Who will deliver us from the hysterical mob?

The reaction to a simple statement of biological fact by the prime minister shows how far into the rabbit hole some have descended

Before I turn to thoughts of party conference season and what I suspect might happen at the next general election, allow me to mention that I popped up in my regular Friday evening slot as a panellist on GB News’s ‘Dewbs and Co’ last week. The topics under discussion were the prospect of Labour storming the next election, teachers being asked to supervise toothbrushing in schools, and local communities seeking to block second-home ownership.

At the end of the show, we were joined by a very special guest – a true comedy legend – and I confess to being slightly starstruck in his presence. (Hint: I didn’t mention the war!)

The full programme may be viewed here:

I find party conference season an increasingly dull affair. These days, the conferences of the main parties are largely devoid of any real debate, let alone controversy. In fact, with each passing year, they become more like the national conventions held by the Republicans and Democrats in the US – largely superficial and stage-managed events. There is limited room for internal democracy, and the parties’ senior figures are expected to be ‘on message’ the whole time.

The Labour party conference – which I know best, having attended several times over the years – was once a cauldron of discussion, argument and decision-making. By way of example, here’s some footage from a debate at the 1985 party conference over a motion calling for a future Labour government to reinstate miners sacked during the mass strike that had recently concluded, and to reimburse monies sequestrated from the National Union of Mineworkers. Watch the sparks fly as gnarled old trade union leaders and other delegates (as well as party leader Neil Kinnock himself) get stuck into each other.

Some would argue that the electorate is turned off by political parties arguing things out in public in this way. They may be right. But I am not convinced. I suspect many voters prefer listening to the sort of authentic and unreconstructed figures in the above video clip making their arguments with passion and sincerity over the rather bland and robotic speeches we hear from today’s generation of politicians and activists.

My advice to anyone attending a conference of one of the main parties would be to spend more time at events on the fringe than inside the main hall. The conference fringe is often replete with thought-provoking meetings and speakers on a range of topics, and is usually far more interesting than the main proceedings.

Anyway, a word or two about last week’s Tory conference and this week’s Labour gathering (apologies to Lib Dem supporters, but I struggle to get worked up about the internal affairs of a party whose purpose I still cannot fathom after many years as a political activist).

The Tory conference seemed to pass most people by. And not without reason. It was, after all, a rather unenthusiastic affair (evident from the number of unfilled seats throughout the conference centre). It seems as though the Tories have, privately at least, resigned themselves to defeat at the next election.

Nonetheless, there was a standout moment (for me, at least). It came during Rishi Sunak’s main speech. Highlighting the problem of virtue-signalling within the ‘permanent state’, Sunak remarked, ‘[W]e shouldn’t get bullied into believing that people can be any sex they want to be. They can’t. A man is a man, and a woman is a woman. That’s just common sense.’

Photograph: Conservative party

I have frequently argued that age-old social and cultural norms are being overturned within our country at a rapid rate, and the fact that the prime minister felt the need to make such a comment rather proves the point. Go back a decade. Five years, even. The spectacle of a prime minister stating something so obvious, so intellectually unchallengeable, would have caused widespread bemusement. It would have sounded as weird as a prime minister telling his party conference that people shouldn’t be bullied into believing that the sun neither rises in the east nor sets in the west.

But he said it. And he said it because, walking among us - and, more worryingly, operating in positions of influence - are people who believe the very opposite – that is to say they believe that men can become women, and vice versa.

Like some great mass delusion, this belief has penetrated the minds of otherwise sensible human beings and made them utterly impervious to reason. Worse, anyone who questions their belief is accused of being all kinds of unimaginable things.

Witness, for example, some of the responses to Sunak’s remark. He was assailed with accusations of being ‘transphobic’ and employing ‘hate speech’. To some, his comment was the ultimate transgression, and ran so counter to acceptable discourse as to be worthy of police intervention.

And it wasn’t just the odd obscure troll who reacted in this way. Labour MP Dame Angela Eagle described Sunak’s words as ‘farcical’ and suggested they gave ‘signals to people that LGBT people, particularly trans people, can be attacked in the street’. Green party MP Caroline Lucas weighed in in similar fashion, opining that Sunak’s words amounted to ‘nasty divisiveness from the hard-right playbook’. Meanwhile, Howard Beckett, a man who in 2021 came close to becoming the leader of Britain’s second-largest trade union stated, ‘How is this not transphobia? It just is.’ Then there was the NHS chief medical officer, who reassured the ‘trans community’ that ‘despite the political rhetoric of the last few days, you will always receive the care you require where best meets your needs. You are and will always be valued and respected.’

All these weird, hysterical outpourings are a sign of how, when the sensible majority remain silent, fringe ideologies are able to take hold and society can quickly descend into a rabbit hole. It’s a lesson that we must, when confronted by the extreme demands of a minority, be bolder and braver as individuals and as a society - no matter how vocal that minority may be.

Labour’s conference was an altogether more confident and bullish affair. Most observers will have concluded that this is a party that knows in its bones it is on its way to forming a government.

But are things really that clear cut? I’m not so sure. As I wrote for UnHerd after Sir Keir Starmer’s glitter-flecked speech, this does not strike me as a 1997 moment. Back then, it was obvious that the Labour party enjoyed such levels of popular support among both its traditional working-class base and so-called ‘aspirational’ middle-class voters, and that the Tories were so deeply loathed, that nothing short of a catastrophe would have prevented a change of government.

This time around, while support for the Tories has again plummeted, Labour’s support among working-class voters is not exactly ‘baked in’. In fact, a poll published earlier this week showed the Labour lead over the Tories among this cohort to be much narrower than it was among other groups of voters.

Given that there is unlikely to be a path back to power for Labour that does not pass through its old Red Wall constituencies, it would seem a little premature to conclude that the party is nailed on to win the next election. I suspect that things might turn out to be a little more interesting than some predict.

The fat lady might be waddling to the stage. But she hasn’t yet sung.

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