National Trust: Charity boss admits 70% of staff are Union Jack hating ‘progressive activists’

McGrady, who was appointed as the National Trust’s director-general in 2018, said: “The reality is, and I am sure this is quite common with quite a lot of civil society, I would say that 70 per cent of my staff and volunteers would be regarded as progressive activists.”

More in Common’s research revealed only 22 per cent of “progressive activists” are proud of being British, significantly lower than the 59 per cent national average.

There is also a huge discrepancy between the group’s stance on immigration and climate change.

Eighty-five per cent of “progressive activists” believe immigration has had a positive impact on the UK, with the national average slumping to 43 per cent.

The proportion who are “extremely worried” about climate change stands at 72 per cent but just a third of British respondents share similar fears about the environmental crisis.

Discussing the views of “progressive activists”, More in Common’s executive director Luke Tryl said: “Progressive activists do tend to be outliers. When you ask the public, ‘when you see the British flag flying, how does it make you feel?’

“Every other segment, including segments that were a core part of Labour’s base, civic pragmatists, which is sort of the soft left, disengaged battlers, which is urban and economically insecure, they said they feel good about it. Progressive activists are outliers on that.”

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During her fringe appearance, McGrady later conceded there was a gap between her staff’s views and the views held by the wider public.

She explained: “When I have a workforce of people who really want to push on this and then I have not just a membership, and I don’t want to characterise as they’re not particularly conservative, they’re actually not, but there is a dynamic that I as director-general need to be really aware of that my organisation is pushing very hard on one side and we need to be very aware how the public is receiving that.”

McGrady's comments come after the National Trust found itself facing a growing number of accusations of “wokeness”.

In 2023, the charity faced backlash for replacing the term “ethnic minority” with “global majority” in a new walking project.

Members also complained about a charity volunteers calendar that excluded Christmas and Easter while including festivals from other religions such as Hinduism's Diwali and Islam's Eid and Ramadan.

The situation led former National Trust chair Sir Simon Jenkins to warn that the organisation was failing to get the balance right on cultural issues.

Following the controversies, membership dropped by 89,000 to 2.62 million in 2023/24.

However, the fall in members came despite a five per cent increase in visitor numbers to 25.3 million across its sites in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Despite concerns about the National Trust’s “woke” tendencies, Labour’s East Worthing & Shoreham MP Tom Rutland rejected the suggestion.

He told attendees: “We’ve all seen the absurdity of taking on the tearooms at the beloved National Trust properties for supposedly going woke by using a vegan recipe in its scones when it turns out they did so for years without a complaint.”