{"id":5122,"date":"2019-12-13T11:57:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-13T11:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/?p=5122"},"modified":"2021-06-15T16:42:55","modified_gmt":"2021-06-15T15:42:55","slug":"from-canterbury-to-workington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/from-canterbury-to-workington\/","title":{"rendered":"From Canterbury to Workington"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Professor David Bates compares Labour\u2019s traditional and new voting bases following the 2019 general election results.  <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

In Canterbury the Labour Party\nput together a successful political moment, uniting the remain vote around the\nfigure of the widely popular local MP Rosie Duffield. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Labour project at the\nnational level failed, in part because of how the public came to perceive\nCorbyn, and his Party\u2019s policies (particularly on Brexit). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, the\nConservative Party managed to bring together traditional Tories, the wreckage\nof the \u2018old working class\u2019 and the generally apolitical into a moment united\nunder the empty signifier \u2018get Brexit done\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By an empty signifier, I refer to\nan empty phrase, which those of quite differing ideological orientation can\nfill with meaning. So, for the entrepreneurially minded Tories, this echoes the\nmanagement mantra \u2018get the job done\u2019. For others, it seems more like a\ndesperate cry \u2018just get Brexit done, for goodness sake; please make this end\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once we look at the social basis\nof these political moments, the picture becomes a little clearer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The socio-demographic basis of\nCanterbury is shifting. It has a large student population with three universities\nand an increasingly privileged middle class who have come to the Labour Party\nlater in the day, but who have little connection with its more traditional\nworking- class base (what we might term the \u2018Whitstable effect\u2019). In short,\nCanterbury is increasingly socially liberal and pro-EU in a way which sets it\napart from those Labour constituencies which the Conservatives have managed to\ncapture. For this reason, the Conservatives may struggle to \u2018recapture\u2019 it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the social and demographic\nbase of areas such as Workington is quite different. The BBC journalist Laura\nKuenssberg repeated Johnson\u2019s words, stating that traditional Labour supporters\nhad \u2018lent\u2019 their vote to the Conservatives. But the collective social basis\nwhich tied such workers to the Labour Party has eroded. The solidarity\ngenerated in the context of the exercise of skilled labour, has been replaced\nby mass unemployment, and debt fuelled individualism. The constituency of areas\nsuch as Workington could not represent themselves, so they must be represented.\nIt is not really surprising that it is to the right that their attachment has\nbeen made. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question is whether this new\nattachment will last?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Bates is Professor of Contemporary Political Thought and Director of <\/em><\/strong>Politics and International Relations<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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