‘We don’t exist for them, do we?’: why working-class individuals voted for Brexit

Estimated reading time: ten full minutes

Lisa Mckenzie

Estimated reading time: ten full minutes

Working-class everyone was prone to vote for Brexit. Lisa Mckenzie (Middlesex University) takes problem using the idea that these social individuals were ‘turkeys voting for Christmas’. They saw Brexit, with the uncertainties it would bring, as an option to the status quo. Austerity and de-industrialisation has brought a heavy toll on working-class communities – one which the middle-class usually does not grasp.

It’s 22 June 2016. I’m sat in a cafГ© within the East End of London with two neighborhood females, ‘Sally’ – that is 23, has two small kids, and it has been in the council home waiting list for four years, along side over 19,000 others – and Anne, who’s inside her sixties and calls herself a ‘proper Eastender’. Her kids and grandchildren had recently relocated out from the area and into Essex due to the insufficient a home that is affordable. It’s the afternoon prior to the EU referendum, and then we are dealing with all of the politics of this day, including footballer David Beckham’s present intervention into the debate: he’s got recently announced their support when it comes to campaign that is remain. The ladies aren’t pleased. The discussion goes:

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

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

‘Well him and Posh can get and live where they desire if they want, it’s not similar for all of us, I’ve been homeless now for 2 years.’

‘We don’t exist in their mind, do we?’

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

Ahead of the referendum, I’d been dealing with a combined band of neighborhood working-class both women and men in London’s East End included in ‘The Great British Class Survey’ during 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 to your big governmental debates associated with time, in the event that you don’t comprehend the context for them. Being a working-class woman, I appreciate the skill of storytelling: i understand that a tale is not just a tale. It really is utilized by working-class visitors to explain who they really are, where they arrive from, and where they belong. These little tales are way too usually missed in wider governmental analysis in favor of macro 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 with 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 all over referendum. The debates in bars, cafes, nail pubs, as well as the hairdressers in working-class communities seemed infectious. Individuals were interested, and argued concerning the finer points associated with the EU, but in addition made wider points about where energy rested in the UK, making links between the 2. Nonetheless, for some working course individuals like ‘Sally’ additionally the other ladies, the debates had been centred upon the constant fight of these own life, in addition they connected those battles for their moms’ and grandmothers’ hardships, but in addition for their children’s future. They saw small hope that life would be fairer for them. The referendum had been a point that is turning the ladies in eastern London. That they had maybe maybe not voted when you look at the 2015 General Election: that they had small interest or faith in a political system seated just three kilometers away whenever their day-to-day and instant situation required constant attention. When ‘Sally’ told me she would definitely make use of her vote for the very first time to go out of, we asked her if she thought things would alter for the greater when we had been to Brexit. She stated click here for more info she didn’t understand, and didn’t care. She simply couldn’t stay things being exactly the same.