Labour activists have a strange attitude to the white working class. This was shown when Gordon Brown called an innocent Labour voting pensioner a “bigot” for daring to ask him questions about the effects of Eastern European immigration.
This will be placed as a question of the Prime Minister’s two-faced nature and his temper. Perhaps it will stretch to questions about Brown’s, ahem, mental stability or the judgement of Labour MPs like Chris Mole who know Brown one hundred times better than we do and who still wanted him as leader of their party. Those are all questions that should be asked, but frankly they are not the most worrying question.
The fact is that middle class Labour activists treat the white English working class with horror. They may think that they speak for them, they may depend on them for their votes and they may even pretend to be like them.
However they can not stand the views of the working class, and they genuinely do regard them as bigoted. This is especially so with immigration. What is in effect a narrow sectional interest – a desire for cheaper restaurants, gardeners and nannies – is transformed into a moral crusade and everyone else has to knuckle down.
When this hurts the loyal white working class, then there is no real sympathy. Obviously if you have been on the doorstep you know that the feeling is intense compared to ten years ago, and curiously non-racial. There is just a feeling that unchecked immigration has lowered wages, raised rents and put a strain on services.
When the white working class complain about immigration they are not calling for an all white Britain but some control over their circumstances. The problem is that from Corder Road or Severn Road this looks like bigotry. In most cases when the class interests of the representatives differ from the clearly expressed interest of those that they wish to represent, the representatives knuckle down and, well, represent.
This has been turned on its head. The people have to be “led”. God help them.
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