The Great British Gag: A Century of a Right-Wing War On Culture

In the noisy theatre of British politics, accusations of “cancel culture” are now routinely traded across the despatch box. Yet, while the term is modern, the impulse to control, suppress, and sanitise public discourse has a deep and enduring history on the British right. Long before today’s debates, a persistent thread of conservative thought has sought to act as a guardian of public morality, national security, and social order, often by attempting to censor what it deems threatening or subversive.

This is not a story of a single, monolithic movement, but rather a recurring pattern—a reflex to defend a perceived version of “Britishness” from the corrupting influence of foreign ideas, moral decay, or political radicalism.

The Early Foundations: Church, State, and Sedition

The roots of this instinct lie in the bedrock of the British establishment: the union of Church and State. For centuries, the Crown and the established Church held formidable power over the printed word. The Licensing of the Press Act 1662 was an early mechanism of pre-publication censorship, designed to prevent sedition and heresy. While the Act lapsed in 1695, the tools of suppression remained. Seditious libel laws were wielded for decades against publishers and writers who dared to criticise the government or the monarchy, a clear attempt to use the law to silence political dissent.

The 20th Century: Empire, Obscenity, and the “Enemy Within”

The 20th century saw these efforts evolve, often framed by the anxieties of empire and the clash of ideologies.

1. The Lord Chamberlain and the Stage:
For over 230 years, the Lord Chamberlain held absolute power to censor every play destined for the public stage in Britain. Until the Theatres Act of 1968 finally abolished his role, this official could demand cuts or refuse a licence entirely on grounds of blasphemy, sedition, or—most broadly—”indecency”. The targets were often works that challenged social and sexual norms, from the plays of Oscar Wilde in the 1890s to the overtly political and sexually frank works of the 1950s and 60s. This was censorship in defence of a very specific, conservative vision of public morality.

2. The BBC and Impartiality as a Cudgel:
The British Broadcasting Corporation, founded with a mission to inform, educate, and entertain, has frequently found itself in the crosshairs. During the 1980s, the Thatcher government famously clashed with the BBC over its coverage of events like the Falklands War and, most notably, the Northern Ireland conflict. The government accused the corporation of giving a platform to terrorists, most infamously when it attempted to ban the voices of Sinn Féin representatives under the Broadcasting Ban of 1988. This was a direct form of political censorship, justified by the exigencies of national security, which sought to control the narrative around one of the most divisive issues in modern British history.

3. The Video Nasties Panic:
In the early 1980s, a moral panic over low-budget horror films on VHS cassettes led to one of the most significant pieces of censorship legislation in recent times: the Video Recordings Act 1984. Spearheaded by Conservative backbencher Graham Bright and fervently supported by moral campaigners like Mary Whitehouse, the act mandated that all commercial video releases be classified by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC). The campaign, which tapped into parental fears about corrupting youth and undermining family values, resulted in dozens of films being banned or heavily cut. It was a classic example of social conservatism using the power of the state to regulate cultural consumption.

The Contemporary Landscape: From Section 28 to the “War on Woke”

The patterns of the past continue to echo in contemporary debates, albeit in new guises.

Section 28: Perhaps the most explicit modern example was the infamous Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988. Introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s government, it prohibited local authorities from “intentionally promoting homosexuality or publishing material with the intention of promoting homosexuality” and forbade the teaching in schools “of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.” This was direct state-sponsored censorship of an identity, an attempt to erase LGBTQ+ people and their lives from public discourse and education, justified by a defence of “traditional family values.”

The “War on Woke”: Today, the battlegrounds have shifted to universities, museums, and national heritage. Conservative governments and now Reform UK use the rhetoric around the “war on woke” and its emphasis on “protecting” British history from critical re-examination follows a familiar script. Policies that encourage universities to uphold free speech while simultaneously condemning the “decrowning” of historical figures or contesting the teaching of critical race theory represent a new form of pressure. While not always direct state censorship, it is an attempt to use political and cultural influence to shape the boundaries of acceptable debate and to push back against progressive narratives that reveal the historical facts about empire, race, and national identity.

A Catalogue of Censorship: From Mary Whitehouse to the Modern Day

The following list provides specific examples of campaigns, actions, and rhetoric that fit the pattern of right-wing censorship in the UK.

The Moral Crusade of Mary Whitehouse and the NVALA

• Targeting the BBC: Whitehouse’s National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association (NVALA) relentlessly targeted BBC programmes, accusing them of promoting violence and promiscuity. She famously sued the broadcaster for blasphemy over the play The Love of a Man and campaigned against shows like Till Death Us Do Part for their language and social commentary.
• “Clean Up TV” Campaign: Her initial crusade was framed as a defence of Christian morality against the “propaganda of disbelief, doubt and dirt” she saw flooding the airwaves.
• Influence on Legislation: Her campaigning was a direct catalyst for the Video Recordings Act 1984, creating a statutory framework for film censorship that still exists.

