Working Class Disenchantment · Issue 872

Rich Brown traces the changes of the Labour party in the last 15 years, and how their move away from socialist values has affected the representation of the working classes in national politics

When Tony Blair became leader of Labour in 1994, few could have predicted the effect that it would have on Britain’s political structure.

Since its inception in 1900, the Labour Party was traditionally the party of the working classes. With close ties to the unions and an emphasis on the working man. The Labour’s party ‘sorigins were unashamedly rooted in socialism. The Labour Party offered representation for the working man, which offered the working classes a party that would defend their interests.

Labour’s socialist influence can be seen right through until Blair’s rise to power, ranging from Ramsay McDonald to Clem Attlee’s radical government, which, amongst other policies, created the welfare state as we know it today, to Michael Foot’s Labour party of the 1980s which offered voters a viable alternative to Thatcher’s Conservative Party.

In short, Labour, until 1994, represented the working classes, seeking to put their interests first and stay true to the origins of the party. The consequences of Blair on the Labour Party have seen the party’s foundations shattered, as ‘New Labour’ has veered from the left into the centre ground. Millions of previous Labour supporters have been left feeling alienated and unrepresented by a party which has been forced to move with the times and adopt an approach which ticks the boxes of middle England’s voters in order to gain power in Parliament.

Britain’s old industrial cities can now resemble ghost towns, with jobs in the traditional industrial market being reduced year on year as Britain’s continues to shake off her industrial past and move into the global economic market.

So why did New Labour have to shackle off its socialist ideals when Tony Blair came to power? It has to be said that, politically, the Labour Party’s shift to the centre ground was a masterstroke by Tony Blair. New Labour’s new leader, assisted by close aides Peter Mandelson, Alistair Campbell and Gordon Brown, the quartet that essentially shaped New Labour, recognised that the Labour Party’s image had been shattered and was seen as out of touch with the voters.

Four successive defeats from 1979 through to 1992 in general elections left Labour in a position which was dangerously close to disintegration. The nostalgic Labour Party, with its celebration of the working classes and principles rooted in representing the traditional base of the party, had to change. This change was, of course, facilitated by the devastating effect that Thatcher had on the Labour Party. Her electoral dominance in the 1980s embarrassed Labour at the polls, with their lowest point coming in 1983, when they won just 27% of the vote, an appalling total.

The Labour Party, therefore, had to move away from focussing on its traditional base of supporters and focus on winning an election, which meant directing policies which Middle England would vote for. The Labour Party, as it was previously known, was cast into the shadows in search of electoral victory.

The consequences of Labour’s shift to the middle ground were huge for the working classes, especially the established base of the party, namely the industrial, urban-dwelling working classes.

Suddenly, millions of people felt cut off from the new politics, which offered the working classes no viable choice of political party to truly represent their interests at Westminster.

In my view, the low voting figures which we have seen in the previous two elections since Blair became leader of the Labour Party, which saw just 59% vote in 2001 and 61% vote in 2005, represent how many voters do not feel that political parties offer any real choice, and this view is especially prevalent within the working classes, with only 45% of unskilled workers casting votes for Labour in 2005, compared to the 58% that voted for Labour in 1997. These statistics illustrate how one particular demographic within the working classes are beginning to move away from the new Labour Party.

I spoke to a local councillor, Steven Day, who represents the Liberal Democrats, and he told me that ‘In my local election 43% of those who could vote did, which means 57% could not be bothered’. He went on to comment that the message he was getting was that many voters felt ‘it was a waste of time’ and therefore did not vote. In my view, as Labour has moved away from its core vote, millions have stopped voting for a party that previously represented them.

Although under Tony Blair the Labour Party won an unprecedented three elections in a row, from 1997 to 2005, it did so at the cost of alienating its core vote. Although we must acknowledge that in elections in which the result is almost certain, such as Labour’s victories in 2001 and 2005, turnout is generally lower, Labour’s shift to the middle ground has been a core factor in affecting voter apathy, leaving millions of voters feeling unrepresented and alienated by the new political elite.

