Middle Class, Middle-Wit: How Britain Became Mid

It’s been reported in the press recently that Elon Musk has withdrawn support from Nigel Farage as leader of Reform due to his refusal to join calls for Tommy Robinson, aka Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, to be released from prison. It’s unsurprising to anyone who understands the British political psyche why Farage is not willing to become bedfellows with the former EDL figure, but has clearly come as a surprise to Musk.

The first and most important rule of understanding the British political psyche is that everything is judged first by its association to concepts of class, which itself is distinct (though not always separate) from wealth. Trump has been a runaway success amongst demographics that to superficial understanding should not be able to relate to him at all, but they do because his values and ideals transcend the principal concern of the American psyche (wealth). Any successful politician in Britain must either do the same, or gain control of whichever entity defines class concepts in Britain and reshapes them to their own benefit.

To an outsider to the British right it can be hard to quantify what differentiates the liberal from the authoritarian factions, and this is partially due to the most frequent observation people were able to conduct being centred around media (legacy or social) that corralled them into making up one side of certain debates. Once you’re fully immersed in these circles, however, the differences become glaringly obvious: for example, the liberal right often uplift the Empire by employing a progressive stance (the British abolished slavery, included people of all races under a civic identity, improved material conditions in multiple countries) and will often seek to evidence that this represents a positive moral tradition of generosity, inclusivity, and righteous justice. The authoritarian right, in contrast, will not play up these mitigating factors so much (if at all - some may even see them as moral negatives that went against how things had always been) and justify the Empire simply as being normal for the time.

Of course, when pitted against the opposing side of the argument - that being that the Empire was a moral negative - it’s easy to misconstrue the two positions as being for all intents and purposes the same. But they’re not, so much so that it’s one of the many issues the two main factions of the right cannot reconcile on. Another is the World Wars, particularly WWII. Although both liberal and authoritarian will honour our fallen heroes, the former will do so (in a similar vein to their defence of the Empire) on the basis that their actions were ultimately in service of a greater good, whereas the latter will often see them as victims of an elite who pitted brother against brother for the sake of furthering their own agenda. It’s easy to see, once aware of this context, why alternative narratives of the Holocaust prosper within the latter and are met with strong repulsion by the former. Again, not a conflict of perspective that can easily be resolved.

This differentiation, though influential, is not immediately relevant to why Farage and Robinson will never be political mates. Both are firmly in the liberal right camp, but what Farage has carefully cultivated is an association to the British concept of high class - and aligning with Robinson, inextricably intertwined with socio-cultural perceptions of low class, will destroy this. As Musk is not British, has not even spent any significant time immersed in British cultural quirks, he does not understand why smashing the ‘divide’ between the two titan figures in the liberal right would be a resounding blow for any chance Reform has at becoming a serious electoral contender. (It seems UKIP under Nick Tenconi have no such qualms, take that as you will.) It would be a fair comment to point out that Robinson’s casting as a low class individual was strongly engineered by the left, but it would be similarly fair to acknowledge that Robinson has given the left plenty of rope to hang him with. British high class behaviour, for example, is highly adverse to public embarrassment and ‘drawing attention to oneself’, something that Robinson has willingly made a living from for the past decade.

In order for anyone to become politically successful in Britain, they will have to learn how to handle the class sensitivities underpinning our social fabric. How does one appeal across the class system when often they are defined in direct opposition to each other? I fear the answer to this is to understand that both exist within and are defined by the same socio-economic strata: the aspirational middle class. People who naturally possess the potential to transcend their origin point rely on the puppet-masters to pull the social strings in such a way to benefit them, and one highly effective yet low-effort method is tirelessly contributing to narratives that shape how class is perceived in Britain. By utilising this, the middle-wits of the nation psychologically manipulate those around them (and most importantly those now in power) to mould the rest of society at their behest. This has led to some seismic and extremely bizarre shifts in Britain, not least the recasting of the centuries-old and inherently British mores of the gentry as being ‘low class’ and the mildly anarchistic, vaguely nihilistic, multi-cultural patchwork of values found in the average council estate inhabitant as being ‘high class’.

What this essentially means is that the British right needs a clutch of presentable, approachable, level-headed figures to come forward and spearhead an ideologically coherent and culturally receivable PR campaign, followed by legitimate movements to build the physical and ideological infrastructure that has delivered this level of change. At present the right is unorganised, disconnected, and has too many splintered factions (that often fundamentally oppose each other, as discussed earlier) wasting time infighting to seriously challenge The Machine. Until this is resolved, all that the right will do is churn out ammo for the mouthpieces of the status quo to take us down with. Until we can operate strategically, it would simply be better for us to be slightly more… silent. We must go stellar, but only when the moment is right.