Pride plummets across Sir Keir Starmer’s Divided Kingdom – as poll reveals ‘frightening’ decline in public happiness

National pride has fallen in Keir Starmer’s Britain and society is more divided than ever, a major study has found.

Eight in ten people said they felt the nation was divided, up five percentage points on two years ago and ten points on 2020, in findings that will ring alarm bells in Downing Street.

And half the public said Britain’s ‘culture’ was changing too quickly, compared to a third.

Worryingly for the Prime Minister, the fact that Reform voters in the UK (many from Labour’s traditional heartlands) are most concerned about the cultural state of the country suggests that Nigel Farage’s party will make big gains in the next election.

Researchers at King’s College London and pollster Ipsos, which has been tracking cultural trends in the UK annually since 2020, described their latest findings as ‘frightening’ and said they revealed an increasingly divided, polarized and deteriorating society.

They also highlight that large swathes of the public think Labor has failed to grasp some of its key priorities and has even potentially fanned the flames of division with its indecisive stance on issues such as trans rights and Net Zero.

Lord Young of Acton, boss of the Free Speech League, said: ‘This is the impact of Labour’s divisive identity politics.

‘Sir Keir Starmer and his ministers pander to minorities who claim to be victims of intersectional oppression, prioritizing their rights and needs over those of ordinary Britons.

‘Labour politicians justify this two-tier approach by claiming it promotes community cohesion, but it actually creates social division, as this survey makes clear.’

Reform England MP Lee Anderson said: ‘Of course national pride has fallen. The education system is corrupting our young people, leadership has been weak for decades, and millions of people can no longer afford a home of their own.

‘For patriotism to thrive, Britons need strong leadership and confidence that their government is working for them, not against them.’

Sir John Hayes, chairman of the Conservative Party’s group of common-sense MPs, said: ‘Keir had no clear descriptive purpose.

‘So people feel bad because they think the Government doesn’t know what direction they want to take the country.

‘The government’s failure to make a plan does not build public trust.

‘Ideological multiculturalism basically tells people that you can live as you want, do what you want, you don’t need to mingle, you can introspect, and then we are surprised that we have a fragmented society.

‘We need to restructure this and get more people to embrace British values ​​and a shared sense of Britishness.’

In a sign that many people think immigration was too high under Labour, half the public said Britain’s ‘culture’ was changing too quickly – up from 35 per cent in 2020.

48 percent said they wanted the country to be ‘like it was before’. This rate increased to 28 percent.

Strikingly, nostalgia for Britain’s past has increased across every age group, even among 16 to 24 year olds.

Reform MP Lee Anderson said the study showed “leadership has been poor for decades”

Lord Young of Acton, boss of the Free Speech Union campaign group, said the poll showed ‘the impact of Labour’s divisive identity politics’

Almost a third of this age group wanted the country to return to the ‘old situation’, up from 16 per cent in 2020.

The next largest increase occurred in people over the age of 55, and this rate increased from 34 percent to 62 percent.

National pride also fell across all age groups; Less than half (46 per cent) said they were ‘proud’ of their country, down ten points on 2020.

The most significant decline was seen among those aged 16 to 24 (from 47 percent to 29 percent), followed by those aged 35 to 54 (from 54 percent to 43 percent).

Across all age groups, 86 per cent said they believed there were greater tensions between immigrants and those born in the UK today; This rate was 74 percent two years ago.

Nearly seven in ten surveyed respondents said ‘culture wars’ issues were at the heart of widespread divisions; this rate was less than half (46 percent) in 2020.

Most of this increase has occurred in the last two years, and for most of this the Labor Party has been in power.

Overall, six in ten (64 per cent) said they agreed this was a ‘serious problem’ for UK society and politicians; This rate was 44 percent five years ago.

The trans rights debate was also cited as another important source of tension.

Amid high-profile interventions by gender-critical campaigners such as JK Rowling, the proportion saying trans rights have gone too far has more than doubled since 2020, from 17 per cent to 39 per cent.

In an indication of how polarized the debate has become, a fifth of people said trans rights did not go far enough, although this was down from 31 per cent five years ago.

After the Supreme Court ruled that gender is based on biology rather than how people identify, the number of women who said trans rights had gone too far rose from 14 percent to 35 percent. For men, this rate increased from 21 percent to 44 percent.

In a sign of the deep division of opinion on the Net Zero debate, more than six in ten (64 percent) reported feeling differences between climate skeptics and believers.

The better news was that people said they believed Brexit wounds were healing. More than half (52 per cent) still think there are divisions between Leave and Remain, although this is up from 78 per cent five years ago.

The study also examined the public’s attitudes in terms of how they plan to vote in the upcoming elections.

Among those most concerned about the pace of change were Reform voters; This underlined the huge pool of votes that Nigel Farage’s rebel party stands to benefit from.

Almost six in ten supporters of the party said the UK was ‘very’ divided; This proportion is almost twice that of supporters of the Conservative Party (33 per cent) and Labor (31 per cent).

Eight in 10 (83 per cent) think the UK is divided by the culture wars, while around six or seven in 10 of those who support other parties think the UK is divided by the culture wars.

And surprisingly, almost nine in ten (88 per cent) of those who planned to vote for Reformation said the pace of cultural change was too rapid.

The study also found small differences based on people’s heritage.

While 86 percent of whites said they felt the nation was divided, only 72 percent of those from ethnic minorities expressed this feeling.

The proportion of white people who think that UK culture is changing too quickly has risen from 35 percent to 52 percent, while among ethnic minorities the proportion has risen from 32 percent to 35 percent.

Respondents are still relatively divided on Britain’s colonial past.

34 per cent said the British empire was something to be proud of, while 23 per cent said they were ashamed of it and 36 per cent said they were neither; attitudes are almost the same as five years ago.

Elsewhere, almost half (48 per cent) of the public said they viewed being described as ‘woke’ as an insult rather than a compliment; this rate was less than a quarter (24 percent) in 2020.

Woke is defined by the Cambridge dictionary as ‘aware of social problems, especially racism and inequality’.

Professor Bobby Duffy, Director of the Institute of Politics at King’s College London, said: ‘This latest study shows a frightening rise and fall in terms of national division in the UK in just a few years.

‘We have seen huge increases in beliefs that the UK is divided, that ‘culture wars’ are real and that things were better in the past.’

He added: ‘We now have incredibly different perspectives across different groups in the country, across party lines and across age groups.’

Gideon Skinner, Senior Director of UK Politics at Ipsos, said: ‘Perceptions of political and cultural dissonance are growing, reflecting society grappling with nostalgia and the pace of change.’

Reform said the UK had become ‘the new home for those worried about the pace of change’, adding: ‘The challenge is to understand the roots of these divisions and use these insights to create dialogue and policy that can help reduce further polarisation.’

Ipsos surveyed 4,027 people aged 16 and over in August for the research.