‘Jacob Rees-Mogg saying “wokery can damage' your wealth when his party has fiscally shafted everyone except those who can afford the fees of the public school he went to, is really something.’

In a recent column in the Telegraph, Tory heavyweight and arch-Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg argued against the concept of ‘woke capitalism,’ claiming ‘Labour would allow wokery to destroy capitalism.’

“While many of the great deregulations and tax cuts from the 1980s remain in place, economic growth is threatened by the two forces of woke capitalism: diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) rules on the one hand, and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) rules on the other,” writes Rees-Mogg.

The author cites research for the Legatum Institute’s new report entitled: ‘Woke Capitalism in Britain,’ which claims that DEI and ESG are “strangling the economy and reducing the innovation and economic dynamism that the British people need.”

Pushing a free-market pro-Brexit vision, the right-wing Legatum Institute has been described as the Brexiteers’ favourite think-tank.  The think-tank was founded in 2007 by the Legatum Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Dubai-based investment firm the Legatum Group that bankrolls the right-wing broadcaster GB News, having given it tens of millions of pounds. Rees-Mogg works as a presenter on GB News, where he reportedly earns £732 an hour.

In the column, the former Tory minister also argues that woke capitalism means that you could find your business unable to open a bank account or have your own bank account shut down, citing his former GB News colleague and fellow arch-Brexiteer Nigel Farage’s comment piece in the Telegraph, which claimed that Coutts shut his bank account down because of his political views.

Nowhere in Rees-Mogg’s column mentions sources at Coutts Bank, who told the BBC that Farage’s accounts were closed because he fell below the financial threshold the bank requires. He was offered a normal account at NatWest, which owns Coutts, but seemingly refused to take it.

Rees-Mogg also alludes to Labour’s pledge to bring the “Race Equality Act” into law, which will force new and divisive rules on all British businesses.

“This policy will take woke capitalism and ESG ideas to an extreme new step,” he writes.

 ‘Woke capitalism’ has become something of a right-wing obsession in recent years. Like many culture war trends, the ESG backlash started in the US, with the likes of  Ron DeSantis announcing Florida would move to ban local and state issuers from consideration of environmental, social, and governance factors when floating bonds.

But in Britain, voters seem nonchalant to woke issues. A poll for the Byline Times in September found that an overwhelming majority of British voters want the government to stop talking about its so-called ‘war on woke’ and instead focus on issues the public cares about.

In this sense, Jacob Rees-Mogg’s column is likely to fall on deaf ears. And judging by some of the comments online, the article was not received well.

“Wokery is a nonsense word from a culture war made up by Tories. It won’t damage your wealth. You know what will? Tory governments, especially PMs like Truss who Mogg wholeheartedly backed. The economics backed by Mogg have proved to be disastrous and have made us all poorer,” was one comment on X.

“Jacob Rees-Mogg saying “wokery can damage your wealth when his party has fiscally shafted everyone except those who can afford the fees of the public school he went to, is really something,” someone else posted.

The proven benefits of DEI and so-called ‘woke capitalism,’ ranging from improving employee engagement to supporting diverse talent retention and contributing to a more positive, inclusive workplace culture, were also absent from Mogg’s report.

Jacob Rees-Mogg has been MP for North East Somerset since 2010 and is standing for re-election on July 4. Polls however suggest that he could be among a number of big Tory names heading for the exit.

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is a contributing editor to Left Foot Forward

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