As immigration and the disaffection of traditional working class Labour voters is thrust back into the political agenda, LFF interviews Michael Collins.
As immigration and the disaffection of traditional working class Labour voters is thrust back into the political agenda following the prime minister’s description of Rochdale pensioner Mrs Duffy as a “bigoted woman”, Left Foot Forward’s Liam Thompson interviews Michael Collins, author of “The Likes of Us: A biography of the White Working Class”
The BNP in the coming general election stand to make serious gains in Barking and Dagenham in London’s East End, where Nick Griffin is hoping to add a seat in Westminster to the one he holds in Brussels. The BNP are also looking to make huge gains on Stoke-on-Trent Council.
How can we define the vein of discontent that the BNP seem to be tapping into though? And what solutions can we offer to that discontent which are within the mainstream of politics and not defined by the hatred, vilification and Mein Kampf-inspired theories that mark the politics of the far right.
To explore this I meet Michael Collins, dubbed the “bête noir of the liberal left”, a man whose history of the white working class was described by The Guardian as “destructive nostalgia” and whose best reviews came from the right-of-centre press.
Very quickly the conversation with Collins goes beyond the traditional conversations surrounding the rise of the BNP – issues such as housing and immigration – and moves into uncharted, and sometimes uncomfortable, territory. The ‘white working class’ have, for Collins, been “bludgeoned” by the dialogue surrounding multiculturalism.
The Likes of Us tells the story of the author’s home in south east London, a landscape once defined by the traditional working class experience of modernity and altered irreversibly by the wrenching changes of the last 40 years. Post-industrialism, globalisation and shifting demographies have all made fluid what was once solid.
Those who inhabited this landscape, the white working classes, are now, according to Collins, “a forgotten tribe”; so what has happened to the white working class?
“Over the last 30 years a lot of people have moved out of the neighbourhoods that used to define the white working class and become more affluent, become homeowners and moved to the suburbs of London and other cities.
“Nowadays the concept of white working class is not just about being poor, and it is not just about Labour, they are not the traditional middle class and they are not the underclass. That is the shift, and the white working classes are today a much bigger story than they were before.”
The white working class are today, what Michael describes as “bluewater man”, those whose roots lie in a community that no longer exists, émigrés from the first half of the 20th-century and who got lost in the second half. Today they live on identikit estates up and down the land – symbolised by the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent.
These neighbourhoods are the private answer to the social housing of old. Featureless developments, cut off from history and too young for culture. Neighbourhoods defined by the banality of modern convenience: proximity to a motorway, high street shops, ubiquitous franchised food outlets, muzak, Audis and post modern existentialism are the landmarks in the new estates.
Says Collins:
“From interviews I have done there is a feeling of disconnection, disconnection from their neighbourhoods and from the nation as a whole. They don’t feel there is any kind of unifying experience any more or unifying identity…”
Consumerism and good economic times empowered the traditional working classes but Thatcherism, the relentless appeal to the centre of a Labour government and finally the recession have exposed a spiritual hole in their soul. The discourse on multiculturalism has left this group out and now they feel, according to an article by Collins in January’s Prospect magazine, “Strangers in their own land”. And this is where this conversation becomes a dangerous one.
Last summer, Britain’s long tradition of not electing far right and racist parties was sadly brought to an end. Is this a product of recession and the associated effects though or does it point to something deeper?
“It is very cosy to dismiss the success of the BNP as being about housing, the recession and jobs. When you look at where the BNP votes are coming from the areas where it is not all about poverty and housing.
“Their success is a reaction, to the heavy handedness of the dialogue around multiculturalism and the legislation of the equalities industry.”
The argument is now a familiar one and one often derided; that the great champions of multiculturalism, the ‘liberal elite’, are those who view it from afar, whilst the voices of those dealing with the realities of multicultural Britain on the streets are often marginalised.
Collins explains:
“For most of the people in the equalities industry and in the media, multiculturalism is a relatively new experience and an abstract concept. The BBC is still top heavy with Oxbridge graduates and they are talking about a tribe, talking about an experience that is quite alien to them.”
And this is where the left is failing dismally. It is important to expose the BNP as the racist and merely airbrushed NF thugs of old but this is only part of the solution. A wider debate about the language of multiculturalism and an acknowledgement of the persistent influence of class on people’s lives is required. Merely demonising the far right plays straight into their hands and further alienates those who may be considering voting for them.
