‘We don’t exist for them, do we?’: why people that are working-class for Brexit

Estimated reading time: ten full minutes

Lisa Mckenzie

Estimated reading time: ten full minutes

Working-class individuals were almost certainly going to vote for Brexit. Lisa Mckenzie (Middlesex University) takes problem with all the idea why these social individuals were ‘turkeys voting for Christmas’. They saw Brexit, with the uncertainties it might bring, instead of the status quo. De-industrialisation and austerity has brought a heavy toll on working-class communities – one which the middle-class frequently does not grasp.

It’s 22 June 2016. I’m sat in a cafГ© when you look at the East End of London with two neighborhood females, ‘Sally’ – who’s 23, has two small kids, and contains been in the council household waiting list for four years, along side over 19,000 others – and Anne, that is inside her sixties and calls herself a ‘proper Eastender’. Her kids and grandchildren had recently relocated from the area and into Essex due to the insufficient a home that is affordable. It’s your day prior to the EU referendum, therefore we are speaing frankly about all of the politics associated with time, including footballer David Beckham’s current intervention when you look at the debate: he’s got recently announced his support for the stay campaign. The ladies are not delighted. The discussion goes:

‘What has that **** Beckham got to state about that?’

‘He hasn’t ever surely got to concern yourself with where he’s planning to live, unless it’s which house.’

‘Well him and Posh can go and live where they need if they want, it is different for people, I’ve been homeless now for 2 years.’

‘We don’t exist for them, do we?’

‘Well many of us ******* who don’t occur are voting out tomorrow’.

Prior to the referendum, I experienced been working together with a combined team of neighborhood working-class gents and ladies in London’s East End included in ‘The Great British Class Survey’ in the LSE. We have gathered a huge selection of tales about working-class life within the last few four years when you look at the East End, and thousands over the past 12 years. These stories that are small frequently appear unrelated towards the big governmental debates of this time, in the event that you don’t comprehend the context in their mind. As a woman that is working-class we value the skill of storytelling: i am aware that a tale is not simply an account. It really is utilized by working-class visitors to explain who they really are, where they come from, and where they belong. These tiny tales are way too usually missed in wider governmental analysis in favour of macro payday loans Illinois styles, that has frequently meant that the poorest individuals in the united kingdom get unrepresented.

Waxwork David and Victoria Beckham at Madame Tussauds. Picture: Cesar Pics via a CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0 licence

Fortunately – as an ethnographer, a working-class educational, the child of the Nottinghamshire striking miner, and hosiery factory worker (and I also have actually resided in council housing for many of my entire life) – we rarely concentrate on the macro. My entire life and might work is rooted within working-class communities; my focus and my politics are about exposing those inequalities which can be hidden to numerous, but stay in simple sight.

Having gathered these narratives since 2005, we knew different things had been occurring across the referendum. The debates in bars, cafes, nail pubs, plus the hairdressers in working-class communities seemed infectious. Everyone was interested, and argued concerning the finer points for the EU, but additionally made wider points about where energy rested in the UK, links that are making the two. Nevertheless, for many working course individuals like ‘Sally’ plus the other ladies, the debates had been centred upon the constant challenge of one’s own life, plus they connected those battles for their moms’ and grandmothers’ hardships, but additionally with their children’s future. They saw hope that is little life would be fairer for them. The referendum ended up being a switching point for the ladies in eastern London. They’d perhaps perhaps not voted when you look at the 2015 General Election: that they had small interest or faith in a governmental system seated just three kilometers away whenever their day-to-day and instant situation needed attention that is constant. When ‘Sally’ told me she would definitely utilize her vote for the very first time to go out of, we asked her if she thought things would alter for the higher if we had been to Brexit. She stated she didn’t know, and didn’t care. She simply couldn’t stay things being the exact same.