What has happened to these alienated voters makes for disturbing reading. Many, especially white working class, voters have turned to the British National Party in recent years.

Most disturbingly, in London, the multicultural hub of Britain, the BNP’s London Mayoral candidate in the 2008 election, Richard Barnbrook, won 69,710 first preference votes, which although only translating to 2.9%, is a relatively high number for an extremist party in the modern age. Barnbrook will now take a place in the London General Assembly, due to the fact that the BNP received over 5% of the overall vote for the General Assembly, meaning that the extreme right-wing party gained a seat, to be taken by the Mayoral candidate.

When I asked Councillor Day what he made of the BNP’s impact on British politics he assured me that ‘Labour supporters in northern England, despite everything, are unlikely to vote BNP’ and that ‘at the end of the day, the BNP will pick up votes from its thug elements but most of those won’t vote either’. Whilst agreeing with the general sentiment, one does have to be worried about the numbers of votes the BNP are picking up, especially in London.

In Barking and Dagenham, south-east London, the BNP became the 2nd biggest party on the local council after the 2006 local elections. Barking MP Margaret Hodge, now in Gordon Brown’s cabinet, courted controversy when she claimed that 80% of white families in the area were ‘tempted’ to vote BNP, but what Hodge illustrated, in reality, was that the effect of the BNP is more than a minority element, but a genuine worry for British Politics. Councillor Day does, however, argue that ‘in the north of England, you may see the BNP picking up seats as disillusioned voters move towards a more right wing policy’, showing that the threat of the BNP is genuine, and they are no longer a party which can be written off and ignored, their challenge must be met head on by modern political parties re-engaging with disenchanted working class voters, and if we don’t, we leave a vacuum for a right-wing extremist party to fill, which could result in social chaos.

As well as politically, it is important to note that Britain’s economy has radicalised hugely in recent decades. Northern English cities, such as Bradford and Rotherham, once the cities which drove Britain into a period of economic success during, and after, the industrial revolution, have seen their industries become marginalised by a new economic climate which now exists. For example, in Bradford, a city in which the BNP have found relative success and racial tensions have remained high, manufacturing jobs, according to census figures, fell by almost 24% between 1998 and 2002, compared to a national fall of 15%. In the same time period, employment in the service sector grew by 8.1%, and we thus see how the economic framework of Britain is changing rapidly.

Cities such as Bradford, with generation after generation of family members entering the same industry, have seen, with the effect of a changing economy and multicultural society, industrial jobs virtually vanish. These jobs used to help define a city, and were an integral part of local pride and culture. Now these jobs have gone, some cities seem to be entering into a new age that many are not prepared for, and the Labour Party, as well as their industries, seem to be leaving nostalgia behind and evolving, like the rest of the nation, into a new economic epoch, with new jobs and no room for tradition.

Labour’s shift to the middle ground, it has to be said, was the right move politically. The political landscape had been redefined following Thatcher’s dismantling of the power of the unions and thus the driving force behind the Labour Party was left shattered by Thatcher’s radical governments. The old battles between the right and left are now obsolete as Labour and Tory alike clamour for the centre ground, offering voters on both the right and left little choice.

The working classes have since been unrepresented, and, unfortunately, many seem to have lost faith in voting and a distinct minority seem to have turned to the BNP as a party which represents their interests, an alarming result of the Labour party disengaging with its traditional base of supporters.

It is important, however, to note that the working classes, as a collective, will never vote in huge numbers for the BNP, for their policies, as one would expect, do not sit comfortably with most voters. The challenge of modern politics must, however, be to reach out to the hundreds of thousands of voters who have turned to the BNP for representation.

Until we do this, how can we go about solving social problems if modern politics does not attempt to engage working class voters? If we continue to ignore such a huge part of our society, it will be at Politics, and our, very own peril.