Are Culture Wars Finally Taking Hold? Division, tension and identity in the UK today

Subscribe to the Policy Institute mailing list for invites to future events   The UK has seemed relatively immune to the full-blown culture wars that we’ve seen in the US: our data from the World Values Survey and a series of joint studies with Ipsos suggested that, despite the political and media rhetoric, we still quite liked each other and saw through efforts to divide us.   But has that shifted?   The latest findings from our work with Ipsos reveal perceptions of division in the UK have reached their highest point since trends began in 2020, while the share of the public who believe the nation is divided by culture wars specifically has risen from 46% to 67% during this period.   At the same time, the country has become increasingly nostalgic for the past and uneasy about the pace of cultural change, with tensions rising around immigration and national identity – providing a lot of the conditions for a more populist turn.   What does the data tell us about the nature and scale of division today? To what extent are political leaders and the media environment driving cultural tensions? What role do foreign actors have in encouraging division, and how is national cohesion connected to national security? And fundamentally, is the UK following America's path to a proper culture war – or is there still time to chart a different course?   Speakers: The Rt Hon Lisa Nandy, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport John Burn-Murdoch, Chief Data Reporter at the Financial Times Dr Kate Ferguson, Co-Executive Director of Protection Approaches Gideon Skinner, Senior Director of UK Politics at Ipsos Professor Bobby Duffy, Director of the Policy Institute at King's College London (chair)