Reform's chairman is right: young Britons are demoralised. But it's not because they hate their country
R eform politicians vie to say the most chilling thing – between Andrea Jenkyns' promise to sack diversity officers who don't exist, and party chair Zia Yusuf's pledge to bring legal challenges against the use of hotels to house asylum seekers – and that, I accept with a heavy heart, will be the work of the next four years: finding an answer to this nastiness more convincing than Labour's current plan of becoming more like them.
But something else Yusuf said was actually true: buried among nationalist bilge about the British empire being good, actually, he said in an interview, 'There has been an industrial-scale demoralisation, particularly of young people in this country.' He thinks they're being demoralised because they're being taught to hate their country. In fact, for so many of us, hating our country, or certainly the flaws in its governance and behaviour, are what gets us out of bed in the morning. Yet there is a demoralisation in Gen Z, no question: the right may blame it on anti-patriotism, I could blame it on anything from a curriculum full of climate despair, juxtaposed with their own powerless and the visible inaction of those with power, to the simple fact that life has been economically really tough, for huge and increasing numbers of people, since the financial crash, which is to say, the entire time they've been alive.
But a couple of notes on pessimism – and none of them are 'wave more union flags, and it will go away': first, it's really hard to meaningfully seed it in the young. You can make them feel stupid, for voicing anything other than gloom, but you can't sap their will to action. Second, misery only serves two forces, those of reactionary politics, and those of capital. Ideally, we wouldn't be teaching them any of life's harsh realities without simultaneously teaching them how to organise. Realistically, on the current performance of mature society, it'll be them teaching us how to organise.
Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
11 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Trans books for toddlers are an outrage
But let's move away from the brazen attempts to brainwash little children for just a moment and settle down in the story corner for today's educational tale (with apologies to Eric Carle), The Very Publicity-Hungry Campaigner. One day a tiny and very publicity-hungry campaigner, who wanted to be a big deal, hatched a plan to recruit pre-school allies. He had guessed, quite rightly, that toddlers were the only demographic likely to believe his guff that anyone can change sex if they just pop on a frock and get furious about pronouns. On the first day, The Very Publicity-Hungry Campaigner gobbled up one publishing deal. On the second day he wrote two books explaining that girls who play with trains are probably boys and boys who like pink should be taken to a doctor and diagnosed as transgender. On the third day, The Very Publicity-Hungry Campaigner bullied women writers who did not agree with his crackpot notions. On the fourth day he slapped a great big Stonewall Award sticker on a book about a sister becoming a brother. On the fifth day, he ate a wheelbarrow of oranges and threatened to cancel anyone who said they were not the only fruit. Then on the sixth day, he disseminated a library of kids' books in which gender transitioning turned out to be the twinkly secret of a happy-ever-after. On the seventh day, he devoured every last scrap of bonkers gender ideology he could find and disappeared off to digest it. Some time later, The Very Publicity-Hungry Campaigner emerged looking like an extra from RuPaul's Drag Race and announced he was now a biological woman. The Very Publicity-Hungry Campaigner banged on about his lived experience (of about a week). It was tempting to get very cross indeed. But then the Supreme Court decided that references to 'sex', 'man' and 'woman' in the Equality Act referred to biological sex and after that, nobody cared what he said, safe in the knowledge it was now illegal for him to manspread in the ladies' changing room or beat women to a pulp in the Olympics. The End. If only it were. I thought we were done with all this nonsense – Martine Croxall we salute your eye roll at the witless term 'pregnant people' – and I for one have no desire to give Very Publicity-Hungry Campaigners any more of the attention they so desperately crave. Fighting dirty But new research into the publishing industry carried out by UK pressure group Sex Matters and its US equivalent, SEEN in Publishing, has revealed that a 'shiny, sparkly world of trans identities' is being promoted to young readers, with 'many aimed at toddlers'. Now that really is fighting so dirty I have to speak up: how dare publishers literally mess with little children's minds in this way? Here in north London having two mums is commonplace, two dads is no biggie; small kids aren't that interested in their parents' sexual preferences, they are interested in being loved, nurtured and protected. Growing up is hard enough work, which is why it's utterly immoral to draw toddlers, who haven't even mastered the potty, into the adult world of human identity politics. What next? Assisted dying and late-stage abortion? At this age, most of our collective offspring still believe Paw Patrol is real and the moon follows them home, for pity's sake. Sowing the seeds of doubt about their biological sex is outrageous, indefensible and, let's be honest, exceedingly creepy. Let our littlest citizens learn tolerance, fairness (yes even to women) kindness (ditto) and consideration. But they also deserve to know they have the right to ask questions and press for answers – anathema to the militant trans lobby who prefer to shut everyone down in case they bring up uncomfortable truths like biology. This new audit of the publishing industry found that of 21 publishers surveyed, a fifth of their output on transgender-related products was targeted at children, leading the report to raise concerns that the message in the early-reader books was often that becoming transgender will 'resolve bodily hatred and create enduring joy in the form of 'trans euphoria''. Crikey, if that were the case we'd all be at it. But it's not. Take a look at the shouty trans forums online and I've got to say that enduring joy doesn't feature nearly as often as spittle-flecked misogyny.
