How do we make Hope win over Hate?
Why our leaders need to become better storytellers as the Far Right rises
I won’t be alone amongst this readership in being shocked, saddened, and quite scared by the events of last weekend in London (and I write this with the privilege of being a white woman, and therefore not a target).
Footage of angry groups facing off against each other, police crammed in the middle, holding people back as they raged against them. It all feels like something from a film.
I won’t be alone at being disturbed by the flags that are suddenly appearing on the streets where I live, on roundabouts, in homes I would have never assumed held people I would think of as racist (and this piece unpacks that they aren’t necessarily, but that’s the assumption people have made).
This isn’t a political piece, although you may sense where my allegiances lie fairly easily. At LookUP we are not political pundits or experts, nor do we strive to be. Our business is in storytelling, and its power.
And the question we are continually faced with right now is this: why in so many places is the storytelling of the Far Right, storytelling of hate and fear, so much more compelling to people than the storytelling of the left or centre? Why is the storytelling of our country’s current leaders so bad (or indeed absent)?
Above all, this is a piece about embracing the power of Hope in storytelling. Embracing the power of identifying the commonalities of what brings us all together, rather than what divides us.
To be clear, this doesn’t mean we don’t believe in condemning all forms of racist behaviour - we 100% do, and it’s necessary for our leaders to be clear on that too - but it’s the absence of hope, the absence of a clear plan to drag people from the depths that they are experiencing, that is leaving a gap for hate to fill.
Let’s start with a simple truth in storytelling.
You are not the star of a story. Your audience is. If your story does not lead with what they care about, with an emotional truth that they lean into or identify with (a concept we refer to as jeopardy), you will not connect with your audience.
Let’s talk about that audience.
It’s easy to write them off, to see them all as racist thugs that we would never converse with, let alone see as people we could persuade. But we do this at our peril. Because the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ march of course included racist, bigoted individuals who saw it as an opportunity to get drunk and bumble into an organised fight on Saturday. And those individuals need to be utterly condemned for their actions.
However, it also included individuals who feel lost. Who can’t see a future for themselves in their country. Who want someone to tell them they are doing something about it. According to think tank ‘More in Common’ 42% of the electorate are within reach of the Reform party and its anti-immigration policies (and we better hope they aren’t all racist, because 42% is pretty damning). They are looking for hope as much as anything and in the absence of anyone giving it to them, fear and someone to blame quickly becomes attractive.
This piece describes this concept brilliantly: https://unherd.com/newsroom/starmer-ignores-unite-the-kingdom-marchers-at-his-peril/
Clive Lewis is of course a sitting MP, but his piece strikes a chord all the same.
“My friend is an electrician. He’s smart, and I know him well enough to know that he isn’t racist, though he’d insist he isn’t “PC”, either. He’s not a fan of Keir Starmer, but he also believes that Nigel Farage would be a disaster. He’s a bundle of contradictions, but aren’t we all? So, what box do we put him in? And what about the millions of Britons just like him? While some of those marching may hold unsavoury views, dismissing everyone involved as “racists” or “fascists” would be a massive mistake.”
Many of us will know someone who is buying into this narrative, and they won’t fit the stereotype of the mould of the classic Reform or Far Right supporter.
We need to think of them as our audience for Hope. What our leaders haven’t done is instilled that Hope. They haven’t understood this audience and what they are looking for, and they haven’t given them something to act on.
The storytelling that is striking a chord is happening from the ground up.
People are taking it upon themselves to reframe what ‘Give our country back’ really means, if that’s what the protestors are calling for. One particular clip has gone viral (to the extent you’ve probably seen it, but it’s worth including all the same):
I love Hollie’s sentiment, and it’s a clever reframe of what we should all be doing if we really want to support the country we live in.
Other clips bring to life the truth and hypocrisy against statements that the Far Right have made about immigration, showing the value that having a diverse society has brought the UK via financial and economic facts; and redirecting focus towards the billionaires who are reaping the financial rewards of our society.
