The instinct for centralisation is not limited to removing obstacles and checks within the cabinet: the appointments of Oliver Dowden as culture secretary and Suella Braverman as attorney general signal Johnson’s intention to carry on the attacks against the BBC and the judicial apparatus. Dowden – who has never shown a discernible interest in culture or media – is a loyal Johnsonite, and will dutifully ratchet up the assault on the Corporation’s licence fee. A comparison with another Tory prime minister hostile to the BBC is instructive: many of Thatcher’s worst ideas on broadcasting were deflected by Douglas Hurd. No such tactful resistance is likely from Johnson’s new appointee.

It is Braverman, however, who best embodies the tilt of Johnson’s new Tories. She came to prominence in March 2019 after declaring to a Tory meeting that the party was ‘at war with Cultural Marxism’, the favoured antisemitic conspiracy theory of the alt-right; instead of apologising, she mocked people for being offended. In an article two weeks ago – an obvious audition for the cabinet – she levelled her ire at the Human Rights Act and declared the need to ‘take back control, not just from the EU, but from the judiciary.’ Then she popped up a few days ago in the Commons to castigate David Lammy for ‘shrill virtue-signalling’ over Windrush. Her elevation is a sign of Downing Street’s enthusiasm for the culture wars.

Braverman will not share her predecessor’s apparent reluctance to curtail the scope of judicial review and the capacity of the Supreme Court to restrain the government. She will doubtless find legal accommodation for Priti Patel’s threatened ‘review’ of human rights law. Whether so fervent a supporter of Johnson will be able – as the attorney general should – to give the government advice it does not want to hear is an open question. Like Dowden and Sunak, Braverman has only been an MP since 2015: with little parliamentary or ministerial experience, and dependent on Johnson’s patronage, they are hard to see as more than Downing Street appendages.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2020/february/cummings-s-bootprints

It was against the backdrop of culture war narratives that ‘cultural Marxism’ as an anti-Semitic conspiracy was spread by the right in the 1990s. As Andrew Wood has recently described, the conspiracy was propagated by American cult leader Lyndon LaRouche in a bid to undermine leftist groups in the 1970s; Frankfurt School members and Angela Davis were implicated in conspiracies to infiltrate political groups through the CIA. However, the term later began to be used by American conservatives in the 1990s. Cited by Anders Breivik in his manifesto prior to the 2011 Norway attacks, American Conservative William Lind highlighted Marcuse’s ideas as the embodiment of ‘cultural Marxism.’ He suggested Marcuse’s views contributed to the decline of Western Judeo-Christian civilization. ‘Cultural Marxism’ conspiracies circulated in the 1990s as American right-wing commentators suggested that members of the Frankfurt School were responsible for the countercultural movements that emerged in the 1960s. As historian of the Frankfurt School Martin Jay comments, the narrative of this anti-Semitic conspiracy is ‘numbingly simplistic.’ The conspiracy theory is now prevalent amongst the far right and alt-right, particularly in online forums.

https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4285-herbert-marcuse-and-cultural-marxism

A leading Jewish group has criticised a Conservative former minister for using the term “cultural Marxism” in a speech, a reference to a conspiracy theory often associated with the far right and antisemitism.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews said Suella Braverman should clarify what she meant, and pledge to not use the phrase again.

The Labour MP Wes Streeting said Braverman should apologise for using an “ugly and reprehensible term with antisemitic connotations”. He added: “Members of parliament should know better and she should apologise immediately or the whip should be removed.”

Hope Not Hate, which monitors far-right groups, said it was “deeply disturbing” to see an MP use such language.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/mar/26/tory-mp-criticised-for-using-antisemitic-term-cultural-marxism