Boris Johnson's lockdown is the latest target for the right's angry culture warriors | Rachel Shabi

Critics are using the coronavirus crisis to revive the Brexit narrative of freedom-loving patriot v Britain-hating leftist

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For weeks we have heard that merely asking questions about the government’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak is “politicising the crisis”. But now some people on the right are indeed making the pandemic political – firing up the culture wars forged in what now feels like the prehistoric age of Brexit.

Luminaries of the leave campaign have jacked up familiar themes to revive a well-worn narrative: of patriotic ordinary people set against “whingeocrat” metropolitan elites and woke leftists who hate Britain.

Rachel Shabi is a journalist and author