Memes abound of people who claim to have made a killing by selling flags to the very people that are questioning their place here; or critiquing the spelling of Far Right protestors’ sign writing (translated message: you’re stupid and your opinion is too).
They all bring to light the stupidity and simplicity of the blame culture that exists, of the stories the Far Right are pedalling. But what do they still fail to do? They fail to give hope. They fail to provide an alternative belief system or plan to buy into. They fail to solve the issues of lack of connection, of financial hardship, or simply feeling unheard. Their story is convincing the very audience that are already on their side (albeit if this galvanises more of us in the fight against racism, this is still a good thing).
In lots of our work at LookUP, we talk about the fundamental story types that we all use and recognise. One of the most basic story types is ‘Defeat the Monster’, and this is a type of story that right-wing populists excel at telling. It takes complex, deep-seated fears that people have - financial pressure, national decline, cultural dislocation - and gives them a simple face: the face of an outsider, of a foreigner. It’s a simple story, that gets articulated again and again, and it thrives in times of hardship, confusion, and in our polarised media.
But there’s an equally powerful story, that perhaps is what we need right now: ‘The Quest’. It starts with a clear vision of the world we want to live in. It contains the opportunity to define what being British really means today, and the potential of what that could become. It holds the potential to make us feel the benefits of embracing this beautiful, diverse picture of Britain that our culture has been built on.
It’s not so long ago that this story was told powerfully, at the start of the Olympics, or by Tony Blair (love him or hate him) and in the period of ‘Cool Britannia’ that ensued with Burberry, young front row actors, Oasis and more. It’s starkly absent from our leaders right now.
So how do we bridge the divide with story?
I went to a conference a year ago in the US, targeting the top 1,000 social good organisations, with some powerful attendees in their midst. The concept of bridging was at the forefront: we do not build bridges so that people can reach us, we build them so that we can both reach each other.
It’s a powerful thought. What unites us? What can we all get behind? One of the swiftest transformations of legislation in history was regarding same sex marriage in the US, and what worked to change hearts and minds was galvanising people behind one thought: love is love.
Even if people couldn’t quite wrap their heads around different models of relationships to their own, they could perceive of the fact that their uncle, their brother, their sister, their friend, even if in a same sex relationship, was deserving of love. Earlier campaigns had led with legal and economic benefits for married couples, but the more emotive story led to widespread public support, ultimately culminating in the Respect for Marriage Act, passed in 2022.
This story was simple. Something people could easily buy into. These are the types of stories we need to find more of. The right are too good at simplicity, we like to complicate things.
There’s a groundswell of stories in this space around ‘Giving our country back’, emerging, seeking to redefine the definition of what our country, our home is to us all. The first example reflects the point of view of being a ‘Londoner’:
One of the comments here says it all, ‘why aren’t the government sharing this?’.
And then this brilliant piece of spoken word by Sonny Green re-articulates the concept of England:
“This is what England means to me… 🏴
Mashed potato or Rice?
Not politics — people.
Where my Nan said “if you can’t say nothing nice, don’t say nothing at all.”
This is England. My England. Our England.” - Sonny Gren
Let’s start there. We need to find our story of England again, together.
We won’t convince the far, Far Right. The racists who are tormenting people in the streets, who are making people feel unsafe to leave their houses. They need to be stamped out, and the government needs to show it will not tolerate this behaviour (even in the name of supposed free speech, which is laughable).
But there is an audience, many of whom marched on Saturday in London, who have become lost in a narrative of hate, but who we can still get back with a clear plan and story of hope for the UK.
Because, as the organisation ‘Hope not Hate’ (who are also the namesake of the sentiment of this piece) states:
“Hate breeds when those in power are silent”
Let’s hope that they improve their storytelling skills before it’s too late.
Thank you for reading this week’s piece. It’s a little departure from our normal content, and we hope you forgive us for becoming a little bit more political in sentiment, but it felt too important not to write it. We want to be clear that we aren’t preaching as to what people should believe politically, or as to how you vote, but we do hope that the power of storytelling for good is one that is used more. And in the meantime, I remain thankful for people like this roaming the streets of areas local to me:
Have a good (safe) weekend all x