In this post I will give a version of my defenestration from my job in an industry I had worked in for over 30 years. I say ‘give a version’, because legally I am forbidden from going into the details. Everything I write will be true, but I will alter some details, blur others, not name the company involved and will, of course, be writing under this name, which is not my real one.
I believe it’s a story that should chill to the bones anyone who cares about the state of modern Britain, or believes that truth, honesty and endeavour are still valued within corporations.
I worked at this company for many years. Around 2017 or 2018 it started changing; the Human Resources department was renamed People & Culture, and we began receiving emails that focussed on identity rather than the actual business itself.
This was, unsurprisingly, ramped up in 2020. When we were working from home because of the moronic evil of the lockdowns, we were bombarded with BLM propaganda. The company declared that it was giving money to BLM (suckers!!!). During a live online town hall meeting, an anonymous employee asked the CEO why the company was funding an organisation that wanted to defund the police, destroy the nuclear family and end capitalism. They were quickly severely admonished by another board member, and the following day, in a company-wide email, the CEO bemoaned the unwelcome, wicked contribution, saying there was no place for intolerance at the company blah blah blah, you know the blurb.
Companies’ embrace of Woke ideology has been, in part, driven by their youthful, recently graduated employees. One I chatted to that summer asked me if the company had spoken out in support of the dead, serial criminal scumbag George Floyd – she didn’t use that description – and was pleased when I said yes, they had.
Soon the company went into overdrive on its progressive messaging. No minority group went unmentioned. No branded Day/Week/Month was left uncelebrated. ‘Trans Remembrance Day’ was my favourite: all employees received an email from some witless sock puppet in HR which had clearly been Frankenstein-ed together from various social justice websites (the font kept changing). Apparently, a lot of trans soldiers died in World War I. Then there were pronouns in more and more Slack and email signatures, Ramadan celebrations, Black History Month, carbon literacy training, DEI forms, mental health awareness… the WEF full house.
The feminisation, Americanisation and woke-ification of the company deepened. I emitted the odd grumble, but never made a proper stand: what was the point?
After Trump’s election victory in 2024, along with the Supreme Court ruling on biological sex and the Cass Review, it was widely reported, especially by the Right, that Woke was in its death throes, that institution after institution was changing. Woke was finished. It was the end. While that’s half-true in a few places, especially in the US where there were small victories, this was nonsense. Woke is way too deeply embedded in too many places to perish; there are far too many activists (for many of whom it is exceedingly lucrative) for it to disappear. So it was with my company; they doubled down.
Besides male and female toilets in the building, there had long been separate, bigger toilets that could be more easily used by the disabled, and either sex: it was well-known that they were unisex. It was also well-known that staff would use them when they didn’t fancy pooping next to their fellow employees a stall away. But in early 2025, after a Night of the Long Knives-type operation, we got in one day to find that the old signage had been removed and new signage said, yes, you guessed it, Gender Neutral Toilets.
I queried why a company that was in a tough financial position and had been shedding jobs, had decided to spend time and money doing something that was literally pointless. I’m blurring the details here, but I was severely admonished.
The company then announced that it was introducing active bystander training to the workforce. The Active Bystander Training Company aims to “challenge workplace bullying, harassment and discrimination, and promote a safer, more respectful environment”. It’s another way to make money out of the 2010 Equality Act. Stripped of its buzz-word progressive jargon, what it does is plant snoopers in the workplace (could be anyone!) and gets them to intervene if they hear anything ‘inappropriate’ and not regime-approved. A sure way to foster contentment and the free exchange of ideas in workplaces, I’m sure you’ll agree. This stuff is really happening in 2020s Britain; JD Vance is not making it up.
And then came Pride Month. Oh boy, the gaiety. The trans-iety. At the entrance of the building there was a huge rainbow flag. Above the boardroom was a Pride Progress flag. Flyers posted on loos said you should love yourself whoever you are. Rainbows popped up everywhere: you’d be going about your own business and then – whoosh! – there was one on the kitchen fridge.
One day in particular witnessed the full intensity of the movement, as the company emulated the fever of a get-together in Nuremberg in the mid-1930s, or a hectic religious festival in which people set their hair on fire in praise of God. Designated HR staff, dressed oh so colourfully, came round handing out pronoun badges, Pride flags and other plastic tat. There were Pride cookies, Pride pizza, a Pride quiz. Heck, there was even drag queen Bingo.
I wasn’t overly keen on all this. Again, I’m blurring details, but I complained about this waste of money, this infantility, this worship of false gods, this bending the knee to a bizarre ideology that, at its core, aims to destabilise Western civilisation. At no point did I not do my job properly. I didn’t impose my views on anyone. I didn’t rip down any flags. But I was put through an extremely painful process which, after several agonising weeks, resulted in me losing my job. (I wish I could tell you everything.)
Many years of good, dutiful service counted for nothing, nor that I was popular with all those I managed. No account was taken of the precarious situation in my personal life. No amount of pleas to common sense or basic humanity were entertained. Lies were constructed. And so, I found myself unemployed for the first time in over 30 years and, at my age and in this dire economic climate created by the Uniparty, likely to remain so for some time. All because I raised what I can assure you were mild objections to a radical progressive agenda.
Woke’s most salient characteristic is authoritarianism. Extreme ideologies require draconian enforcement; the organisation must expel those who do not follow it. Different versions of what happened to me are happening all over Britain all the time, though often you won’t hear about it because there are legal edicts in place, and/or those people don’t have a voice. Why do you think so many men in their fifties are now on Universal Credit?
Like a cancer spreading through a body, the 21st century’s most virulent secular religion continues to eat away at the nation from within.
Russell David is the author of the Mad World blog. Please give him a follow on Substack.
If you enjoy The New Conservative and would like to support our work, please consider buying us a coffee or sharing this piece with your friends – it would really help to keep us going. Thank you!
Having had a similar experience – albeit not due to the “Woke” agenda – I found the above article immensely interesting. Shocking, but – given my own experience – not surprising.
The so-called liberals are expending undue influence in every walk of life, in just about every institution across the UK. If an “offender” is not openly fired, they are forced to resign, which is effectively a sacking, in my opinion Utterly disgraceful.
The very fact that these bullies then impose legal prohibitions on their victims, speaks for itself. That, legal prohibition alone, shows that these sackings are not morally justifiable.
Shocking, this sort of thing is rife in Quangos and the public sector but in the private sector it surely takes away the purpose of the company i.e. profit generation. I’m not surprised to hear HR, once merely Personnel, has grasped the opportunity to further build it’s role, reach and power. In my own experience things start to go rapidly downhill when women start to fill all the senior management positions (not an indictment of the female sex or sexism, but a very personal observation from various posts I held) and fall hook, line and sinker for ‘the latest thing’ and yet frequently themselves act in ‘macho’ ways that bode absolutely no dissent or you’re reprimanded, belittled, possibly forcibly re-educated or if these ritual humiliations still don’t secure your resignation then a case against you will be manufactured – with predictable outcomes.
Are you forbidden to give details because you are taking them to court for wrongful dismissal? I hope so, and I wish you success. If not, on what basis can they forbid you to disclose details? As I say, I hope it is because you are litigating the issue. Best of luck.