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?”
Sacha Ismail
Do you think having a Labour government that doesn’t block the building of council housing, extend privatisation in the NHS and, well, everywhere, cut corporation tax while abolishing the 10p rate, keep the Tory anti-union laws, try to privatise the Post Office and attack strikes might be a start? Not to mention systematically blocking up every channel in the Labour Party through which the organised working class can have a voice in politics?
And they could also try not bringing in new anti-immigration and asylum laws and chiming in with the demonisation of migrants?
Alex
Is there even agreement that we’re a multicultural society? I’ve always perceived us as a society with multiple cultures that don’t necessarily interact, which is decidedly different.
Michael Burke
There is no such thing as a white working class; either in terms of identity or specific interests.
Identity; The secondary school I went to was overwhelmingly white (it operated a selective and almost absolute colour bar) and predominanty working class. However, ethnically it was comprised of the following main groups, Irish, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, English and other Europeans. The ‘language of muluticulturalism’ was appropriate even then (the 1970s), but sadly absent. The language exists now because it has caught up with and reflects a reality. Reactionary nostalgia denies a multicultural history which is itself a product in the modern era of the consequences of the slave trade and successive waves of immigration from Europe, Ireland and other former colonies.
Interests; what interests do the white working class have, separate and apart from the working class a whole? All need and deserve decent jobs, homes, schools, hospitals, etc. Black workers, and those of other classes have a distinct interest in fighting racism. In that, they deserve the support of every democrat.
But the ‘white working class’ has no such distinct interests. Addressing the issues of decent jobs, houses, etc. for all, as well as fighting to overcome racism, is the way to fight the BNP.
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[…] Parallels between radical Islam and the BNP seem counterintuitive but, as shown by this article about the far right, the emotions that underpin extremism are common to all […]
Mrs Jackson
Surely an issue here is that, certainly under Ken Livingstone in London, certain sub sets of the working class in its broadest sense, were singled out for preferential treatment and funding, most noticeably black Londoners of West Indian descent and more recent Muslim immigrants.
Lee Jasper, who was the Mayor’s advisor on race relations, advanced the interest of black boys with behavioural problems and bullied the LDA into approving funding to help this group. Ken himself advanced the cause of more recent black Moslems with various initiatives including cosying up to the fascist Islamic cleric al-Qaradawi.
No one in Kens administration (I should be happy to be proved wrong) stood up for or advanced funds to programmes for disaffected white youth in the capital in the same way as they did to black and muslim youth.
Why not, presumably because Ken and co do not acknowledge the existence of a traditional white working class any more. But of course a lot do exist and many are concentrated out to the east of London in places like Barking and Dagenham where large housing estates were built to accommodate them after the war. Many worked in the docks and car firms like Ford, jobs now gone. But the communities remained tight and they resent not getting council housing for their children and grand children who now lose out to recent immigrants perceived to have a greater need.
I am interested in the views of those who claim there is no white working class, that it is all a construct. Do you also think there is no black working class or no muslim working class? If so, why should disaffected black youth and muslim youth get funding and attention while disaffected white youth does not?