Abstract
In the past decade, it has been hard to avoid the nebulous term ‘the left behind’. Largely used in British media and political discourse, it conjures up visions of a disadvantaged white working class whose anger has supposedly led to recent ruptures such as the rise of populist parties like UKIP, the vote to leave the European Union and the Tory snatching of Red Wall seats (i.e., gaining of Midlands and northern English erstwhile Labour constituency strongholds) in the 2019 general election. Given the importance this concept holds in the intersection of racial and economic discourses, it calls out for investigation. In this book Morrison strives to better understand the rhetoric and purposes behind the invocation of the term ‘left behind’, while also developing a more inclusive conception of disadvantage in modern Britain.
Morrison comes from two directions to effectively unpack the class and racial elements which the term ‘left behind’ has been used to signify. Firstly, through an analysis of media and parliamentary discourses sampled from five key moments in British political history in the aftermath of Brexit, he shows that ‘the left behind’ has been largely framed in economic terms of decline and disadvantage. While he does explore an attempt to frame ‘the left behind’ in cultural terms which centre around traditional values and a rejection of multiculturalism, his analysis throughout links these back to the effects of the neoliberal turn on working-class communities and reframes them in terms of a desire for rootedness and stability. A less prevalent framing in media and political discourse, but one Morrison finds necessary to highlight, is ‘the left behind’ in political terms. Here they are portrayed as increasingly being excluded from democratic processes. The lengthy first chapter of his book allows us to understand this through the monopolisation of political power by the interests of capital in the wake of Thatcherism and New Labour’s turn to largely middle-class and urban support.
Here Morrison convincingly teases the class elements from the confusing rhetoric surrounding ‘the left behind’, not by disregarding cultural and political understandings, but by reorientating them through the lived experience of the disadvantaged, an undertaking aided by a further chapter based around interviews which seek to incorporate the voices and narratives of individuals experiencing disadvantage in Britain.
In his second take, scattered throughout the book, and in the wake of a wider class understanding, Morrison strives to expand the discussion surrounding ‘the left behind’ beyond the concept of a racialised, disadvantaged whiteness. He argues that this framing both negates the multidimensional ‘inequalities experienced by low-income minority-ethnic people’, and ‘frames non-native and/or non-white settlers from overseas . . . as the cause of economic and social hardships endured by “traditional”, “post-industrial” working-class groups’.
He addresses these biases in the discourse by conceptualising Britain’s disadvantaged in wider terms which focus on the effects of deindustrialisation and precarious employment beyond a frame of whiteness. He encourages us and the media to focus on stories of the similar and shared lived realities which all Britain’s disadvantaged face. Secondly, he draws on interviews with representatives of Lancashire’s BME Network and South Yorkshire’s Migration and Asylum Action Group to reveal the impact that the lack of investment and subsequent disadvantage has had on young people of colour and asylum seekers in Britain. While two briefly quoted interviews cannot do justice to the lived experience of so many, Morrison’s critique and unpacking of the racial elements in ‘the left behind’ rhetoric provide a good base for a concept from which to build more solidarity across Britain’s disadvantaged.
An important aside in the book is the role academia can have in reproducing racialised discourse in the wider public sphere. From the first page, Morrison notes that the term ‘left behind’ can trace its association with whiteness and a hostility to multiculturalism back to Ford and Goodwin’s (2014) Revolt on the Right. 1 This does well to warn writers to be wary of reproducing stereotypes, ignoring marginalised groups and fuelling the rhetoric of those on the populist right, like Nigel Farage, who have drawn on this work directly.
While Morrison does well to unpack and contextualise the discourse around the left behind, there are a few weaknesses. Given his pertinent focus on the effects of international neoliberalisation on Britain’s disadvantaged, the lack of engagement with global literatures on ‘the left behind’ is surprising. The omission of Robert Wuthnow’s book of the same name dealing with economic decline and cultural threat in rural America is perhaps the most glaring. 2 While Morrison does show a more nuanced interpretation of the phenomenon through his understanding of the class basis for the cultural framing of ‘left behind’ rhetoric, inclusion of the wider literature would have placed the British case study in a wider systemic context.
Again, given his emphasis on systemic disadvantages, Morrison’s final section, ‘From Division to Unity’, is somewhat lacking. The section, directed at those ‘lucky enough not to be left behind’, suggests that they can make better contributions to the discourse, donate or volunteer with relevant charities, make better consumer choices, vote better and treat people they disagree with well. These individualistic solutions seem to negate the focus on community and solidarity which the book had attempted to incorporate up to this point, simultaneously taking attention away from the group agency of Britain’s disadvantaged.
However, despite these limitations, the book is a useful and comprehensive unpacking of one of the most important political terms in modern British history, broadening our understanding of ‘the left behind’ as an important discursive intersection of class and race. Its attempts to reimagine Britain’s disadvantaged provide a thought-provoking framework from which to build.