A polling group called More In Common has found that the “young, highly educated and socially Left-wing”, which the group euphemistically calls Progressive Activists, constitute just 8% of the UK population, but are found in far higher proportions in public-sector bodies and charities. They could have added in the BBC.
Daily Sceptic readers are, of course, unlikely to be knocked over in disbelief either by this startling revelation or by what else the survey discovered.
The study was originally covered by the Guardian of all places:
Left-wing activists in Britain are less likely to work with their political opponents than other groups and more likely to think those holding different views have been misled, a study has found.
The study by the polling group More in Common finds that 8-10% of the population, whom they classify under the heading “progressive activists”, hold strikingly different views on a range of issues than the rest of Britain.
The research also shows the group is more likely to dislike and criticise those that disagree with them than other voting blocs, a trait the report’s authors argue has contributed to the repeated failure of progressive campaigns and the rise of the global far Right.
Luke Tryl, an Executive Director at More in Common and co-author of the study, said: “Progressive activists are the backbone of many of the UK’s campaigning organisations and have often been the drivers of social change in the UK. However, their political outlook and approach to bringing about change makes them outliers from much of the wider public and those they are trying to win over.
“In particular this report finds that a tendency to impose purity tests on those they will campaign with, overestimating how many people share their views, and using language that is inaccessible to the wider public is potentially driving a backlash against progressive causes rather than helping them to win people over.
“If the liberal Left are going to get back on the front foot it will require a much more deliberate approach to meeting people where they are, and engaging with the old-fashioned work of persuasion, rather than expecting people to be on board with social change from the outset.”
Anyone with even just casual knowledge of such “progressive activists” will know there isn’t a cat-in-hell’s chance of them changing track, since the whole point is to go around being right while everyone else is wrong and possessing a total intolerance of any divergence of opinion from their own. This is why they go beyond disagreeing with others and actively dislike them too.
The Mail of course couldn’t resist diving in, focusing on the evidence that “smug Lefties” (a.k.a. “progressive activists”) are far less likely to be able to cope with anyone who believes or does anything they disagree with:
This group also believes that a quarter of people would agree with letting more refugees into the country, when the actual figure is 8%.
Two-thirds of those polled said they would never be willing to campaign alongside someone who had voted for Reform, while 46% would not do so alongside Conservative voters.
In focus groups, researchers found that progressive activists were more likely than other voters to believe their opponents had been misled by misinformation and to hold a negative view about them.
The research also found that 72% of progressive activists view Leave voters negatively, compared to just 24% of “backbone conservatives” who view Remain voters negatively.
This of course indirectly links to another phenomenon: the fragmentation of the Left as a consequence of the incipient rise of sectarian politics in the UK, which is affecting the Left far more than the Right. Among other topics, Nigel Farage appears in a video on YouTube with Australian Sky News host Peta Credlin discussing this here, uploaded on February 18th 2025.
You can read the Guardian’s report in full here, the Mail’s here, and the original polling report here.
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I once had an on-line “discussion” some years ago with an activist who was demonstrating outside a coal power station over global warming, as it was in those days.
I took him through my arguments and he conceded that they were right and logical, but he was not going to change his opinion and would continue his action.
So there we have it, they will ignore facts and logic. It is impossible to argue against these peoople – they are disrupters, plain and simple.
If you think you are saving the world and you get to boss people around while doing it, you won’t want that taken away from you.
Absolutely.
I would go as far as to say that the most attractive part of being woke is that you cab feel smugly self-righteous:
You are a good person, fighting for just causes.
Since you are righteous, everything you do is intrinsically good. Even if you murder people, it is an act of charity. You can create all sort of justification for this and you firmly believe in it. Examples: your terrorist is a freedom fighter. Your theft is wealth redistribution. Mutilating mentality ill youngsters is gender affirmative care.
Your opponents are bad people: despicable scum. They are populist, demagogues, their ideas are harmful. They need to be banned, censored, prosecuted.
Spot on.
Well I too like to think I am right and everyone else is wrong. Don’t most people? I like to think that the difference is I don’t have any interest in telling other people how to live their lives – but the other lot not only want to tell me how to live mine, but they want the full power of the state aimed at me to FORCE me to do what they think I should be doing.
Of course we all want to think that we are right.
But I think there is a subtle difference.
This comes out very clearly in the traditional Christian belief: we are all flawed, sinful individuals with a confused mind; we understand and acknowledge this, try to be humble and not judge others.
I don’t think the woke left sees itself this way. From what I have seen, I think they firmly believe that they are righteous, pure and have an understanding that surpasses that of “ordinary” people, they are of superior moral standards and therefore they have every right to judge us and dictate how we should live.
Indeed, though personally I could not claim to be humble, just reluctant to dictate to others.
Yes, one of the most irritating things about the woke left is their permanent need to lecture, the priggish, hectoring voice, the constant finger jabbing interference.
Most people on the right just want to be left alone.
In the days of the Old West you could have just gunned them down for being annoying.
I know- it’s bloody irritating
None so cognitively dissonant as the proteges of the Cognitive Bias Industry.
Or in plain English – all right up their own orifices.
Someone please pass the purgatives.
It is hard to think of an instance where Lefties have ever been right about anything at all.
This article is a misconstruction of the problem, of course if you believe one thing then you think everybody else must be wrong. And this is even more so if we are talking about belief and resultant practice which is evidently true . It is a misconstruction due to an ignorance about the effect of belief, and historical experience and turmoil of the reformation. We have got into this mess because people have forgotten the lessons of history. The point is working out how you can get along with people who you still believe are profoundly wrong . A key part of this is to divide things into a common and equal sphere, which relate to common language, a common description of the world, and that our basic survival needs need to be met, and a free, diverse and unequal sphere, a space where we are free to develop our own belief and practice. It is when these things are conflated and mixed up that the trouble starts. The progressives currently put everything in the equal sphere, while this critique doesn’t seem to respect real beliefs and so still puts everything in a different equal, kind of every thing is a negotiation sphere. Which is just as wrong.
They may be “highly educated” but are they well informed?
They have all the hallmarks of a cult
Yes, an adolescent cult that resorts to name calling, insults and tears to get their own way. They’re brainwashed, clueless and over privileged.