Oliver Dowden has likened “social justice warriors” to communist dictator Mao Zedong in a unprecedented assault on so-called cancel tradition within the UK and US.
The Tory occasion chairman and former tradition secretary mentioned a “painful woke psychodrama” was sweeping the west and placing particular person freedoms in danger.
He made his feedback in a speech to the pro-Trump Heritage Basis assume tank in Washington.
Dowden mentioned it was as much as conservatives to “mount a vigorous defence of the values of a free society” which he claimed have been below menace from “woke ideology”.
And he took goal at left-wing activists whom he accused of being “engaged in a type of Maoism decided to expunge giant elements of our previous in its entirety”, citing the defacing of a statue of Winston Churchill throughout protests in 2020.
The Tory occasion chairman mentioned the “world watches” the connection between America and its allies as they try to stop Russian president Vladimir Putin from attacking Ukraine.
However Dowden mentioned that simply as “rogue states are in search of to problem the worldwide order…a pernicious ideology is sweeping our societies”.
“In Britain, its adherents typically describe themselves as social justice warriors,” he mentioned.
“They declare to be woke, woke up to the so-called truths of our societies.
“However wherever they’re discovered, they pursue a standard coverage inimicable to freedom.
“Of their evaluation, free speech will not be a elementary proper vital for the invention of reality. To them, it’s a harmful weapon.”
He went on: “For all their fury at so referred to as imperialism, these activists have completely nothing to say about that Vladimir Putin’s modern-day empire constructing.
“Certainly, one of many perversities of this worldview is that the imperialist West is at all times at fault.”
Dowden claimed “woke” ideology is now “all over the place”.
“It’s in our universities, but additionally in our colleges. In authorities our bodies, but additionally in firms. In social science schools, but additionally within the onerous sciences,” Dowden mentioned.
“However I let you know, it’s a harmful type of decadence. Simply when our consideration needs to be targeted on exterior foes, we appear to have entered this era of utmost introspection and self-criticism.
“And it actually does threaten to sap our societies of their very own self-confidence.
“Simply once we needs to be showcasing the vitality of our values and the energy of democratic societies, we appear to be keen to desert these values, for the sake of appeasing a brand new groupthink.
“The US and the UK could also be totally different societies however we’re joined by the identical elementary values.
“Neither of us can afford the posh of indulging on this painful woke psychodrama.”
Alongside the assault on cancel tradition and the tradition wars, Dowden additionally hinted at an finish to the massive public spending and authorities interference that characterised the coronavirus response.
“We now have reached a excessive watermark of the dimensions of the state,” he mentioned in a Q&A after his speech.
“We are able to’t repeat the errors we now have seen up to now whereby in earlier nationwide crises, the state has expanded in scope after which has remained completely a lot bigger.
“We now have to embark on the course of constructing positive we rein within the measurement of the state, which in flip permits us to chop taxes.”