The bottom line: Heightened identity driven activism and coercive policies are associated with rising social division and a 25% increase in anxiety and depression since 2019, with implications for young people, men, and workplace well-being. When institutions prioritise ideological conformity over open debate, evidence-based practice and merit, trust erodes, reactance intensifies, and mental health risks deepen across communities. Education, healthcare and public policy must strengthen critical thinking, protect lawful free expression, and promote dialogue centred approaches to reduce polarisation and safeguard psychological resilience.
As a psychologist with decades of experience navigating the often perplexing world of human behaviour, organisational dynamics, and societal shifts, I find myself compelled to address a question that has been gnawing at the collective psyche of our nation:
Has “toxic wokery,” that poisonous blend of performative virtue, ideological zealotry, and psychological manipulation, already laid waste to the United Kingdom, or are we merely witnessing the early stages of a prolonged demolition?
The term “wokery,” brings to my mind images of a once-vibrant edifice crumbling under the weight of its own self-righteous foundations. What do I mean by this?
Is it the creeping censorship in our schools, the stifling of free speech in boardrooms, cancel culture in public life, and the relentless division sown in our communities.
Let us look at the psychological underpinnings of what we term “toxic wokery”. At its core, toxic wokery is no mere political fad; it is a manifestation of groupthink, amplified by social media’s echo chambers and the dopamine-driven rewards of moral posturing and virtue signalling.
As Irving Janis illuminated in his seminal work on groupthink, cohesive groups, be they activist circles or corporate diversity committees, often prioritise harmony over evidence, reasoning or critical inquiry, leading to flawed decisions that erode institutional integrity.
In the UK, we have seen this in the rapid adoption of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) mandates that, while noble in intent, frequently sacrifice competence for quotas. The BBC has censured those who used the words “pregnant women”, and not the approved “pregnant person”. Consider, too, the case of the Civil Service, where promotions have increasingly hinged on “lived experience” rather than merit, thus breeding resentment and inefficiency.
Psychologically, such coercion triggers reactance, that innate drive to resist perceived threats to one’s autonomy, which, in turn, fuels populist backlashes like those witnessed in recent elections.
Has this cultural demolition derby been completed? Far from it. The UK’s foundations remain sturdy, albeit severely cracked. Our parliamentary democracy, for all its theatrical, evidence-free and childish bickering, has weathered historical storms from the Peasants’ Revolt, the rise of fascism, to Brexit.
Toxic wokery’s incursions are evident in education, where curricula now seek to rewrite history, to prioritise “decolonising” over factual rigour. A recent report from the Policy Exchange think tank highlighted how 80% of history departments in Russell Group universities have adopted frames that cast Britain’s imperial past as unmitigated evil, side-lining achievements like the abolition of slavery led by Wilberforce. That isn’t education; it’s indoctrination, producing a generation of young people burdened by collective guilt rather than empowered by balanced understanding.
From a cognitive behavioural perspective, such narratives distort schemas, our mental blueprints for interpreting the world, leading to anxiety disorders and a diminished sense of agency.
Many students seem paralysed by “White fragility” express a self-loathing that borders on clinical depression. Is this destruction? Undoubtedly, it chips away at the edifice of national confidence.
Looking deeper into the workplace, the demolition tools of wokery are wielded with particular ferocity. In my consulting practice, I have observed how mandatory unconscious bias training, ostensibly conducted to develop empathy, often backfires, creating the very defensiveness and division it seeks to overcome.
A recent meta-analysis confirms this: such programmes increase bias awareness in the short-term but heighten intergroup tensions in the long-term. In the UK, this manifests in the tech sector, where mega-corp funded startups enforce “safe spaces” that silence dissenting views on gender ideology.
Recall the 2023 scandal at a major London-based fintech, where an employee was dismissed for questioning the company’s trans-inclusive policies, citing biological sex in sports. The fallout? Not just legal battles, but a haemorrhaging of talent, as high-performers flee to less ideologically toxic environments.
Psychologically, this is the tyranny of the minority: Cass Sunstein’s research on “law of group polarisation” explains how extreme voices dominate, marginalising the moderate, rational majority. Our economy, already struggling from post-pandemic inflation, and record debt levels, cannot afford such self-sabotage.
The demolition is in progress, gradually destroying the foundations of trust. But let us not overlook the cultural front, where wokery’s wrecking ball swings most visibly. The BBC, once a beacon of impartiality, now navigates a minefield of identity politics. The corporation’s handling of the Huw Edwards scandal in 2023, where allegations of misconduct were downplayed amid fears of “punching down,” exemplifies how victimhood hierarchies distort accountability.
In psychological terms, this is equity’s dark twin: not equality of opportunity, but enforced outcomes that reward grievance over responsibility. Our arts scene fares no better; theatres cancel productions deemed “problematic,” while literature curricula cancel classics like ‘Of Mice and Men’ for their “ableism.”
