Political predictions are a funny business. The common sense view preceding the Oldham West and Royton by-election last week was that it would be a close fight between Labour and Ukip with ‘left behind’ white working-class voters moving en masse from the former to the latter in a protest about the impact of immigration and multiculturalism.
In the event, Labour won comfortably with over 60% of the votes cast. It is too early to state whether there was a strong movement away from white working-class voters but to what extent does the narrative of an angry, white working-class moving to support extremist positions match the reality?
The widespread opinion of white working-class views on immigration and multiculturalism has become deeply ingrained. They are the “unthinking urban underclass detached from the codes of disciplined work and behaviour required by a modern country”. They “lash out at people who are different because of base racism and the need to protect collective resources provided by government – housing and welfare - that are diluted by the open door policies of immigration”.
The Race Relations Act - which celebrates its 40th anniversary this month - and multiculturalism “do not speak to their experiences and instead provide a superhighway for minorities to increase their social mobility whilst the white working-class remain marooned”.
The “angry and resentful” white working-class came to national prominence in the post-war period. In 1958, the most serious violence since VE Day took place in Notting Hill between white working-class communities and newly arrived migrants from the Caribbean. The race riots in the late 50s suggested that the UK’s white working-class communities rejected immigration and immigrants.
Ten years later during the Swinging Sixties, the Conservative politician, Enoch Powell, made his infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech forecasting that uncontrolled immigration from the Indian sub-continent and the Caribbean would lead to racial violence and strife in Britain.
Powell was dismissed from the shadow cabinet and spent years in the political wilderness but his speech and subsequent sacking led to Smithfield meat porters marching in support to Parliament Square with placards daubed with ‘Back Britain, Not Black Britain’.
The story unfolds with the white-working class as violent foot soldiers for the National Front in the 1970s and 1980s, supporters of the British National Party in the 1990s and 2000s and latterly flocking to Ukip’s brand of anti-immigration in 2010s.
Recent research, based on over 200 interviews in three different cities, shows that while the white working-class may be angry it does not necessarily support the far right. Immigration and change was discussed but while on some occasions strident and racialised language was used to describe the predicament of white working-class communities, this is not the complete story.
Many more people discussed the everyday reality of multiculturalism in working-class neighbourhoods. This is manifested in minority communities being part of families as husbands and wives, sons and daughters; or being part of friendship groups inside and outside school; or people who would provide a service as shop owners or at the local restaurant. The white working-class here is far removed from the national narrative. They reject being labelled as racist and resistant, claiming instead that they have the most contact with minority groups.
The biggest disconnect is with politicians and political institutions. They feel let down by people and systems that have not delivered decent housing and jobs. Many view themselves as politically homeless.
Nationally, and especially locally, politics needs to re-connect with the experiences of white working-class communities. This could be done by listening to the litany of concerns; by conducting politics as long-term community engagement rather than a remote professional pursuit; and working with local and credible community activists and organisations as a conduit and compact with communities.
More than this, difference and diversity is here to stay in Britain with every area in the country predicted to increase its share of minority population in the years ahead. The reality of multiculturalism is not a prediction but a fact. Just as the assumption that the white working-class being an angry and racist group is rhetoric and not reality.
Harris Beider is professor of community cohesion at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations (CTPSR) at Coventry University and visiting professor at Columbia University in New York City. His new book, White Working-Class Voices: Multiculturalism, Community-Building and Change is published by the Policy Press/University of Chicago Press.
