What About The White Working Class?

Has the idpol-loving left abandoned the white working class? The answer is a bit more complicated than the Tories would have you think.
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[samfourness]

no it's not race or class, it's class and then race, no matter how you spin the statistics, class is the biggest indicator of someone's quality of life

[MrTARDIS]

Conservatives: White working class people are the REAL oppressed group in the UK!
Everyone Else: Okay. So are you going to help and support *them*?
Conservatives: (shocked Pikachu face)

[PurityVendetta]

Divide to conquer, the tories have used the same strategy for as long as I can remember, but sadly it invariably works. Pointing fingers at some group as a target for hatred while stealing the food off the plates of all disadvantaged groups. Keep horizons narrow while blaming everyone but themselves.

[johnwright]

"How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political power to keep wealth in power? Here lies the whole art of conservative politics in the twentieth century." "Lying is a nevessary part of the Tories's political equipment." Aneurin Bevan.

[MMiler]

the problem is that the traditionally left leaning parties of the 70s, and early 80s ceased being left wing when they moved to the right after they were infiltrated by right wing careerists, to continue the legacy of Th4tcher, and R3agan etc, which led them to abandon their voter base, essentially becoming part of the establishment rather than representatives of the common population against it. This allowed the power structure to reframe the centre right as "the left" giving abandoned voters a focal point to rally against, while maintaining power indefinitely with essentially the same policies. Anything that is _actually_ left wing, and an antidote to the rampant conservatism of the last 40 years is labeled fringe, unworkable etc (despite being quite mainstream, and successful in countries who are not told how to vote by Murd0ch and friends). JC and Sanders being very recent examples: "both sides" attacked the left from the same direction. I understand why people don't grasp this though; It's pure Machiavellism.

[Multipolarpaul]

But identity politics DOSNT resonate with the majority of white working class people - that is the point isnt it? Perhaps re-watch your (race-bait) titled video "The unbearable whiteness of brexit" for a reference of your own mistakes, Novara media.
I like you guys and I know at least Aron has a decent-ish understanding of marxism, but you in particular, Ash (among the rest), have not been helpful in the struggle of the left during the Corbyn years to focus on core political/economic questions that marxist theorists have emphasized in regards to class consciousness and organisation. Your actions did actually alienate workers who's attention dosnt revolve around conceptions of white privilege, Islamophobia (after terrorist attacks) or LGBT as they do for those in multi-cultural cities and university's (All positive things by the way, but not the point). The left MUST distinguish themselves from liberals who have pretty much the same talking points, but all we saw was neglect, thus handing the working class on a plate to the right wing.

[Lee-ydog]

I think that it is the number of underprivileged young people in the UK which is shocking regardless of race. The British class system is Britains first race issue.

[tomh]

Ash didn't really answer the question here, did she? I actually think Novara is dead wrong here. It's clear that after a decade or so of obsessing over identity politics the intolerant "left" has abandoned the white working class. Not only because claiming that a particular group is inherently privileged due to the color of their skin is a racist argument, but also because it serves no other purpose than to divide the working class. The "left" does a much better job at that than the right wing could ever hope to do.

Which is the reason why it should have come as absolutely no surprise that Hillary Clinton lost in the rust belt. Imagine being of the working class in those states and seeing your livelihood going completely down the drain due to neoliberal politics. When it's time for election one millionaire candidate says "I hear you" while the other millionaire candidate and her millionaire celebrity friends basically tells you to shut up because you're so privileged due to your gender and color of their skin. Is there any surprise they would say "well screw you then" to the second candidate?

This is the dynamic which plays out in European countries as well, with ostensibly labour or social democratic parties who have pursued neoliberal policies for decades focus more on embracing identity politics. Why? Because they cost them and their industry backers _nothing_ but it sure makes for good optics. Too bad the side effect is splintering the working class into smaller and smaller groups.

Which is why I call myself a socialist and not a leftist, because that term is devoid of meaning. Leftism is pansy liberalism. Workers of the world *unite*, for heaven's sake.

I have said it for years, and I will keep saying it. Identity politics is the death knell for socialism. One group who absolutely _loves_ identity politics are racists. It’s the foundation for their entire ideology. As long as the ”left” is obsessed with race, they’re playing straight into the racists’ hands.

[razimusfatimuskitchinus]

I am a leftist, I like Ash, but this video completely proves the point it’s trying to debunk. Novara: a metropolitan, journalist class of leftist “intelligencia” dismissing 51% of oppinion as “bullsh*t” and using population figures to dismiss seething issues in white working class communities about political representation. (And representation isn’t limited to having someone with your skin colour sit in your MP seat.) This video debunks itself and the irony is lost on Ash it seems.

[nuriben]

Before I get called a class reductionist... To ignore the seemingly out of whack priorities of the modern left and infighting amount ourselves about identity issues is only weakening us.

I suggest watching Adolp Reid's excellent take which I saw on the Jacobin.

The privilage that overrides all is weath and anti racism will never succeed with capitalism as we know it .

