On Saturday 13th September, London witnessed one of the largest far-right demonstrations in recent memory. Profound fear of difference showed up as visceral anger in the streets, framed as a fight to defend some imagined cultural purity. In reality, it was an attempt to narrow society to one fixed idea of who belongs – and who does not.

I am as guilty as anyone else in the industry of ignoring uncomfortable truths, and I admit I should have written this article five years ago. At Truth Consulting, we predicted a backlash against diversity and complexity, where difference is treated as a threat and ‘normality’ is recast as a single, homogeneous way of being: mono-culture.

What once looked like one of our emerging disruptions has hardened into a powerful cultural movement. The protest in London is just another example. From ‘go woke, go broke’ rhetoric to calls for a single ‘legitimate’ way of living, mono-culture is not just nostalgia for a simpler past; it is an attempt to consolidate power and control.

Did we act on this observation? Not enough, and certainly not boldly enough. Like many in the insights industry, I was busy selling the dream that the world was inevitably getting ‘more progressive’. But if we – myself included – only look for signs of liberal cultural progress, we miss the outliers: the warning signals that intolerance, xenophobia and cultural violence are gaining traction. As an industry, we can no longer afford to edit out what we don’t want to see.

But what do we do with the knowledge that the world is turning insular? How do we advise brands on how to show up in culture when culture itself is promoting racism and anger?

If we believe that culture is meaningful and determines people’s choices – where we live, what we wear, what we buy, what we eat and whom we vote for – then we also need to pay attention to the cultural movement of mono-culture. But how?

Conservative politicians are acutely aware of the importance of culture. Conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart famously argued that ‘politics is downstream of culture’ – the idea that our values are shaped by culture (music, religion, the media) and later expressed at the ballot box. So, if you can influence culture, you can also influence how people vote.

The Brexit campaign and Trump understood this well. But Trump, Reform UK and Tommy Robinson (whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) – organiser of the far-right march in London last Saturday – also know that politics is ‘upstream of culture’: it reshapes the culture that influenced it, in a cycle of mutual reinforcement. That is where we are now.

Cultural insights professionals advise brands on how to show up in culture. In this mono-culture environment, our job is not to edit out what we do not want to see and pretend that the biggest trend in 2025 is ‘therapeutic laziness’. But nor is it to promote racism and hate and play into singularity thinking – ‘everyone is quite racist at the moment, so why don’t you make a racist campaign’. Hopefully, that is not what led to American Eagle’s recent ‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ campaign.

Surely brands’ responsibility is to contribute to a world where we keep all communities safe, and to see culture as the battleground where safety, belonging and legitimacy are fought for every day. We must acknowledge the role of brands and advertising within that, through fair representation.

We also need to acknowledge that mono-culture is not only politically regressive but also culturally and physically violent: it harms communities, creativity and business alike.

Our job as cultural insights professionals is to confront the uncomfortable truths, help businesses navigate them, and show how embracing difference and cultural complexity leads to greater resilience, creativity and growth for everyone. Mono-culture undermines this. It pushes business, brands and politics into paralysis.

We see brands not showing up and choosing silence. Fear of being labelled ‘woke’ keeps organisations quiet. But silence looks like complicity – in fact, it could be complicity – especially when racism, xenophobia and hate are on the rise. Not speaking up means losing control of the story.

Like the ‘great jeans’ campaign, we see brands mirroring: campaigns that erase diversity or pine for a ‘simpler’ past prop up oppressive narratives. They alienate the very audiences shaping culture. Worse, they do not last – culture always moves on.

Brands that embrace life’s real messiness – complex, diverse and unpredictable – without alienating communities, and that promote inclusion across class boundaries, are meeting an important responsibility. Those that do it well, and take ownership of how they influence culture, will prosper in the long run.

As new briefs about how to articulate British brands keep trickling in, it is our responsibility as cultural and commercial consultants to stare down the barrel of cultural movements that can be frightening, threatening and at odds with our own politics. Not only to see what needs to be seen, but also to advise on the representation required for growth, prosperity and long-term safety.

We need to focus on becoming better at representative cultural insights – in our work, but also in our recruitment strategy, EDI initiatives and the way we train teams. Clarifying cultural insight’s role at this moment should be our biggest priority right now, as businesses and as individuals, or we risk sliding into irrelevance.

Why does this matter? Because culture is downstream of politics and of purchase – but politics and brands are also upstream of culture. If we fail to recognise and name these regressive forces, brands risk paralysis, complicity and alienation from the very audiences shaping the future.

Our job is not to edit out what we do not want to see. It is to confront the uncomfortable truths, help businesses navigate them, and show how embracing difference and cultural messiness leads to greater resilience, creativity and growth.