Culture wars have a bad name. Even on the Left, the term can be used to dismiss feminism or antiracism, casting “wokeness” as a hectoring form of political correctness. From its origins, the labor movement was marked by Enlightenment values; socialists have long sought to combine material demands with a broader vision of human emancipation. A “culture war” like the right to divorce asserted women’s personal autonomy and freedom from abusive relationships — not least when combined with workplace rights and the safety net of the welfare state.

There are plenty of commentators who insist that Brexit is a permanent culture war in British society, imposing a new political binary between urban cosmopolitans and what are euphemistically called “left-behind” or “traditional heartland” areas. This is certainly the culture war that Boris Johnson wants to fight. Having won dozens of Leave-voting seats from Labour last month, he insisted on January 24 that “business lobby groups should stop lobbying for unlimited labor from the EU and instead focus on investing and leveling up the existing workforce.”

The question isn’t whether Labour chooses to fight the culture war or not — Johnson’s commanding majority and the government domination of the media agenda will ensure it has to fight it. The question is how it chooses to respond. One obvious answer might be to focus on the hollowness of Johnson’s offer — with sporadic and local promises of investment more than counterbalanced by overall cuts in public spending. Another would be to campaign for Britain to rejoin the European Union, insisting that the voters made a huge mistake but are yet to realize it.