Are culture wars finally taking hold?

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 King's College London 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 King's 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.

Join our panel to discuss what's behind these trends, including the role of our increasingly divisive information environment, where they might lead, including how they link to national security - and how we can counter division and polarisation. 

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