DESPISED – WHY THE MODERN LEFT LOATHES THE WORKING CLASS BY PAUL EMBERY

 

DESPISED – WHY THE MODERN LEFT LOATHES THE WORKING CLASS BY PAUL EMBERY

 

I have recently been reading the very interesting book ‘Despised’ by a Labour Party member in which he tries to explain why Labour has come adrift from its working class roots.  The book is well written and a good read. 

 

The following extract particularly caught my attention and I think will be of interest to any English nationalist:-

 

“The sense of national dispossession that has taken root over years in … in England beyond the cities shows no sign of dissipating.  A feeling of disenfranchisement began to take hold around the turn of the Century, with the advent of devolution in Scotland and Wales solidified into a more general resentment at being “forgotten” and then the emergence of a new sense of Englishness, with large numbers of people beginning to identify as English rather than British.  There was a clear mood developing among the English: We are sick and tired of being ignored. 

 

In the EU referendum, this mood manifested itself in the clear rejection of the status quo, with over 70% of those who identified most strongly as English voting Leave. (A similar percentage of those who identified the least strong voted Remain).  The writer and campaigner Anthony Barnett, has illustrated how much of the Leave vote was driven by distinct sense of grievance among the English.  Comparing the towns of Wigan in North of England and Paisley in Scotland, it explained how they were similar in the sense that both were “once thriving centres of imperial industry… now grappling with impoverishment” and “social and economic equivalents”.  Yet in the referendum, Wigan voted 64% for Leave and Paisley, on an identical turnout, the same percentage for Remain.  Barnett concluded that it was the national factor at work. 

 

In 2018, a poll for the Centre of Towns Think Tank showed that the towns in which people identified most strongly as English – often places which had undergone fundamental social and economic change – were most inclined to feel that Westminster did not reflect the concerns of their part of the country. 

 

As this sense of English discontent grows, it does so outside of normal political structures and institutions – principally because it has no other choice.  Neither the Conservative nor Labour Parties, for example, maintain a specifically English section; and there is no major party, assembly or parliament representing solely England.  English voters also see the obvious democratic imbalance of having MPs representing constituencies other nations of the UK vote on laws affecting England while, thanks to the devolution, their counterparts representing English constituencies have no corresponding right.

 

A YouGov survey for the BBC in 2018 highlighted the extent to which English identity had become a feature of peoples’ lives, with 80% of respondents saying they identified strongly as English.  This feeling had taken hold particularly in coastal and former industrial towns, with two thirds of respondents in those places saying they felt a sense of English pride.  By contrast, less than half of respondents in the major cities felt the same thing. 

 

Labour has a particular problem with England, not having beaten the Conservatives in the share of popular vote there since 2001.  It is widely accepted that worries among English voters that undue SNP influence over a future Labour government played a crucial role in helping the Tories achieve a majority in the 2015 General Election.  Out of the 60 seats lost by the Labour Party at the 2019 General Election, 48 were in England.  This was, in large part, the vote that the Party had always taken for granted, with many of the losses occurring in traditional working class heartlands – the so-called “Red Wall” and non-metropolitan seats – where the sense of patriotism and “being English” was heightened.

 

A post-election report by the English Labour Network showed that more voters in England were likely to identify as “more English than British” than the other way round, and that this group was instrumental in delivering victory for the Conservative Party.  Among these voters, Labour won just 10 votes for every 27 won by the Conservatives.

 

The authors, who included former Cabinet Member, John Denham, concluded that Labour’s failure to promote itself as a patriotic party or even to mention England in any of its political messaging, as well as its lack of any plan to devolve power within England, had alienated voters who emphasised their English identity.  And on the contentious issue of immigration – unquestionably a significant factor on the doorstep – they wrote, perceptively; “These voters have been disconcerted by mass immigration.  Their strong sense of identity and community has been disrupted by changes they were not expecting.  While some of this reaction is based on racism and for the most it is more (a) sense of uncertainty and loss of a stable community.  At least some Labour figures and activists have stereotyped anyone who is not actually in favour of large scale migration as bigoted.”

 

In its disregard for the growing sense of English dispossession, Labour has repeated a catastrophic mistake it made in Scotland – a failure which led to its virtual wipe-out there – of not paying due attention to the politics of national identity.”

 

Paul Embury then goes onto talk about the idea that Labour could become patriotic.  He is of course writing from the perspective of a member of the Labour Party and formerly a senior trade union official in the Fire Brigade Union (from which he was unfairly dismissed by its Europhile leadership for his support of Brexit). 

 

Then in his chapter setting out “What is to be done?”  In which he sets out what Labour should do to recapture the English vote, he suggests:-

 

“In particular, the sense of national dispossession of disenfranchisement felt by the English must be addressed. One way of doing this would be to grant them direct political representation through the creation of a parliament for England to take its place inside a Federal United Kingdom”. 

 

For my part I am happy to say that I think that it is highly unlikely that a Labour Party whose leadership would take the knee in support of the Marxist Black Lives Matter Group, would even for a moment contemplate adopting the camouflage of being a English nationalist party. 

 

In these circumstances I think Paul Embery is usefully identifying a gap in the political market for English nationalism.  It is our job within the English Democrats to organise ourselves so that we can place our party in that gap!