A report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has concluded that white working class people in Birmingham, Coventry and London feel they are a forgotten group disconnected from policy and politics. Many residents felt they were a forgotten community and had been ignored by policy-makers at local or national level. “They felt that the government had not listened to them in the past, nor showed any signs of doing so in future. The language used in their discussions appeared to be racist. Yet many residents would be upset by this suggestion. Racialised opinions should be seen in the context of people feeling the effects of neighbourhood loss, political disconnection and competition for scarce resources.”


It’s very easy for activists to end up in their own activist bubble where they only mix with other activists and have little connection with the working class world. As this report shows the working class people who took part in the report have clearly no faith in the government, so for this reason activists, especially those of us involved in the anti-cuts / anti-capitalist movement need to be thinking how we can engage with and work with these communities more. The dangers of not doing are that groups on the far right will exploit the situation and we see the rise of widespread fascism.