values that explains why – despite Goodwin’s insistence on the importance and novelty of the educational divide – both Cambridge-educated journalist Emily Maitlis and Gary Lineker who left school with four O-levels are considered members of the same new elite.
Lineker’s criticism of the government’s plan to stop small refugee boats from crossing the English Channel was the opportunity for Goodwin to present his theory to readers of tabloid papers. Lineker’s comment – which I think is spot on in several respects, but Goodwin finds ‘idiotic’ – that the language used in debates about the Illegal Immigration Bill was not dissimilar to the language used in Germany in the 1930s shows – according to Goodwin – how out of touch the new elite is with the people in the country who largely support the government’s harsh immigration policy.
What Goodwin’s account of the Lineker affair completely ignores, is the fact that the reason why it became an ‘affair’ in the first place is that Lineker was suspended from his job for simply speaking his mind using his personal Twitter account. Furthermore, the suspension was decided by Tim Davie, former deputy chairman of the Hammersmith & Fulham Conservative Party (a borough in West London, which Goodwin otherwise considers an ‘enclave’ of the new elite), on Tory party donor Richard Sharpe’s watch. Surely, had someone with right-wing views been suspended for a personal Tweet, Goodwin – like other ‘free speech warriors’ – would have criticised the blatant ‘cancel culture’ at the BBC. Instead, he takes aim at the presenter for having had the audacity to criticise the Home Secretary’s potentially illegal immigration plan, because the latter is allegedly supported by the British people.
The latter claim in itself is problematic. Polling by Ipsos shows that 56% – i.e., a majority! – of people say they do not trust the Tories policies on asylum seekers ‘very much’ or ‘at all’. The Concerning channel crossings, the percentage of people who distrust the Conservatives is even higher (59%), while only 32% trust them. Goodwin’s claim that Linker’s opposition to the Tories’ Illegal Immigration Bill is out of touch with the British people seems false.
Unless, of course, you define the ‘real’ British people tautologically as those who agree with the government’s harsh approach to immigration – which is exactly what Goodwin’s strange elite theory does. Goodwin’s elite is primarily one defined by opinion – those who agree with his nationalist and traditionalist values speak for the people, those who do not are ‘out of touch.’
It is easy to debunk Goodwin’s ‘bold theory’ by pointing out some of its more egregious logical flaws. If the woke, radical-progressive elite is indeed the new ‘ruling elite’ in the country, that ‘wields enormous influence over not just politics but the prevailing culture,’ how come that for the past 12 years the Tories have been in power? Goodwin writes that if only graduates had voted in the 2019 General Election, then Corbyn would currently be Prime Minister. Yet, he isn’t. How can this be explained in Goodwin’s theory? Former Tory Downing Street Chief of Staff Nick Timothy comes to the rescue, arguing that Goodwin’s theory is not about political-, but about cultural power. But Goodwin’s theory rests on the argument that new elite ‘preaches’ beliefs that have few costs for themselves, but which ‘negatively affect other groups in society’ and gives as an example the impact of ‘mass migration’ on domestic workers. If the argument is that the new elite only has cultural power, why would their views on immigration matter for the British people in a country that has been governed by Conservatives for 37 out of the last 50 years?
Goodwin could probably make a case that the new elite has done all the damage before an ‘awakening’ of the masses in the UK thanks to UKIP or Brexit. But if the masses managed to get what they wanted in both 2016 and the 2019 General Election, then clearly the power of the ‘new elite’ is not as all-encompassing as he suggests. And if he does indeed worry about a narrowing of ‘the range of voices represented in our national debate,’ then having a liberal elite that is not in power but can be heard surely is a good thing.