Such cancel-mania evokes Orwell’s 1984, where history is rewritten to suit the political motives of the present. The result? A cultural impoverishment that starves the imagination, leaving us with broadcast channels feeding us drivel laced with agenda-driven sermons.
As the nation of Shakespeare, Dickens and Austen, we deserve better, a renaissance, not a reckoning. Anyone with the critical reasoning that seems to have gone AWOL might counter: “Is this not hyperbole? Hasn’t wokery, in fact, illuminated and addressed injustices long ignored?”
Undeniably, and thankfully, yes, it did. Before wokery became toxic it did much good. It has spotlighted issues like racial profiling in policing, prompting reforms such as the 2021 Sewell Report’s emphasis on socioeconomic factors over inherent bias. Yet, the toxicity arises when critique morphs into cancellation. Jordan Peterson’s clinical insights into authoritarianism ring true here: what begins as empathy ends up as enforced conformity, thus mirroring, and exceeding the very oppressions it decries.
In the UK, this has fractured social cohesion. A new study by the Policy Institute at Kings College London and Ipsos found that 84% of the UK public now feel the country is divided. Other studies indicate a rise in community tensions, attributed partly to identity-based activism that pits groups against one another. Psychologically, this exploits our base tribal instincts, the in-group/out-group bias delineated by Henri Tajfel’s minimal group paradigm, turning neighbours into adversaries.
Surveying the rubble, one cannot ignore the psychological toll on the British people. Rates of anxiety and depression have surged 25% since 2019, correlating with the intensification of cultural wars. Let’s just pause, to think about that: when we have the best mental health care in history, we are seeing mental health declining for an entire nation.
Young men, in particular, report feelings of alienation, vilified for their “toxic masculinity” in media portrayals. This isn’t mere coincidence; it’s the demolition of self-esteem, where positive role models are supplanted by narratives of perpetual apology.
In my therapy work I have seen many men grappling with imposter syndrome not from professional failings, but from societal indictments of their very existence. They are white, they are male, they are well-educated, therefore, regardless of the depth of their character (Marin Luther King) they are “typical oppressors”.
Women, too, suffer, coerced into performative allyship that exhausts emotional reserves. The family unit, that buffer against chaos, buckles under gender fluidity debates invading primary schools, confusing children at psychologically vulnerable ages.
Is the UK destroyed? No, but the scaffolding weakening, and without intervention, or an outbreak of common sense, cultural collapse looms. So, where do we stand in this demolition derby? Progress, yes, but perilously so. The election of a Labour government in 2024, with its pledge to embed “progressive values” in policy, signals acceleration rather than abatement. Keir Starmer’s administration has already floated bills to criminalise “misgendering,” echoing Scotland’s Hate Crime Act, which has swamped police with frivolous complaints.
This legislative overreach is classic behavioural conditioning: Pavlovian rewards for compliance, punishments for deviation. Yet, glimmers of resistance persist. The Free Speech Union, founded by Toby Young, has notched up multiple victories in defending academics and others sacked for “wrongthink.”
Grassroots movements rally against school indoctrination, reclaiming parental agency. Psychologically, this is resilience in action the post-traumatic growth which Prof Martin Seligman champions, where adversity forges fortitude.
To arrest this demolition of UK culture, we must reclaim the psychological high ground. How?
First, develop critical thinking in education, teach children to interrogate ideologies rather than swallow them whole.
Second, in workplaces, move from remedial and punitive trainings to dialogue-driven forums, drawing on restorative justice models that heal rather than divide.
Third, culturally, celebrate pluralism, the messy beauty of diverse viewpoints coexisting without coercion. As Viktor Frankl taught in the shadow of Auschwitz, meaning emerges not from ideology, but from choice.
We, the British people, if we are to preserve our culture, must choose reconstruction over ruin. Currently the values for which we are famed world-wide are under attack: Democracy, Rule of Law, Respect and Tolerance, Individual Liberty. The toxic wokerati seek to curtail your individual liberty, to tell you what you can and cannot say, and even how you say it (pregnant women). That is not respect and tolerance, that is authoritarianism, and that is not the British way. Freedom of speech is the bedrock of democracy. Unless we are prepared to defend the right of those with whom we disagree to say what we disagree with, we don’t have democracy, we have the virtue signalling of democracy. Cancel culture is the extreme opposite freedom of speech and democracy.
In conclusion, toxic wokery has not destroyed the UK, yet; it is still a demolition job in progress, with blueprints for further deconstruction coming out of many toxically woke organisations.
Here is where hope resides: demolition implies the potential for rebuilding. As a psychologist, I am acutely aware of the mind’s plasticity, its capacity to rewire after trauma. So, too, with our nation. Let us dismantle the damaging dogmas, the cancel culture, the toxic wokery, not each other, and erect a edifice of enlightened liberty. If we really value our culture, our heritage, democracy, rule of law, respect and tolerance, individual liberty, then toxic wokery has to be ended before it ends us.
Professor Nigel MacLennan runs the performance coaching practice PsyPerform.