[gmlpc]

A big factor that has swung the white working class behind the Conservatives in recent years has been Brexit. The Conservatives and especially Boris Johnson have been credited with "delivering" Brexit and Labour has correspondingly been blamed for "obstructing" it. Whatever the merits or otherwise of Brexit it does seem to have been a big vote-winner for the Conservatives and they may continue to be rewarded for it years from now unless its disadvantages become more strongly apparent. The big white working class swings to the Conservatives seem to have been in 2017 and even more so in 2019. In that last election it was a more imminent decision and it was the height of the "Second Referendum" movement which played very badly with Brexit-supporting voters. This was of course spearheaded by Keir Starmer whereas Jeremy Corbyn's previous policy of respecting the vote could have held back the swing to the Tories.

[MekkoGekko]

I agree. It's also okay to talk about white boys underachieving (specifically) and the reasons why. Just a shame the right has monopolised that discussion.

[frthlvfchrt]

4:30 "pit deprived children against each other to compete for resources"

reality Tv producers: *it's free real estate*

[wizardaka]

The reason this argument has purchase though is because there is a truth in it, at least partial. I donate to Novara and think they're amazing and mean this with respect, but I do think tweeting about Oasis and Stereophonics fans who wear denim plays into the hands of the right. I also think those particular people are actually more likely to be working class so it's self defeating. But as others have stated the primary problem is that what is understood as the left, e.g. centrist liberals, doesn't actually care about the working class or want any change that challenges their position at the centre of society.

Another point I've never seen is - when you compare working class people of different ethnicities are you really comparing like with like? This is why you compare people accounting for social classes, because it has a profound effect on, in this case, education outcomes. But as we live in a structurally racist society, people of minority ethnicities will be forced into lower SES as a consequence. Therefore, are white working kids up against kids who would otherwise (I.e. in a non racist society) be above them socially?

[Forgoodnesssakeendha]

Divide and conquer. That's the English ruling class way. History doesn't repeat but it does rime.

[alexanderreynolds]

Jesus Christ, these people are inventing unsuspected new levels of cognitive dissonance and utter dissociation from reality every day. I watched this thinking that, judging by the title, it might actually be an engagement with the problem raised in the title. But no. It's just long 50-second montage after 50-second montage of funny fuddy-duddy Talk Radio and GB News "reactionary" types repeating the question that the video is supposed to be addressing with funny oldey-worldey 1940s newsreel music dubbed into the background, like THAT's the counter-argument ("lol dey like ALL OOOOLD N SHIT lol....dey fanneh"). I still had some hope for the maybe two minutes of the video still left over after that because Ash Sarkar DID keep repeating the question "but what about the white working class?" herself. Turns out she had no intention of actually trying to address it, though, because everything she started to say about the disadvantagement of white British kids at school, for example, always turned after about 5 seconds into a long speech about how VERY much worse black and Pakistani kids have it. In other words, all she did was just provide us with a perfect example of the very navel-gazing metropolitan multi-culti "yoof politics" mentality of the modern left that the "fuddy-duddies with the silly 1940s music in the background" were complaining about. The saddest thing of all, though, is that she is probably blithely unaware that she did this. She thinks gimmicky little bits of jokey editing mixed in with dollops of the same ol' same ol' "black people are so oppressed, Britain is so racist, trans women are women" echo-chamber narrative IS "engaging with one's ideological opponents".

[billkosses]

Sorry, are we talking about the Left or the Labour Party here?
And the working class or the white working class? Or the English working class?
I don't disagree with Ash's position but the video is a bit muddled imho

[realhorrorshow]

There's a whiff of whataboutery here. It's all very well to insist that "it's about race _and_ class", but this ignores the fact that much of the left - including the Labour Party - _does_ focus on race and pays only lip service to class. This video being a example of exactly that.
The attitude that poor white people have it bad, but poor non-white people have it, proportionally, worse is just playing with statistics. There are too many poor people having it too bad in this country regardless of colour, _that_ is the point.
The fact that working class white people are increasingly voting Tory is all the evidence we need that Labour and the left are failing them. Of course it's not actually in their best interests. Of course the Tories despise them. At some level white working class people know this. But in our undemocratic voting system the only way for them to signal their despair to Labour is to vote Tory. Stop blaming them for that and address their problems.
Remember too, that while "the northern powerhouse" and "levelling up" might be bullshit, the "Red Wall" had ten years of New Labour taking their votes for granted and doing nothing to reverse the damage of Thatcherism. Now we have left "activists" who make more noise about which toilet trans-women use than the working class's dependency on food banks. No wonder they feel ignored, they _are_ ignored.

[scasey]

There is no left or right - just the corporate party catering to your dog whistle preferences.

[roddychristodoulou]

Yes Labour has abandoned the working class people simply by opting to become an establishment party .
Back in the day Labour was an anti establishment party with policies like, a free vote on the monarchy, abolishment of the lords, and also a united Ireland .
These policies today are seen as to radical so we end up just like America where there's no difference between the two main parties .