From coal to Ukip: the struggle over identity in post-industrial Doncaster

ABSTRACT

The article explores the local history and set of conditions central for the rise of “coal nationalism” in the post-industrial town of Doncaster. Based on ethnography, interviews and archival research, the essay shows how Doncastrians were not merely victimized by the effects of neoliberal restructuring programmes and deindustrialization, but strived to cope with and give meaning to the changes affecting their lives. In the space left by the dissolution of industrialism, new competing scale-making projects over meaning, memory and future played out. Several social actors nostalgically invoked the industrial past to cope with existential insecurity. Some called upon the lost empire or the EU, while others turned to exclusionary Englishness as the solution to current hardship and grievances. United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip), strategically locating their annual conference in 2015 in the white-majority working-class town, tapped into local anxieties and disillusionment, promising to secure future and security for British nationals in the extractive industries. Examining the tensions emerging out of the intersection of various scale-making projects, the essay suggests that the rising appeal of English nationalism cannot be reduced to neoliberal restructuring, nor just the legacies of industrialism, nor to the passage of transition or global migration. It is all of these, which in turn constitute the Ukip code.

KEYWORDS:

• Neoliberalism
• post-industrialism
• identity
• nationalism
• Ukip
• Brexit

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Doncaster is predominantly white working class and the “non-white” population make up around 4.4%, significantly lower than the number nationally at 12% (ONS 2003).

2 In 2009, the glass production at Polkingson in Kirk Sandall closed after 9 years of manufacturing. In 2010, more jobs were lost when the railway firm Jarvis closed and the City Council underwent restructuring.

3 https://issuu.com/robche/docs/working_mens_clubs.

4 Out of the extremely few (less than ten) Roman shields ever found, one was discovered at Doncaster in 1971 and is called the “Danum Shield”.

5 Diversity in Doncaster is celebrated, inter alia, through the gay parade, first held in 2012 as well, but leading to protests such as the English Defence League’s marches in Mexebourough.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by European Research Council: [Grant Number 295843].