Identity politics has become a phrase of common currency in recent years, yet it is often painfully, and badly, used. Generally, it is wheeled out in a negative context. Take UK environment minister Michael Gove and Tim Farron, former leader of the Liberal Democrats, for example. Both sought to distance themselves from such thinking in two separate speeches given on the same day earlier this year. Gove said “identitarians” undermine liberal politics, while Farron condemned identity politics as a “poison”.