Populism,working-class dislocation,and the making of a multicultural civil society

Abstract

This article addresses one of the key political challenges of contemporary Britain, namely how to respond to the construction and political mobilisation of the white working-class (WWC), often instrumentalised by right-wing figures to legitimise exclusionary nativist narratives. These narratives have contributed to events such as the 2024 England Riots and continue to threaten social cohesion. Rejecting the idea that progressives should emulate Reform-style populism, the article proposes multicultural nationalism—particularly as theorised by the Tariq Modood within the Bristol School of Multiculturalism (BSM)—as a principled and inclusive alternative. It argues that multiculturalism must more fully incorporate class, recognising the WWC not as inherently reactionary, but as a group experiencing status decline and cultural marginalisation. The WWC’s disaffection stems from the erosion of post-war material security and symbolic inclusion, leading to feelings of loss and displacement. By viewing the WWC as an ethnicity-inflected class group worthy of recognition, multicultural nationalism can speak to those alienated by the language of inclusion. This reorientation expands the BSM’s framework, offering a path towards national cohesion that integrates both ethnic and class identities within a shared vision.

Introduction

One of the central political challenges of our time is how to respond to the construction of the white working-class (WWC), so often instrumentalised by figures like Nigel Farage and ‘academics’ like Matthew Goodwin to legitimise nativist right-wing narratives. Such narratives have contributed to events like the 2024 England Riots, whilst being a key frame of reference for a political mobilisation which threatens the cohesion of the nation (Brown and Brooks, 2024). Given that progressives cannot, morally or otherwise, ‘out Reform’, Reform, unless they wish to alienate a whole host of groups, an alternative is needed. This article argues that multicultural nationalism—particularly as articulated within the Bristol School of Multiculturalism (BSM)—offers a principled and inclusive alternative.

While the term white working-class is frequently deployed in political discourse, I use it here primarily as a descriptive category. It refers to a set of broadly shared perspectives found among working-class individuals who are white—sometimes sceptical of multiculturalism and who feel a sense of cultural and economic decline (Taylor Hill et al., 2025). These attitudes are not uniform, but they are politically significant, and are frequently invoked by nativists to justify exclusion. Rather than viewing the white working-class as inherently reactionary, I suggest they be understood in terms of an intersectional ethnicity-inflected class decline. The post-war social contract offered material security and symbolic inclusion, whilst its erosion has left behind a powerful sense of loss, shaped by economic insecurity, and a fall from a once-privileged position within the national imaginary. While minority communities have long contended with exclusion, the white working-class now grapples with a different kind of marginalisation—not the denial of status, but the withdrawal of status once assumed secure.

This shift presents both a challenge and an opportunity for multiculturalism. On one hand, it highlights the need to root belonging in material as well as symbolic recognition, sometimes overlooked within BSM frameworks, and on the other it also calls for an approach that can speak to those who feel most alienated from the language of inclusion. Tariq Modood’s (2019) vision of multicultural nationalism— which aims to create a coherent and cohesive nation by accommodating the narratives, interests, and rights of different groups, allowing people to assert group identities within an inclusive idea of nation grounded in mutual respect and civic equality—provides the basis for such an approach. It is my broader claim, developed more fully elsewhere (Taylor Hill, 2024), that the working-class should be understood as an equality seeking sub-group worthy of recognition and reproduction within the multiculturalist project. In this light, I seek to expand upon the approach of this part of the BSM by focusing more fully on class as a relevant and enduring factor of identity sometimes overlooked within multicultural discourse—one which, together with ethnicity, shapes the lives of citizens in profound and unique ways. In this, I argue that multiculturalism can respond to a class-oriented constituency by offering a credible vision of shared national life, and structural and civic renewal, framed in terms that resonate with those sometimes sceptical of inclusion.

The Bristol school

BSM’s two-sided integration allows for the preservation of traditional identities and the addition of new elements to national culture. Modood, for example, defends the Church of England’s position in the House of Lords and proposes extending representation to other faiths, applying BSM’s additive logic to state institutions. This approach values tradition, but within a framework of equal dignity for communities, which is itself underpinned by the belief that genuine belonging requires groups to have a meaningful stake in the nation. The process is inclusive and dialogical, aiming to foster mutual understanding between citizens by recognising their distinct identities and grievances—laying the groundwork to address alienation and build solidarity across the diverse fabric of the nation.

The most recent development in the context of Modood’s (2023/2025) work has been the white working-class. This is an interesting and challenging development, in part due to the group’s relative ethnic privilege and experience of structures which had been comparatively inaccessible to minority groups. If we take the perception of the period 1945–1980 as a ‘golden age’ for this white working-class subgroup, and class politics more broadly, wherein it enjoyed relatively unparalleled political and economic representation and a major increase in both opportunities and living standards, then we can see the period from the 1980s onwards as marking a significant decline (Taylor Hill, 2024). This mirrors a wider working-class experience, but can be understood as differentiated for those who are white in the disproportionate perception of their own decline and loss, with consequences for multiculturalism. In my approach to this topic, I take a different tact from the BSM’s support for immigration control, seeing such measures as a sensible pragmatic move to alleviate majority cultural anxieties, but which can only be a part of recognition alongside the structural and material concerns which remain incredibly salient for many within the WWC.

