British citizens embrace progressive values whilst Labour government crushes democratic dissent
Research demolishes conventional wisdom about populism whilst revealing the growing gap between citizen values and political representation
Something extraordinary is happening in Britain that almost no one understands. Whilst politicians and pundits obsess over supposed public anger and rising extremism, comprehensive research reveals the opposite: British citizens are quietly becoming more progressive, more caring, more concerned with justice and environmental protection than at any point in decades.
Yet this same period has witnessed an accelerating authoritarian drift. A Labour government uses terrorism laws against spray-paint protesters. MPs face suspension for defending disabled constituents. Democratic dissent gets crushed with systematic ruthlessness.
The contradiction is stark and revelatory. If Britons are becoming more progressive, why does politics feel more vicious and authoritarian than ever? The answer, hidden in plain sight across multiple research studies, exposes one of the great political deceptions of our time—and its implications for British democracy are chilling.
The hidden progressive majority
The most startling discovery emerges from research that politicians would prefer you never see. Common Cause Foundation’s investigations, using gold-standard international values frameworks, have been quietly tracking British attitudes for years. Their findings shatter every assumption about modern Britain.
Citizens are becoming dramatically more progressive. Not in the shallow, performative sense politicians recognise, but in their deepest values—the psychological foundations that drive all political behaviour. Britons increasingly prize what researchers call “universalism” and “benevolence”: understanding and tolerance for all people, environmental protection, enhancing others’ welfare above personal gain.
The numbers are extraordinary. Most British citizens now score positively on measures of “compassionate values”—meaning they genuinely care more about others’ welfare than their own material success. This isn’t wishful thinking or survey bias. It’s a measurable psychological shift that’s been accelerating for years, contradicting every media narrative about Britain becoming more selfish or divided.
But here’s the twist that explains everything: whilst becoming more progressive themselves, Britons systematically underestimate how progressive everyone else is. We’ve created a collective delusion. Most people think their neighbours are more materialistic, more selfish, more hostile than they actually are.
Politicians exploit this perception gap ruthlessly. They claim progressive policies lack public support whilst knowing the opposite is true. The research proves it: Britain isn’t becoming more conservative—it just thinks it is.
The populist wave that never happened
What if everything you’ve been told about political extremism is wrong?
Larry Bartels, one of America’s most rigorous political scientists, spent years investigating the supposed “populist explosion” across Europe and the United States. His 2024 analysis demolished decades of conventional wisdom with surgical precision.
The economic anxiety explanation for political chaos? False. Bartels examined nine rounds of European Social Survey data spanning 23 countries from 2002 to 2019—the most comprehensive analysis ever conducted. His conclusion was unequivocal: “There is almost no relationship at the individual level between feelings of economic disaffection and support for right-wing populist parties.”
The narrative of angry, left-behind voters embracing extremism? Also false. The strongest predictors of populist support aren’t economic grievances but conservative ideology and anti-immigrant sentiment—attitudes that have remained remarkably stable since 2002, not surged in response to crisis.
Most devastatingly for political elites, Bartels proved that “ordinary European political attitudes have changed little over the past 20 years.” The supposed wave of populist sentiment doesn’t exist. Instead, “right-wing populism is not surging in a new wave. Rather, it is drawing from an old reservoir.”
The implications are staggering. If public opinion hasn’t shifted toward extremism, but political outcomes have become more extreme, then the problem lies elsewhere entirely. The crisis isn’t in public sentiment—it’s in elite political behaviour. Politicians and media created the appearance of massive public shifts that simply never happened.
When progressives become authoritarians
The theory meets brutal reality in Labour’s treatment of democratic dissent. What happens when a supposedly progressive government confronts citizens whose values are more progressive than its own? The answer is chilling.
Consider Palestine Action: activists who spray-paint weapons factories to protest arms sales to Israel. Property damage, yes. Terrorism? The government thinks so. Labour placed them on the same legal footing as al-Qaeda and ISIS, making verbal support punishable by 14 years in prison.
The absurdity was lost on no one except the government. UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk condemned it as “disturbing misuse” of counter-terrorism legislation. UN experts noted that “acts of protest that damage property, but are not intended to kill or injure people, should not be treated as terrorism.”
But Labour pressed ahead anyway. Since July 2025, over 200 people have been arrested under terrorism laws for supporting the group. The message was unmistakable: step out of line, face state crushing.
Even more revealing is Labour’s systematic punishment of its own MPs for the crime of representing constituents. When Neil Duncan-Jordan voted against cutting disability benefits, he was suspended from the party. His explanation was devastating in its simplicity: “I couldn’t support making disabled people poorer.”
Internal Labour sources, with characteristic compassion, reportedly called this “persistent knobheadery.”
