Whiteness, populism and the racialisation of the working class in the United Kingdom and the United States

ABSTRACT

The election of Donald Trump and the Brexit vote were widely hailed as examples of (white) working class revolts. This article examines the populist racialisation of the working class as white and ‘left behind’, and representative of the ‘people’ or ‘demos’, in the campaigns and commentaries. We argue that such constructions made race central, obscured the class make-up, allowed for the re-assertion of white identity as a legitimate political category and legitimised, mainstreamed and normalised racism and the far right. Moreover, it delegitimised Black, Minority Ethnic and immigrant experiences and interests, including working class ones. We show that the construction of the votes as (white) working class revolts, and representing the 'people' and/or 'demos', is based on a partial reading of electoral data, misrepresents the votes, stigmatises the working class, and supports an ideological purpose which maintains the racial, political and economic status quo.

KEYWORDS:

• Racism
• populism
• working class
• whiteness
• Trump
• Brexit

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. For more on the post-racial white backlash, see: Hughley (2014) and Winter (2018).

2. There has also been some attention paid to Brexit voting from within BAME communities. Although it does challenge the ‘white working class’ Brexit narrative, we are not examining it as the focus of this section is white working class support. It is worth noting though that votes from within these communities is often evoked by Brexiters, along with claims about allowing commonwealth immigration instead of EU immigration post-Brexit, in order to defend against accusations that Brexit was only white and/or racist, but is challenged by racialised nostalgia for Empire, a rise in racist hate incidents and the 2018 Windrush deportation scandal.