1. Matthew James Goodwin was born on December 1981 and is a British right-wing political commentator, political scientist, and former academic recognised for his research on populism and right-wing movements.
27 Facts About Matthew Goodwin
1. 2.
Matthew Goodwin served on the Social Mobility Commission from September 2022 to 2023.
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Matthew Goodwin graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in politics and contemporary history from the University of Salford in 2003 and obtained a Master of Arts degree in political science from the University of Western Ontario in 2004.
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Matthew Goodwin completed his Doctor of Philosophy degree under the supervision of Roger Eatwell at the University of Bath in 2007.
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Matthew Goodwin was a research fellow at the Institute for Political and Economic Governance at the University of Manchester from 2008 to 2010 and then an associate professor of politics at the University of Nottingham from 2010 to 2015.
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Matthew Goodwin took voluntary severance and left the University of Kent on 31 July 2024.
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Matthew Goodwin's research has covered a range of topics, including Brexit, British politics, the implications of rising ethnic diversity in the West, and the future of Europe.
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Alongside his academic positions, Matthew Goodwin was associate fellow at Chatham House between 2010 and 2020, where he authored research reports on the rise of populism, Euroscepticism ahead of the Brexit vote, the different political tribes of Europe, and the future of Europe.
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In 2018, Matthew Goodwin published National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy, which explained factors that contributed to Brexit.
10.
Matthew Goodwin served on the Social Mobility Commission from September 2022 until 2023.
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Matthew Goodwin is a former senior fellow for the think tank UK in a Changing Europe, and was the founding director of the Centre for UK Prosperity within the Legatum Institute.
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Matthew Goodwin is on the advisory panel of the Free Speech Union, a group that seeks to "counter Twitter mobs that drown out opinions they dislike".
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Matthew Goodwin has served as specialist adviser to the House of Commons Education Select Committee on left-behind pupils and has given evidence to a Public Bill Committee on the importance of defending academic freedom in universities.
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In 2025, Matthew Goodwin will join Jacob Rees-Mogg as a presenter of State of the Nation on GB News, replacing Rees-Mogg on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.
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Matthew Goodwin has written for the New Statesman, The Guardian, Prospect, The New York Times, Politico the Daily Mail, Evening Standard, Financial Times, The Spectator, The Daily Telegraph, The Times, UnHerd, and Spiked.
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Matthew Goodwin has appeared on BBC news and the shows The Westminster Hour, Any Questions, Moral Maze, Newsnight and Politics Live, Channel 4 News, GB News, and Planet Normal.
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Matthew Goodwin recommends that political parties "lean into" this realignment by moving "left on economics and right on culture".
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Matthew Goodwin supported the Conservative government's Rwanda asylum plan, which would entail deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda, and has advised the party to raise "the salience of cultural issues".
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In 2021, when the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, commissioned by Boris Johnson and chaired by Tony Sewell, argued that structural racism did not exist in the UK, Matthew Goodwin claimed this "dismantles the woke mob's central claim that we are living in a fundamentally racist society".
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Matthew Goodwin has highlighted various instances of public funding for initiatives that he views as symptomatic of this cultural shift.
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Matthew Goodwin spoke at the 2023 National Conservatism Conference, where he described the Conservative Party as in a "prolonged death spiral".
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Matthew Goodwin told CNN that conservatives needed to "decide who they are and what they want to be".
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Matthew Goodwin maintains that immigration to the UK constitutes an "invasion".
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On 27 May 2017, Matthew Goodwin predicted that the Labour Party would not reach 38 per cent of the vote in the 2017 United Kingdom general election and said he would eat his book if they did.
25.
However, Will Jennings of the University of Southampton notes that when speaking at an event at the London School of Economics on the day of the Brexit referendum, Matthew Goodwin actually predicted a two-point Remain win.
26.
Matthew Goodwin incorrectly predicted that Trump would win the 2020 election.
27.
In 2014, aged 33, Matthew Goodwin was awarded the Richard Rose Prize by the Political Studies Association, which is given to one early-career academic each year for their contribution to research.