It's time to begin forging our new post-DEI culture

Telegraph

01-03-2025

Like a vampire with a fatal wound, diversity, equity and inclusion continues to pull furiously at the veins of British public life while wobbling on its feet. As an orange bullet seems lodged in its heart, we must make serious plans for the restoration of our culture.
For decades, Britain has been in the grip of an elite that has sought to rewrite our values along ideological lines. We used to take for granted that pride in our history, traditions and way of life was a cherished part of our inheritance. We felt loyalty towards compatriots yet welcomed worthy newcomers, as the country would be richer for it. Toleration was reciprocal. People would stand for the national anthem before leaving cinemas.
Today, Britain is unrecognisable, at least in its institutions and cultural climate. The British Museum book shop promotes David Olusoga, Inglorious Empire by Shashi Tharoor and Edward Said's Orientalism. This week, a jailed Albanian people-smuggler was allowed to remain because he had become a 'valuable member of society '. After a recent parents' evening, I had to complain about Critical Race Theory posters on the school walls. What does modern Britain have in common with the country of our parents? George Orwell responded in the Lion and the Unicorn: 'nothing, except that you happen to be the same person.' Even that is less true than it was.
Well, now things may be changing. As Amazon, Disney and Google abandon DEI under the gaze of Donald Trump, British Telecom has pledged to cut similar initiatives from its bonus scheme and banks have called on the City regulator to scrap diversity targets. Speaking to the Guardian, Helena Morrissey, who chairs something called the Diversity Project, lamented that her colleagues fear that 'it's all over, there's no point in us trying any more'.
But restoring Britain is no small job. For decades, our country has been subjected to a Gramscian long march through the institutions, combined with mass immigration, socialist economics and psy-ops from academia and the arts. We must prepare for a long march back. This won't happen under Labour, so we have four years to get ready.
Do not underestimate the scale of the problem. The country is entirely different from just 20 years ago. In that time, the population has increased by the size of London, with a growing Muslim minority. Our schools and universities have produced generations of youngsters who know little about their history and nothing about their national religion, not to mention basic manners. Social media poses a challenge of its own.
A return to liberalism is part of it. But the postwar liberal consensus, which viewed national identity, faith and tradition as the seeds of Hitlerism, has become corrupted, beckoning in an age of progressive radicalism. Enlightenment principles are also important, but in the contribution they made to the decline of religion, they are only part of the picture.
We need a new direction that restores our old values and national story but allows for the challenges of today. The pursuit of reason and the separation of Church and State are vital, but our Christian inheritance must be rescued from mockery and – gently and moderately – woven back into the social fabric. Space must be made for other religions, including Islam, within an overarching Christian Britishness. We need sensible answers to questions of race, class and belonging.
Institutional, legal and economic reform are required, but it begins with education. This is the work of a generation, resting both on political leadership and the little platoons of civil society.
The time to start is now.