The Thatcher Era (1979-1990)

• Broadcasting Ban (1988): A direct government order prohibiting the broadcast of direct statements by representatives of Sinn Féin, Republican paramilitaries, and loyalist groups. This was a clear attempt to deny terrorists the “oxygen of publicity.”
• Spycatcher Ban: The government pursued extensive legal action to ban the publication in the UK of Spycatcher, the memoirs of former MI5 officer Peter Wright, on the grounds of national security, even after it was published abroad.
• Section 28: As detailed above, the most explicit piece of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in modern British history.

The Major Government and “Back to Basics”

• While the “Back to Basics” campaign famously unravelled over scandals, it created a climate of heightened moral expectation, which indirectly pressured media and arts organisations to self-censor to avoid being seen to undermine “family values.”

The Rise of Right-Wing Media

• The “Gotcha” Headline: The Sun’s infamous 1982 headline during the Falklands War, which glorified the sinking of the Argentine ship General Belgrano, demonstrating a nationalist, jingoistic approach to news that sidelines nuanced reporting.
• Campaigns Against the BBC: Persistent framing of the BBC as a bastion of a “woke,” “left-wing” bias, a narrative advanced by papers like The Telegraph, The Mail, and The Sun. This creates political pressure for the corporation to avoid certain topics or perspectives to prove its impartiality.
• “Enemies of the People”: The Daily Mail’s 2016 headline targeting High Court judges who ruled that Parliament must have a vote on triggering Article 50. This was a direct attempt to discredit and intimidate independent judiciary, a pillar of a free society.
• Fighting the “War on Woke”: Right-wing media outlets are leading the charge against what they term “wokeism,” targeting companies that engage in diversity training, museums that re-contextualise their colonial collections, and educational institutions teaching about white privilege.

Contemporary Political Rhetoric and Action

• The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022: Criticised for imposing harsh restrictions on the right to protest, effectively giving the state greater powers to silence disruptive demonstrations.
• Rhetoric Against “Cultural Marxism” and “Critical Race Theory”: Senior politicians have denounced these academic frameworks as divisive and un-British, creating a chilling effect in universities and schools where educators may fear exploring critical and some intellectual thought.
• Attacks on the National Trust: The charity faced significant political and media backlash for publishing reports detailing the historical links between its properties and slavery, accused of being “divisive” and “political.”
• The Online Safety Act: While aimed at protecting users from genuine harm, its broad powers have raised concerns from free speech advocates about potential overreach and the incentivising of censorship by tech platforms to avoid hefty fines.

Analytical Perspectives: Chomsky and the Manufacturing of Consent

The patterns of censorship in Britain can be illuminated by the theories of thinkers like Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman. In their “propaganda model,” they argue that in liberal democracies, overt censorship is rare; instead, consent for elite views is “manufactured” through more subtle filters.

• The Five Filters: While developed in an American context, the model is highly applicable to the UK. The filters include:
  1. Ownership: The concentration of media ownership in the hands of a few wealthy individuals or corporations (e.g., Murdoch’s News UK, the Barclay brothers) whose business and political interests shape editorial lines.
  2. Advertising: Media reliance on advertising revenue means they are incentivised to cater to audiences with spending power and avoid content that is antagonistic to big business.
  3. Sourcing: The media’s dependence on powerful sources of information (government, official bodies) creates a symbiotic relationship where dissenting voices are marginalised as “fringe.”
  4. Flak: The powerful can discipline media outlets through negative responses (lawsuits, complaints, angry columns). The campaigns of Mary Whitehouse or the daily flak from the Daily Mail against the BBC are textbook examples.
  5. The Anti-Communist/Woke Filter: Historically, the “red scare” was a powerful control mechanism. Today, Chomsky himself has noted that the “war on woke” serves a similar function—a catch-all term to discredit and sideline progressive challenges to the established order.

From this perspective, the history of right-wing censorship in Britain is not just a story of blunt state bans, but also a story of how cultural and political hegemony is maintained. It involves a combination of direct state action (Section 28, broadcasting bans) and the more diffuse, yet equally powerful, pressures from a sympathetic media and corporate structure that marginalises dissident ideas, making them seem illegitimate or un-British before they can even gain a fair hearing in the public sphere.

A Persistent Reflex

The history of right-wing censorship in Britain is not one of unbroken success; indeed, it is often a history of rearguard actions and eventual retreats. The Lord Chamberlain was abolished, Section 28 was repealed, and many banned books and films are now considered classics.

While the political pendulum has naturally swung between parties, a formidable and persistent right-wing establishment has maintained a profound stranglehold over the core institutions of British power for over a century. This hegemony, woven from the threads of landed wealth, the City of London, a predominantly Tory-supporting press, and an enduring culture of social conservatism, has ensured that the nation’s political and cultural climate has been fundamentally shaped by conservative principles. Even during periods of radical Labour government, this establishment has acted as a powerful brake on progress, a guardian of the established order, and the primary architect of a national narrative that venerates tradition, hierarchy, and a very specific, often nostalgic, vision of “Britishness.” This enduring dominance is not merely a story of electoral success, but of a deep-seated cultural and economic influence that has consistently worked to marginalise, co-opt, or censor challenges to its authority, from socialism and secularism to multiculturalism and modern progressive thought.