Canada and Australia have decided to become citadels of wokeism

The Print

05-05-2025

Canadians have always been comfortable with this ultra-left liberal position. Now, they have been able to comfortably combine it with a dash of hyper-nationalism, thanks to Trump's needling of their leaders and their policies. Geographically distant observers like this writer see nothing so frightening about Trump's amusing positions. In fact, they seem both logical and obvious. But then when hyper-patriotic and hyper-matriotic media anchors dominate, there is no space for down-to-earth logic or benign amusement. Net-net, the rightward shift of the US has been met with a reaffirmation of Canada's impractical, utopian Left ideology.
Canadians affirmed that they are a left-of-centre people. Despite the disastrous and inequitable carbon tax, the emasculation of civil rights during Covid and a fanatical pursuit of climate hysteria in a resource-rich land, Canadians were willing to tolerate—and even welcome back—the Left, albeit under a new leader. Mark Carney is not from the traditional Left. He has probably never visited a factory or a farm, let alone worked in one. Elite boardrooms and transnational executive suites are his natural habitat. He represents the New Left with its neo-Malthusian weltanschauung .
The most common words in election analysis are: trend, sweep, upset, and so on. Let us consider three elections in largely English-speaking countries: Canada, Australia, and Britain. The first two were parliamentary elections, while the third consisted of several local elections and an important by-election. The rightward shift in US politics is believed by most observers to have influenced all these elections.
Australia's paradox
Australia is quite similar. The Labor government has spent its years apologising for the racism—real, exaggerated, and sometimes imagined—of their country's founders. It has waffled on anti-Semitism in the streets of Sydney and while keeping it under the radar, its partiality for China cannot be missed. It has allowed and even encouraged universities and state-controlled media to become citadels of wokeism. Australia, too, is on a neo-Malthusian crusade engineered by the Holy Climate Inquisition. Yet, the otherwise sensible, cricket-loving Australians have chosen to reaffirm their faith in the Left.
In Australia, there was some hope that the rightward shift in US politics would bring about positive change. Unfortunately, the Left has succeeded in promoting itself as anti-Trump—or at least as the side not pro-Trump—and this seems to have gone down well with voters. One can only pity today's voters and their children as their once prosperous and free country continues down a path toward genteel poverty and cancel-culture totalitarianism. One hates to see these developments in purely imperialist or racial terms. But sometimes one must abandon political correctness. In a few years, Australia might become the first white Anglo-Saxon country to willingly serve as a subservient outpost of the Han empire.
Britain bucks the trend
British elections, on the other hand, have been markedly positive. This writer had given up on Britain when the colourless, odourless, tasteless Keir Starmer came to power. It got worse when it became clear that Starmer was a closet, or perhaps even open, Islamist, as he resisted calls for a proper inquiry into the grooming-raping scandal across large parts of Britain. Starmer is also wrecking what remains of Britain's industrial competitiveness by listening to his in-house climate ayatollahs.
And then came Nigel Farage and the Reform Party. One could write a new Ode to the West Wind, as Reform has echoed the right sentiments from across the Atlantic. Reform has highlighted the destructive potential of uncontrolled immigration and the systematic discrimination by police, prosecutors, and courts (all gone woke with a vengeance) targeting native white Britons. Clearly, Reform has benefited from being pro-Trump. That is the demonstrable difference between the voters of Canada and Australia and those in Britain's middle and working classes.
The British need to be congratulated. Unfortunately and unhappily for them, they must spend a few more years sipping from the poisoned chalice of Starmerian Labour. But there is light at the end of the tunnel. The upward trajectory of Reform may yet lead them out of woke and neo-Malthusian traps. I am not sure Farage will read this column. Perhaps some UK-based readers of ThePrint can forward this article to his office and ask that the paragraph below be shared with him.
Dear Mr Farage: in De Quincey's essay on Taking the News of Victory on a Stagecoach, he portrays a period when Britain and its Iberian allies were fighting Napoleonic France. Even small British successes were celebrated as big victories. Coachmen driving through Britain would shout 'Salamanca Forever; Badajoz Forever'. Today, Mr Farage, you are entitled to shout, 'Runcorn Forever; Helsby Forever; Lincolnshire Forever'. This writer and many others in lands distant from yours wish you all the best in your fight to stay the right course (right in more ways than one) and preserve your nation's identity and heritage. Those of us engaged in the struggle to preserve our authentic identities are with you. To end: Elections forever! By-elections forever!
Jaithirth 'Jerry' Rao is a retired entrepreneur who lives in Lonavala. He has published three books: 'Notes from an Indian Conservative', 'The Indian Conservative', and 'Economist Gandhi'. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)