With just days to go until BNP leader Nick Griffin will be anxiously watching the votes be counted in Barking and Dagenham it is time to reflect on Collin’s ‘forgotten tribe’ and answer the questions they are asking, before the far right does.
25 Responses to “After “bigot-gate”, how do we reconnect with the white working class?”
Fiale
Matt says: “Anyone thought it might just have been the kind of tired and irritable thing every single one of us might have said when things fuck up at work?”
You mean the type of thing you would say at work, be reported for and find your self disciplined, suspended or even sacked due to the 100s of hoops Human Resources leap through to protect their companies from complaints and accusations ?
Sure I am sure it does, maybe the poor employee who committed suicide after being suspended and risking losing his job and life long pension for joking with his friend and colleague “you’d better hide” (when immigration officials appeared at their business park) would love to have been defended, but there again he was just a racists bigot. People walk on egg shells all over the country, now the Prime minister knows how it feels – albeit he will walk away with a nice lifetime pension.
j newman
I must be a bigot because i worry about immigration and its effect on my childrens future .
This is more like invasion not immigration whoops i am abigot
Fat Bloke on Tour
Couple of points to add to the debate, hobby horse of mine over the past few years.
The main issue is to try and work out who the white working class are and what they represent. Given that the grouping could be said to include 80% of the population in 1914 where are we now with regards to numbers, 30-40%?
The mechanism for this decline has been the “distillation effect” where with any economic expansion comes an increase in the middle income grouping as the bright and driven element of the working class moves on to better jobs and wages than were available to their parents.
I say move on to middle income grouping rather than middle class because although they may have the income and professional status of the existing middle class, being one step removed from the working class means that these people still have an association with the attitudes and outlook of this grouping. I would suggest that you are only truly middle class if 3 of your grandparents have occupational pensions / white collar jobs or more traditionally your great grandfather drove a tram during the General Strike.
However what then happens to the people left behind, those who are too old, disadvantaged or limited to make progress in this environment. They are then part of a social strata that has been denuded over time of many of its thinkers and doers leaving a rump to try and understand an increasingly fast changing world with little help apart from a patronising and exploitative media.
The left has to take its share of the blame in all of this, in the Labour party the founding accommodation of middle class idealism and working class pragmatism has shifted decisively to the rational end of the spectrum which may play well with those who have but does not meet the needs of those who do not. Add in a move to politics being a career that starts at 16 and the middle class take-over of the progressive cause is all but assured.
Good progressive policies always have a downside to those at the bottom. For example the 50% participation in higher education means that more and more thick middle class children get to experience the aristocratic university staples of binge drinking and low quality sex. It does not however allow the able at the bottom to make much progress. I would suggest that no matter the progress made in education over the past 13 years there has been a repeat of the previous failings where more effort has been expended in moving the middle up rather than energising the bottom.
The main issue is however the disconnect between the left / progressive rational viewpoint and the slow to change, traditional, and emotional suite of attitudes expressed by what is left of the white working class. For the people at the bottom an excess of income means the ability to afford private healthcare and education on the basis that it is good enough for the rich then that is what they want.
On the subject of immigration one of the main elements of community friction is the fact that many of the new entrants into the UK are middle class strivers who end up living next to the rump working class with all the contrasts in abilities and attitudes that such a mix would suggest. This only accentuates the problems as the local population experiences a feeling of impotence in the face of heightened competition for resources.
Finally one of the main issues that is hurting the progressive cause is the tendency to treat everyone in the white working class the same. There is a hierarchy that does not show up to the well meaning outsider, extra resources to the bottom means that the thrifty are in their eyes punished. Good old fashioned lower middle class morals this may be but it plays out in working class communities as well to the extent that this is where some of the biggest critics of government waste are to be found.
Main point is that the emotional side of politics has to be pushed to the fore.
We are currently looking at the law of diminishing returns, as they feel ignored so the voting turn-out goes down and they become less and less important.
Turnout of the lower half of the working age income range — 40%?
gregsalvatori
https://www.leftfootforward.org/2010/04/after-bigot-gate-how-do-we-reconnect-with-the-white-working-class/
Anon E Mouse
emilia – When did Boudicca act in one way to a persons face and differently behind her back?
Brown is two faced and deceitful and although from your posting here he may represent the type of person / people you may be but he certainly doesn’t represent me or the majority (I hope) of real Labour voters.
I like honest straightforward people who act for the benefit of those they are elected to serve.
I accept Brown was never elected to the job or even the leadership of the Labour Party but in any event his behaviour is quite unacceptable and you should not compare Boudicca’s posts to it.