I liked John Harris’s article (Stoke will show who speaks for working-class Brexit voters, 14 January). He spent time in Stoke, but it takes longer to gauge the complexity of the crisis. I was born there, and spent years researching the city, listening to diverse voices to understand racism, Labour’s crisis and now Brexit. My new book Distress in the City is the outcome.
Harris is right to mention the dramatic decline of industry and the anger caused by parachuting in Tristram Hunt (palpably a decent and talented man). My own view is the anger was less about him and more against New Labour arrogance. It is also true that Labour was in disarray long before, as old working-class self-help institutions buckled with the collapse of the economy and ward parties on particular estates evaporated. A once-strong civic culture fractured.
Places like Stoke once generated wealth for the whole nation and feel abandoned by elites. If New Labour took such places for granted, neoliberal economics and the cult of individualism blamed people for their own plight. No wonder mental illness rose and people turned to the BNP – who listened, for a while – and later to Ukip and Brexit. But all is not lost: there are resources of hope in the city, in churches, in mosques, in campaigns about a new civic centre, and in adult education when working-class women from different ethnic backgrounds meet. Maybe the byelection could encourage more joined-up thinking about renewal, in this multicultural city, and the responsibilities of the whole nation in such a project.
Professor Linden West
Canterbury Christ Church University
• Tristram’s Hunt’s resignation (Report, 14 January) is another sign of Labour’s slow disintegration following the rejection by one-third of their MPs after the 2010 general election of their own manifesto commitment to a referendum on voting reform. This blocked the possible consideration of a coalition with the Lib Dems, which had seemed likely at one stage. Their refusal to countenance voting reform and an alternative arrangement ensured that David Cameron would become prime minister, and he was in Downing Street even before he could agree a coalition with Nick Clegg. And if Labour had stuck to its manifesto pledge in 1997 to hold a referendum on proportional representation, we would not be where we are now.
Chris Rennard
Liberal Democrat, House of Lords
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