In an essay entitled Historically Correct, the American academic Prof Ruth Perry explained how the concept of political correctness was weaponised against progressive causes almost from the moment it was conceived. The result, she wrote, was that in an “Orwellian inversion, only those who uphold the conservative status quo are exempt from ridicule”. This perfect encapsulation of how the right has attempted to put itself beyond criticism would be a startling contemporary insight if it were not for the minor detail of when the essay was published – 1992.

I spoke to Perry in the summer of 2018. When I asked her why nothing had changed in the quarter-century since she wrote those prescient words – in fact, why the right’s strategy seems to have become ever more effective – she replied with the frustration of someone who had seen history repeat itself too often.

The pressure on Nandy and the Labour party to 'go high' also comes from a British establishment that skews right

The left not only “does not have the funds”, she said, it didn’t have the “tools” to beat the right at its own game. It hasn’t exposed the right’s cynicism and hypocrisy, its use of “political correctness” as a way, ironically, to shut down debate. It hasn’t got its hands dirty. It hasn’t stooped to engage in the right’s so-called “culture wars”.

This preciousness was evident in Lisa Nandy’s latest Labour leadership election campaign speech, in which she criticised Labour under Jeremy Corbyn for letting Brexit become a “false culture war”. Nandy believes that Labour should have somehow stayed above the fray. But to declare that the Brexit culture war is “false”, to believe that it is a choice whether or not to engage in it, seems naive. It’s like being in a real war, coming under enemy fire and suffering heavy casualties, but refusing to retaliate because you don’t agree with the premise of the offensive. Wars are either happening or they are not.

And the culture wars are happening. If anything, what’s “false” is the idea that one can treat them as a sort of political artefact that can be picked up and played with or discarded in order to pursue the things that really matter. If anything, Labour did not spar enough.

Underlying the disdain for culture wars is the mistaken belief that they are happening somewhere else, away from the serious business of high politics. But just as military conflict is a continuation of politics by other means, so are culture wars. The “false” tussles to which Nandy was referring played out on the ground, affecting people’s lives.

Concerns about immigration were ramped up to a hysterical pitch, rendering the “hostile environment” not just a government policy but a national climate. Issues of identity became a battleground, creating a sense that the rights of some can only be won at the expense of others. Sovereignty, patriotism and history were pressed into service to paint a portrait of a nation shackled, desperate to break free from the suffocating embrace of progressive demands. A politics that is leftwing, redistributive and pacifist was framed as not just naive and idealistic, but traitorous: a poppy-rejecting, non-Cenotaph-bowing, non-Queen’s-speech-watching, non-nuclear-button-pressing worldview, one whose support for the beleaguered supposedly came at the expense of the majority.

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Comparatively little of this political campaign was carried out explicitly. It was done in disguise, via ostensibly cultural issues. What is half a million pounds to reinstall a floor so that Big Ben can bong? What is a few more million pounds if it means we can get our blue passports back? And on it goes, with the flying of restored Spitfires around the world to promote post-Brexit trade. The Brexit culture war isn’t merely a locking of horns on social media between the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg and rabid remainers. It has been a coordinated, well-funded and, most importantly, long-term effort that had the left in a defensive position from the get-go, marking out Brexit clearly as the property of the right. It is part propaganda, part PR, and part official government messaging. This is how the discourse is shaped these days.

The left sees such aggressive narrative-building as somehow dirty. It sees the battles that define a culture war as a lowering of the tone, and assumes they require the recruitment of shadowy forces and a loss of the moral high ground. But these are simply the tools that the right has used. The left has a vast arsenal at its disposal if only it finds the right tone, and appropriate levels of swagger and conviction. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s communication strategy, with its strident earnestness laced with humour, is a powerful example. She makes fun of the trolling of her own boyfriend in one breath, and takes apart Republicans in the Senate the next.

This reluctance to take part in what is seen as a grubby game is embodied by the famous (and famously ineffective) Michelle Obama mantra “when they go low, we go high”. It is where the fixation on “courtesy” comes from.

But the pressure on Nandy and the Labour party to “go high” also comes from a British society and establishment that generally skews right. As a result, efforts by the left to fight back are portrayed as outrageous and aggressive while, as Perry said, the right is largely exempted from ridicule.

The answer isn’t to avoid playing the game at all, it’s to do it better. To engage on the absurdity of big bong nonsense as well as on homelessness and the NHS. As long as politics by other means is dismissed as merely the “culture wars”, the Labour party is bringing a knife to a gunfight.

• Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist