1/ YouGov poll- Working Class Voters
- Conservatives 48%
- Labour 29
A short thread discussing reasons for this.
1) Deindustrialisation has disrupted working class communities far more than it has impacted the middle class.
- Conservatives 48%
- Labour 29
A short thread discussing reasons for this.
1) Deindustrialisation has disrupted working class communities far more than it has impacted the middle class.
2/ Deindustrialisation has largely destroyed the economic structures that underpinned working class communities and their social and political organisations. The sense of being part of a powerful social, trade union and Labour movement has largely gone.
3/ In quite a few working class areas a large influx of migrants has transformed areas already afflicted by deindustrialisation. Communities where people grew up have vanished. The familiar has become unfamiliar and strange.
4/ When people feel threatened by social and or economic change they often seek security in the tribe. During the industrial epoch that tribe was generally the union and Labour movement which was both powerful and deeply embedded in workplaces and communities.
5/ Deindustrialisation has hugely weakened the unions and Labour movement. So now when disorientated people in a fragmented post-industrial society seek safety in a tribe, the only available tribe is the nation-tribe. Hence the appeal of nationalism.
6/ Like all basic human social affiliations tribalism is highly emotive. It is little swayed by facts and reasons. The core language of tribalism is the emotive sloganising of the fascists and the current Tory right, not the careful fact-based reasoning of our current opposition.
7/ A defensive tribal mentality resolves the problem of unity being disrupted by disagreement, through unquestioning loyalty to the leader. Thinking and reasoning is for the leader and their advisers. The rest must uncritically obey. Again the Tories play that game very well.
8/ There's another strand to working class Tory support and that's working class individualism. Whereas in the early 1970s working class folk would believe their lives had been improved by being part of the union, now many are proud to believe its through their own efforts.
9/ Working class individualists, rather than seeing the rich as class enemies, may see many rich people as more successful versions of themselves. They don't aspire to overthrow the rich, they aspire to or dream of being rich. Once again a win for the Tories.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
