A Free Left Blog

“The strong cannot help confronting; the less strong cannot help evading.”                                                               Julian Barnes, The Noise of Time One of the core themes of my forthcoming book The Tribe is the remarkable power that certain kinds of identity politics have attained in our public life. The knowledge base of this politics is the universal victimhood of its favoured identity groups. As the United Nations’ ‘ Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance ’ Tendayi Achiume put it in her report on how awful and racist Britain is, “The harsh reality is that race, ethnicity, religion, gender, disability status and related categories all continue to determine the life chances and well-being of people in Britain in ways that are...

Several years ago I had the chance to go to the United States with a Labour Party group to canvass for Barack Obama in his re-election campaign. It seemed like an attractive idea, but I decided against. For one thing I wasn’t a fan of the hero worship of Obama that many engaged in at that time. Also, I felt that I would be an imposter there, that it was really none of my business, that it was the Americans’ election and not for me to rock up and tell them on how they should vote. Colleagues told me that the reception on the doorstep was generally favourable and the Americans didn’t mind. But I was uncomfortable. I felt I would be an interloper. So I didn’t go. Roll on a few years and Obama had no such compunction about coming the other way and lecturing the British on how we should vote in our EU referendum. Indeed in April 2016 our Prime Minister David Cameron placed a nice presidential podium in front of him to do so in front of a salivating press pack. Barack Obama tell...