Seven MPs faced suspension for supporting families trapped by the two-child benefit cap—a policy keeping 300,000 children in poverty. Four more got suspended in July 2025 for opposing welfare cuts targeting disabled people. The Fire Brigades Union called it an “outrageous and authoritarian act.”
This isn’t party discipline—it’s democratic vandalism. Previous Labour governments kept left-wing critics inside the tent for electoral effectiveness. Starmer’s approach is different: crush dissent, ignore constituents, call it governing competence.
The solutions hiding in plain sight
Here’s the cruelest irony: whilst Labour suspends MPs for defending poor families, practical solutions to child poverty sit ignored on Westminster desks.
Gordon Brown’s proposal is elegantly simple. Gambling companies pay almost no tax—no VAT, minimal corporation tax, many based offshore for precisely this purpose. Meanwhile, they generate billions from an industry that causes demonstrable social harm. Brown’s solution: tax them properly.
The Institute for Public Policy Research calculated the numbers with precision. Raising gambling taxes from current rates of 20-21% to 50% would generate £3.2 billion annually. Not theoretically. Not eventually. Now.
That £3.2 billion is exactly enough to scrap the two-child benefit cap and lift 500,000 children out of poverty immediately. The policy that Labour MPs got suspended for advocating? It’s entirely affordable using revenue from an undertaxed industry that actively harms families.
Brown’s proposal isn’t radical—it’s common sense. “There are many reasons why the highly profitable betting and gaming industry should pay a fairer share,” he argues, noting that this would “enable half a million children to be lifted out of poverty in this autumn’s budget.”
The proposal enjoys broad support among anti-poverty campaigners who describe scrapping the benefit cap as the “single most effective” step to reduce child poverty. It aligns perfectly with the progressive values research shows Britons actually hold.
Yet Labour ignores it entirely, preferring to suspend MPs who advocate for affected families. This reveals a government constrained not by economics but by politics—unwilling to challenge established interests despite having both public support and practical means to act.
The pattern repeats across policy areas. Progressive solutions exist for housing, climate action, economic inequality. The constraints aren’t financial—they’re failures of political will masquerading as fiscal responsibility.
Manufacturing desperation
Labour’s systematic crushing of democratic representation creates precisely the desperation that feeds genuine extremism. When normal channels close—when MPs face suspension for defending constituents, when protesters face terrorism charges for property damage—citizens lose faith in democracy itself.
The emergence of Your Party illustrates this dynamic perfectly. Co-founded by suspended MP Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn, it attracted 700,000 supporters within months. That’s not fringe politics—it’s massive appetite for genuine social democratic policies that Labour refuses to provide.
As Neal Lawson observed, this creates a devastating “double whammy.” Labour’s refusal to offer meaningful change “paves the way for Reform, not because people believe Farage will be any better, but in the absence of hope you might as well roll the dice.”
The spiral is vicious and predictable. The more Labour resists democratic pressure for progressive policies, the more citizens will seek alternatives beyond conventional politics. Some will embrace genuine progressives like Your Party. Others, in desperation, will gamble on extremists promising to smash a system that ignores them.
Worse still, Labour’s authoritarian precedents provide ready-made tools for future right-wing governments. Having established that terrorism laws can target property damage protesters and that MPs can be suspended for defending constituents, Labour has handed blueprints to figures like Robert Jenrick or Nigel Farage.
The irony is bitter. A supposedly progressive government, terrified of progressive policies, creates the very conditions that benefit actual extremists. The research shows this trajectory is entirely unnecessary—British values are moving in the opposite direction from the politics imposed upon them.
The great deception exposed
The research reveals one of the most consequential political deceptions of our time. Britain isn’t polarising between progressive and authoritarian impulses—it has a population with increasingly progressive values trapped under increasingly authoritarian governance.
The tragedy is entirely avoidable. British citizens want policies that care for others, protect the environment, and ensure fairness. Practical solutions exist within current fiscal constraints. Public support is demonstrable through rigorous research, not wishful thinking.
What’s missing isn’t money, public backing, or technical feasibility. It’s political leadership willing to trust democracy rather than fear it.
The Italian communist Antonio Gramsci spoke of “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will”—understanding problems clearly whilst maintaining hope. Current circumstances demand something bolder: “optimism of the intellect” based on evidence rather than faith.
The evidence is clear. Progressive values are winning among citizens. Practical solutions exist for urgent problems. The public supports policies that politicians claim are impossible. The constraints aren’t economic—they’re failures of political imagination.
The question facing Britain is whether its political system can adapt to represent people’s actual values or will continue the authoritarian drift that serves only genuine extremists. The research suggests extraordinary potential exists—if leaders find courage to embrace democracy rather than subvert it.
The choice is stark. Britain can have the progressive politics its citizens actually want, or it can have the authoritarian politics its elites prefer. It cannot have both. The deception is exposed. What happens next depends on whether democracy or authoritarianism proves stronger.