The Independent
15 minutes ago
- The Independent
Trump's US accuses UK of backing ‘state-subsidised suicide' after assisted dying bill passes
The Trump administration criticised the UK's recently passed assisted dying bill, labelling it as 'state-subsidised suicide'. The US State Department 's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour stated that the 'western world should stand for life, vitality and hope over surrender and death' in response to the legislation. The Terminally Ill Adults Bill, introduced by MP Kim Leadbeater, passed the House of Commons by a narrow margin of 23 votes. The bill would permit terminally ill individuals with less than six months to live to apply for assisted death, pending approval from two doctors and a panel of professionals. The legislation is now advancing to the House of Lords for further review, and this marks the second instance of the US State Department criticising Britain under Sir Keir.
The Guardian
17 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Israel closes the most direct route for aid to Palestinians in Gaza
Israel has closed crossings into northern Gaza, cutting the most direct route for aid to reach hundreds of thousands of people at risk of famine, as airstrikes and shelling killed dozens more people in the devastated Palestinian territory. The move to close the crossings on Thursday will increase diplomatic pressure on Israel as attention shifts from its brief conflict with Iran, back to the violence and grave humanitarian crisis in Gaza. During the 12 days Israel was fighting Iran, more than 800 Palestinians were killed in Gaza – either shot as they desperately sought aid in increasingly chaotic circumstances or in successive waves of Israeli strikes and shelling. Pedro Sánchez, Spain's prime minister, on Thursday became the most prominent European leader to describe the situation in Gaza as a 'genocide'. Sánchez, an outspoken critic of Israel's offensive, is one of the first European leaders, and the most senior, to use the term 'genocide' to describe the situation in Gaza. Speaking ahead of an EU summit in Brussels, Sánchez mentioned an EU report which found 'indications' Israel was breaching its human rights obligations under the cooperation deal, which forms the basis for trade ties. The text cited Israel's blockade of humanitarian aid for the Palestinian territory, the high number of civilian casualties, attacks on journalists and the massive displacement and destruction caused by the war. Israel vehemently denies the allegation of war crimes and genocide, which it says is based in anti-Israeli bias and antisemitism. The spokesperson for Gaza's civil defence agency, Mahmud Bassal, said Israeli forces killed 56 people on Thursday, including six who were waiting for aid in two separate locations. There was no independent confirmation of the claim, but medical records of field hospitals run by the International Committee of the Red Cross and other NGOs seen by the Guardian detail hundreds of injuries from bullets among civilians seeking aid in the last two weeks. Witnesses have also described lethal fire from Israeli troops. The Israeli military said soldiers had 'fired warning shots' in order to prevent 'suspects from approaching them' near the Netzarim corridor in central Gaza, where Palestinians gather each night, often in the hope of stopping aid trucks. Food has become extremely scarce in Gaza since a tight blockade on all supplies was imposed by Israel throughout March and April, threatening many of the 2.3 million people who live there with a 'critical risk of famine'. Since the blockade was partially lifted last month, the UN has tried to bring in aid but has faced major obstacles, including rubble-choked roads, Israeli military restrictions, continuing airstrikes and growing anarchy. Reaching the north, where the need is greatest, has been hardest but became much easier when Israel opened the Zikim crossing, allowing wheat and other basics to be transported there directly. Aid officials in the territory described Thursday's closure of Zikim, which Israel said was necessary to stop Hamas seizing aid, was 'very problematic' and would directly impact aid distribution. New aid distribution points set up by a secretive US- and Israel-backed private organisation called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation are located in central and south Gaza, out of reach of most of the million people estimated to be in the north. The Israeli government ordered the closure of the northern crossing points after footage surfaced on social media showing armed men guarding a shipment of aid. Israeli right-wing rivals to Netanyahu claimed they were Hamas, but aid workers and others in Gaza said the guards were loyal to a council of local community leaders who had organised protection for a convoy of much-needed supplies. The Higher Commission for Tribal Affairs, which represents influential clans in the territory, said the guards had been organised 'solely through tribal efforts' and that that no Palestinian faction – a reference to militant groups in Gaza including Hamas – was involved. 'The clans came … to form a stance to prevent the aggressors and the thieves from stealing the food that belongs to our people,' Abu Salman Al Moghani, a representative of the Commission, said. On Monday, 79 trucks from aid organizations and the international community containing food for children, medical supplies and medications were transferred into Gaza after undergoing thorough security inspections, Israeli authorities said. On Tuesday, the total was 71. The World Health Organization said Thursday that it had delivered its first medical shipment into Gaza since 2 March, adding however that the nine truckloads were 'a drop in the ocean'. Last week the WHO said only 17 of Gaza's 36 hospitals were minimally to partially functional, with the rest unable to function at all. Israel launched its campaign aiming to destroy Hamas after the group's 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 251 hostage. The militants still hold 49 hostages, fewer than half of them alive. The overall death toll in Gaza in the 20-month conflict has now reached 56,259, mostly civilians. Hopes of a third ceasefire were raised on Wednesday when President Trump told reporters he believed 'great progress is being made on Gaza'. But both Hamas and Israeli officials have since suggested no agreement is close. Taher al-Nunu, a Hamas official, said on Wednesday that talks with mediators had 'intensified' but that the group had 'not yet received any new proposals' to end the war. Israeli officials said only that efforts to return the hostages were ongoing 'on the battlefield and via negotiations'. Seven Israeli soldiers were killed in a single attack in southern Gaza on Tuesday, the military's deadliest day in the territory since it broke a ceasefire with Hamas in March. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, faces growing calls from opposition politicians, relatives of hostages in Gaza and much of the Israeli public to bring an end to the fighting.
