If there was still anyone in any doubt about the authoritarian mindset of the progressive left, they need look no further than the Ed Sheeran-Macklemore row. Macklemore, who had to apologise some years ago after wearing an outfit that looked to anyone with eyes like an antisemitic caricature, likes to subject his fans to political diatribes. They have paid money to see him perform, yet he seems to think they should also be lectured from the lofty vantage point of his supposedly well-informed worldview. They do not get a choice. It is simply something they are expected to tolerate if they want to see him live. And now, because some of the venues involved in Ed Sheeran’s tour do not want him spouting off his one-sided views on Israel and Gaza, he has thrown his toys out of the pram, and so have other support acts. Set aside the issue itself for a moment. Israel and Gaza is, of course, desperately serious. But it is no more inherently deserving of celebrity obsession than the conflict in Sudan, Islamist terrorism in Nigeria, the persecution of Uyghur Muslims in China, or the subjugation of the people of North Korea. What should send a chill down the spine of anyone who still considers themselves a liberal is the attitude Macklemore and his celebrity supporters display. Because progressives are increasingly not content merely to give you their opinion. You have to comply. It does not matter whether what they are saying is supported by the evidence or grounded largely in ideology. You have to comply. We saw this during the pandemic. We have seen it with trans ideology, where people raising concerns about women’s rights or child safeguarding have been condemned, ostracised and, in some cases, driven out of their jobs. And here it is again: the same holier-than-thou, judgmental, pious certainty from people speaking from extraordinary positions of privilege. They talk down to everyone else and say: this is the truth. Accept it, repeat it, endorse it. And if you do not, you are to be condemned, othered or castigated. Now Ed Sheeran is in the firing line. People should pay attention to this mindset, because political intolerance never confines itself permanently to people you dislike. You may be on their side today. But one day it could be your job, your livelihood and your opinions in the crosshairs.

Listening to Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, I was struck by the casual reference to Britain’s Muslim population as an electoral constituency that political parties, particularly the Greens, are seeking to appeal to. It got me thinking about one aspect of Britain’s changing demographics that genuinely troubles me. British Muslims are increasingly discussed as a voting bloc. Political parties openly calculate how particular issues, including Gaza and Israel, will play in constituencies with large Muslim populations. British Christians, meanwhile, are barely regarded as a political constituency at all, despite Britain supposedly remaining a Christian country. Successive governments have passed laws that many practising Christians profoundly disagree with, without apparently fearing some decisive “Christian vote”. I say this as someone who is agnostic and probably closer to atheist than believer. I don’t want Christianity determining British politics either. What I valued about the direction Britain seemed to be travelling in was precisely the opposite: towards a broadly secular society in which people were free to practise whatever religion they liked, provided they obeyed the law, while everyone else remained equally free to criticise, ridicule or reject those beliefs. Religion was gradually becoming a private matter rather than an organising principle of politics. Tony Blair’s famous line that “we don’t do God” captured something important about the British political culture of the time. Politicians might personally be religious, but overt appeals to religious identity felt faintly embarrassing and distinctly un-British. What worries me is that this appears to be going into reverse. As Britain’s demographics change, politicians increasingly have an electoral incentive to take account of Islamic religious and cultural concerns when choosing their rhetoric, their priorities and, potentially, their policies. That is not a criticism of Muslims for voting according to their beliefs. They have exactly the same democratic rights as everybody else. It is a concern about what happens to a secular liberal society when religious identity once again becomes politically consequential. I don’t want to live in a Christian country in which Christianity dictates what I am allowed to say or believe. Nor do I want to live in a country in which politicians become increasingly reluctant to challenge Islamic beliefs because they fear the electoral consequences. I want to live in a country underpinned by secular law, individual liberty and free speech, where every religion is tolerated and every religion can be criticised. There was a time when we were heading towards that Britain. I’m no longer certain that we are.