Following new asylum reforms, England has witnessed an intense outbreak of anti-immigration protests since April 2025. Many of these demonstrations have resulted in harassing minorities and shouting racist slogans, which has instilled an atmosphere of fear and incertitude. These anti-progress movements have made people all across the UK despair and believe that, despite popular belief, we may not be progressing after all.
Surprisingly, the conclusion we must derive from these events in the long-term, is rather positive. You heard right; immediate regression is often a good sign and the first sign of progress. Backlash, in the context of social reforms, signifies that what was once considered an indisputable norm, has been tackled to its core.
So, regression is actually the first sign of progression. This feels counterintuitive as when we see violently prejudiced slogans being hollered by a group of loud rioters; progress is not the first thing that comes to mind.
However, it is important for us to remain hopeful in these instances as history illustrates that this is often the first step of positive, durable change. Regression being the antithesis to progression, challenges the original progressive idea forcing its proponents to critically show why their idea matters so much. Through this contrast, people are able to weigh up arguments from both sides and usually end up concluding that the progress was in fact much needed. The clash between progression and anti-progression movements, since it usually takes the main stage in identity politics, often ends up further involving people who perhaps never cared to concern themselves with the issue at hand. Think about the Suffragettes or the Civil Rights movement. Many of them grew popular, precisely by becoming so unpopular. Big changes need to become controversial enough to get coverage in order to become a subject of debate. This coverage allows many different people to make up their own opinion on the matter and often progressively realise the disproportionate reaction of extremist groups, like for example the EDL (English Defence League).
Shifting from the historical perspective, this phenomenon can be analysed through a few frames namely the hegelian one. Hegel (1770–1831) is often credited with introducing the concept of a “dialectic” process of change in which every movement has its opposing force rather than moving in a straight line. This is not to claim that Hegel would necessarily be progressive in the way we nowadays use this term, but his process accurately reflects the trends of social and political change. A more recent take on this has been Glenn Beck’s Overton Window theory that states that policy opinions go from unthinkable to radical to acceptable to sensible to popular to policy. Hayek’s work on Conservatism also shows us how regressive movements often tend to reject well-substantiated new knowledge because of the consequences which merely seem to follow from it. These imagined consequences signify moving on past their most cherished beliefs; giving many conservatives quite obscurantist tendencies. A refusal of trying to understand new ideas is a refusal of correctly debating them. This misunderstanding or rather lack of effort leads to violence; a violence which is based on the faulty assumption that old ideas are better since they have existed for longer.
Ok but does this really mean that regression is a good sign? Well it certainly seems like it is an essential step for all major changes. Perhaps a lack of or little resistance could mean that the progress achieved was not significant enough. This can be observable even amongst people who if asked, would consider themselves progressive. Many of us like to consider ourselves reformists when it comes to it, but fail to account for the fact that some forms of progression can seem, if not unthinkable, quite uncomfortable.
It might be beneficial to add that another positive aspect about regression movements is that they are a big wake-up call. What we have seen with the Tommy Robinson-led marches is that-in terms of integration and equality, we still have a long way to go. Legal changes don’t always ensure the corresponding social changes so we need to learn from the past and act accordingly. The cycle of progress is a never-ending and reflective one, as its history confirms its great success. The fact that the backwash that progressive ideals face is about considerably more modern things than it was ten years ago, serves as a reflection of how far we have come. We’re moving further and further away from fundamentals like legal rights and talking more and more about things like, for example, language.
So, can the type of regression tell us if the progress is good, worth-it, or even durable? Well, we can only conclude that the more radical the opposition is, the more worth critically considering the proposal is.
