WCP: A Working-Class Brexit

Posted in Visiting Scholars  |  Tagged Brexit, European Union, Great Britain, John Russo, Precariat, Sherry Linkon, Tim Strangleman, United Kingdom, WCP, Working Class, Working-Class Perspectives

The world is still reverberating from last week’s Brexit referendum. The leave campaign won largely because it appealed to the anxiety and frustration of British working-class voters. In this week’s Working-Class Perspective (new window), Tim Strangleman argues that those who campaigned in favor of the UK’s membership in the EU misread the political landscape by failing to address the grievances of the working class.

A number of commentators have understood the class resentment underlying the referendum. In his thoughtful video blogs preceding the vote, Guardian journalist John Harris travelled away from the ‘Westminster village’ to the more marginal, often over looked parts of the UK. What he observed was precisely this class demographic of voting intentions, people who were in effect members of what sociologist Guy Standing has called the precariat. Fellow Guardian columnist Ian Jack wrote a similarly powerfully reflective piece linking the working-class vote with deindustrialisation. Both Harris and Jack emphasize the point that for unskilled workers with only a secondary school education, three decades or more of neo-liberalism has left deep scars socially, politically, and culturally, with little hope or expectation that anything would change for the better. In avox pop radio interview the day before the referendum, a person stopped for their views simply said, ‘The working class is going to get screwed whether we stay or leave, so we might as well leave’.

Take a moment to read the post in its entirety (new window) and check out other Working-Class Perspectives (new window) on our website.