Another evident fact that shows that Goodwin is wrong is – ironically – his own success. I wonder how many readers of this post – most of whom I would assume tick more than one box of Goodwin’s ‘new elite’ check list – have heard of Prof. Mike Savage. Prof. Savage is a Professor of Sociology at the LSE and has studied social stratification, class, and inequality in the UK for decades. He has used his knowledge not to divide but to try and understand the lack of social mobility that is plaguing the country (not to advocate ‘intermarriage’ among elites as Goodwin’s theory probably would expect him to do). Yet, it is Goodwin, not Savage who has captured the ‘national conversation’ and is omnipresent on social media. The reason why it is the other way round, of course, is that the right-wing press – owned by rentier billionaires – gives Goodwin a massive platform that Prof. Savage would never get. That in itself should lay to rest Goodwin’s arguments about the woke dominance of the public conversation in this country.
As I argued in the Encompass piece, Goodwin’s theory is particularly weak in terms of the socio-economic aspects of the new elite seems. Socio-economic status is secondary to the trinity of education-location-inclination; presumably, because class is so obviously unable to explain what is new about the new elite. What he has to say about the new elite’s socio-economic status is that they are relatively wealthy, benefit from globalisation and from the buoyant housing markets in the postcodes where they live.
However, if there were a neat coincidence between university education and reaping the benefits of globalisation, then the current socio-economic status of many academics would be particularly hard to explain.* For Goodwin, the new elite ‘has been the real winner of university meritocracy, hoovering up the gains from globalisation and an economy that was rebuilt around the graduate class.’ He was probably too busy writing his book to notice to what extent the living standards and working conditions of academics have declined over the past decade, while those of Vice Chancellors and others in senior management have aligned upwards with practices previously only known in the private sector – as is illustrated by the current head of the universities employers association UUK. This too hints at a different root cause of current economic grievances that not just affect blue-collar factory workers, but increasingly white collar professionals. Namely, the dominance of economic and business theories that consider work as a cost to be minimised not a valuable asset.
Goodwin sometimes seems to suggest – and probably genuinely believes – that his decrying the new elite’s role in causing a backlash against liberalism may serve as a warning to ‘close these divides’ between new elite and masses, lest ‘the revolts of the past decade will soon grow into a much more serious and far-reaching rebellion.’ At the same time, the tone of his Twitter messages and of much of what he writes in The Sun, suggests he is hoping for that revolt to happen. If he really worries about ‘our leaders on the left and right […] importing a divisive identity politics from America,’ which ‘directly undermines Britain’s traditional civic culture,’ then he will be disappointed by the impact his writings are having on the public discourse in this country. Thus, rather than interpreting it as a warning against divisiveness, other commentators of Goodwin’s ilk, like Nick Timothy have taken Goodwin’s theory as a call to arms to ‘crush the liberal elite.’ Rather than an explanation of our social reality, Goodwin’s strange elite theory, seems more like a self-fulfilling prophecy that contributes to transforming a very diverse and pluralistic country into the nationalist populist us-versus-them ideal.
*As an aside, academics and universities are of course a privileged target of nationalist populists. As such adherents of Goodwin’s Manichean ‘us -versus-them’ world view will no doubt lump me together with the ‘new elite,’ because I strongly object to nationalism and to some extent to social conservatism. This too shows how very limited Goodwin’s new elite theory is. As a Catholic self-identifying as a big N big L Neo-Liberal, my relationship with conservative values ‘is complicated.’ However, I do agree to some extent with some of the things Goodwin says about excesses in universities, notably the risks of an ill-defined diversity policy. Indeed, I agree with some right-wing conservative arguments that there is a certain risk that the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusivity (EDI) agenda in British universities can itself become illiberal and negatively affect academic freedom. That is not to say that I reject the ideas of systemic racism and other biases against minorities that urgently need addressing; even less that I agree with right-wing critics’ arguments about the extent of the problem with EDI – especially when compared with the much more severe problem of rising right-wing nationalism – or the remedies they suggest (‘war on woke’). But I do think that – if done badly – EDI can be weaponised and become as exclusionary and divisive as right-wing nationalist populism. That latter statement may shock some readers. But it does illustrate that there is a huge diversity of views amongst academics on such issues, not an all-encompassing dominance of a monolithic‘‘woke ideology.’ In a pluralistic and liberal society one should be allowed to adhere to aspects of the EDI agenda, while pointing out its risks and flaws without being branded either ‘woke’ or a right-wing reactionary.