I began reading this excellent book on the day when Durham County Council fell to Reform UK. It seemed at the time a very appropriate day to start reading this book, so it turned out. This book is well worth reading for anybody who really wants to understand what happened in places like County Durham on the first Thursday of May this year.
In the book Joel Budd takes us on a journey that he himself has been on in person, through what are seen as white working class areas of Britain, to learn more about what was for long a neglected group of people, but are now since the 2016 EU Referendum, a much discussed, if misunderstood group of people, whom various political parties seem to be trying to court.
Exploring the white working class
Budd believes that there are perhaps three different environments in which the white working class live. There are the heartlands which might be seen as the traditional white working class areas and Budd uses the Welsh valleys and Rhymney in particular as an example of these areas. Then there are what he describes as enclaves with Wythenshawe to the south of Manchester used as an example of such places. Finally, there are colonies, where white working-class people have moved somewhere new en masse, and for these places Budd uses Thetford in the Fen country as an example, because so many white working class Londoners have gone to live there that they have made it more Cockney than the East End.
We are then taken through a number of different aspects of white working class life, including education, housing and perhaps most intriguingly what Budd calls the art of ventriloquist xenophobia. By this he means the way that politicians and media commentators often put words in the mouth of white working-class people around issues like immigration and that a lot of evidence from polling and other forms suggest that the white working class are nowhere near as xenophobic as some politicians and media commentators like to claim.
Speaking of which, Budd also deals with those white working class that are not from this country but those that came from Eastern Europe. He sees them as people who will become integrated into the wider white working class. He also notes that, “the vast majority of Britons, including big majorities of leave voters and working class people wanted the government to allow Europeans to stay in their country (which it preceded to do). And Eastern Europeans have been made to feel more welcome, not least by working class Britons.” He goes on to say, “I have often noticed that, also migrants and their children tend to describe themselves simply as Polish and Lithuanian, white working class Britons do not use such stark words. They described the people who have turned up in their streets and council estates as being from Poland or still more delicately as originally from Poland.”
This is one of the many ways that Budd challenges the stereotypes that abound today around the white working class of this country. There are many other areas of their lives in which he does this, and in so doing uses hard evidence to dispute what is seen often by middle class politicians and commentators as common knowledge. It is in this respect that this book is particularly useful.
Budd also describes how white working class people tend to stay where they are and their attachment to place is important in confronting issues around the development of white working class families, with the example being from Middlesbrough in the North East.
Choosing a party
The last main chapter deals with what Budd accurately describes as a decline of class politics. He documents how what was once a traditionally Labour voting white working class is now drifting around looking for a party to look after its interests. This has been prompted not only by the difficult situations in which many white working class people live, which never seems to be solved, but also by the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 and the EU referendum in 2016, in which votes for change in the status quo whether in Scotland or the UK as a whole were to a large extent driven by the white working class.
Consequently, many left Labour in Scotland and turned to the SNP, while in England many white working class voted for Johnson in 2019, to some extent returned to Labour in 2024 and now seem to be drifting towards Reform UK. Budd also mentions the simple fact that many younger white working class people have not got into the habit of voting and consequently simply do not vote.
In conclusion Budd states that there is no going back to a homogeneous Britain that some people think existed in the 1950’s. In its place, he has four remedies for what he sees as problems facing the white working class and the country as a whole.
The main problems for the white working class
Firstly in education he points out correctly that “the education system is designed for children who are academically able and want to go to university. It suits nobody else nearly so well. Worst off are those sometimes known as the ‘forgotten fifth’. Budd suggests that there should be a qualification ladder for English and Maths outside the GCSE system set up to show what such pupils can do, so they are not set up to fail.
Budd also addresses the question of housing. He doesn’t support the idea that there must be massive new council estates built, as some that were built in the mid-20th century were very good, but many others were not. Instead, he supports more housing being built generally with a healthy mix of social housing and housing for sale.
Perhaps the most interesting section of all in the whole book for us in North East England is the section in which Budd states that ” a third way of improving the lives of white working class Britons is to boost economic growth outside southern England.” This would certainly seem to be a sensible way for the labour government to take on reform. As he points out, “the regions of North East England and Yorkshire and the Humber are poorer than the American states of Alabama and Mississippi or Brandenburg in the former East Germany. The scale of the problem is enormous.”
Immigrants are important
Right at the end of the book, Budd changes gears somewhat, by arguing that the final thing that should be done is to help immigrants to integrate better into society and to allow asylum seekers to work after six months of waiting for their claims to be resolved. Budd also argues that: “when it comes to integrating asylum seekers Britain has gone from bad to worse. They are often shipped to the poorer parts of the country and prevented from working while the Home Office considers their claims because of their belief – which is probably false – that allowing asylum seekers to work would draw more of them to our shores. What skills they possess quietly atrophy.”
This seems absolutely correct to me, but I would add that another reason why asylum seekers are not allowed to work is that it would humanise them. They would no longer be an ‘asylum seeker’ but would instead be a doctor or a nurse or whatever other job they did, who happened to be seeking asylum. As we all know, there are various people with an agenda in this country who would not like to see that happen.
Following this, Budd also perhaps pinpoints the reason why not much help for immigrants to integrate is given as there could be. He states: “helping immigrants integrate into British society would not help white working-class people directly. But it might lessen the resentment that some feel and confirm the truth of an opinion that most hold already white working-class Britons and indeed Britons in general tend to believe that immigrants are here to stay and that they will eventually become British. Most think that immigrants should be treated the same as everybody else. These healthy views are stronger in Britain than they are in many other countries, as international opinion polls have shown.”
Summary
This is an important book especially for the moment that we are living through in our country’s history. After being neglected for many years under the Neoliberal economic system, the spotlight has fallen again on the white working class since the Brexit referendum. As often happens in these cases, many people have taken the easy route and felt happy to perpetrate stereotypes and vastly oversimplify who the white working class are and what they want. This book is an antidote to that, as it shows just how nuanced the situation in the real world really is.
It should be essential reading for anybody who wants to make sense of Britain today and to work in positive ways to make it a happier and fairer place.
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