The white working-class in perspective

The majority of the working-class is white, though sub-groups like British-Bangladeshis are disproportionately represented (Budd, 2025: Introduction; Social Mobility Foundation, 2023). Members of the WWC, however, tend to be the most sceptical of multiculturalism, which complicates efforts to include them within it. If inclusion lacks majority support, it risks alienating many. Some progressives, notably liberals, may argue this is acceptable, viewing the WWC as inherently conservative, but this is a damaging caricature. Indeed, age and geography matter—both young and urban WWC individuals are often more progressive than their middle-class peers (Budd, 2025: Chapter one; Taylor Hill et al., 2026). Similarly, while WWC scepticism exists, it is often exaggerated or co-opted, with outsiders speaking as if they are for the WWC, using them to voice xenophobia all the while knowing that genuine WWC voices struggle to contest this (ibid). This article does not centrally argue this point, but suggests that inclusion within multiculturalism could allow the WWC to challenge the nativists that claims to speak for them by explicitly creating space for such workers to express themselves in terms meaningful to themselves. Indeed, multiculturalism is, at least in part, a project of taking ascribed inferiorisation and letting minorities assert their own sense of identity ‘from the inside’ and which can be a force for challenging said inferiorisation, which should be respected and accommodated. In the 1980s, ‘black’, meaning non-white was such an imposed category and when the minorities were able to speak from themselves, they eschewed ‘black’ for more meaningful identities such as Indian or Muslim, which they saw as adapting to becoming part of Britain—and so hyphenated as Black British or British Muslim, for example. Of course, the ‘WWC’ is not quite like that but nevertheless, it is an external, objective descriptor and so an appropriate place to begin even if our purpose is to bring to the fore collective subjectivities or intersubjectivities of identities from the inside, into a multiculturalist space of mutual recognition.

Moreover, this article treats the WWC as one equality seeking sub-group within the wider working-class, alongside other sub-groups defined by relevant cleavages beyond class, such as religion, gender, sexuality. It is my contention, as I will discuss later, that such factors often shape, in intersection with one-another, how different forms of class-based stigma are experienced, and that whiteness can be counted amongst these. Whiteness does influence certain inclinations, which are also shaped by age and location, even if it is not a prominent self-identifier, as ethnicity may be for other working-class sub-groups. ¹ On this basis, recognition, or I would concede at least understanding, could benefit:

(1) Class solidarity, since a multicultural framework brings sub-groups of the working-class into dialogue which they may otherwise not engage in, or in which the majority, because it is white, might otherwise dominate.

(2) National cohesion, which is necessary for a social democratic settlement, usually understood to work most effectively in cohesive societies.

This position rejects the notion of the ‘undeserving poor’ (Shilliam, 2018). The working-class as a whole deserves recognition on the grounds of its labour, economic, and cultural contribution, and where race and class intersect in meaningful ways for sub-groups, that complexity should also be understood and recognised. I advocate for broad class solidarity alongside targeted recognition—strengthening multiculturalism and challenging the nativist exploitation, for political gain, of the white working-class.

Status, prestige, agency, and belonging

Politically, the white working-class—and the working-class as a whole—has become increasingly detached from its traditional avenues for representation, such as the Labour Party, which once served as vehicles for working-class empowerment in the framework of the postwar settlement. This political dislocation is tied to a broader sense of lost status, where globalisation and the shift towards a neoliberal economy characterised by precarity and low pay (even for ‘knowledge’ workers), which have undermined their economic security, leaving many feeling abandoned by political elites. Institutions that once provided support and a sense of collective agency have either been structurally weakened or shifted their focus significantly. For instance, As Virdee (2014) and Cruddas (2021) suggest, the Labour Party’s move towards a middle class, metropolitan base has left many working-class voters feeling politically homeless, with whites most likely to move towards Reform or drift into alienated apathy (More In Common, 2025). This is compounded by the loss of respect once accorded to manual labour, which has evaporated as a wider working-class political movement was defeated by the Thatcher government, and its networks, most prominently trade unions, dismantled. In the present, many in the working-class feel that their work is undervalued and unrecognised. For example, in Amazon, one of the companies most emblematic of these struggles, one GMB report found 89% of workers felt they were exploited, whilst supermarket workers frequently report feeling disrespected by the wider public, and are structurally locked out of holding influence in the workplace (HCB, 2018; USDAW, 2024). Indeed, despondency with the diminished power of trade unions remains high. According to one Ipsos Mori (2013) poll, 78% of 1000 workers viewed them as essential for protecting worker rights, but 50% do not believe they can do so with their current powers (Worley, 2016).

Virdee (2023, 470) summarises this structural decline and its consequences effectively, suggesting that, by the mid-2000s, ‘class as a social force had been erased, social inequalities were widening, racism was strengthening yet the institutional space to articulate working-class grievances was now more diminished than ever due to the bipartisan commitment to neoliberalism.’ This is a loss of both agency and prestige for the entire working-class. However, these changes also have differing reactions partially influenced by ethnicity, which can be explored through the lens of nostalgia. Nostalgia interacts with ethnicity in a way that reflects a belief that the working-class represent a long-standing community, and that they are entitled to a form of preferential treatment, which was secured in the past through the class-based framework, but which had also been implicitly more accessible to white workers in the postwar era (Virdee, 2014; Shilliam, 2018). As Evans and Tilley (2017) observe in the context of Brexit, the white working-class psyche is often shaped by a comparatively deep sense of lost prestige, diminished agency, and, sometimes, a desire to retreat from an increasingly globalised world. For members of the white working-class, this sense of loss can manifest in a more defensive worldview. Reay (2007) and Beider (2016) echo these perspectives, arguing that the sudden collapse of secure, unionised employment was traumatic, manifesting as a strong attachment to an imagined past defined by structural and agential inclusion; something which recent polling also reflects (More in Common, 2025). This is nostalgic, beyond that of other sub-groups, and some in the white working-class might hold immigration as a factor in this decline, but it is far from most. Rather, we can track a shared perception amongst predominantly white working-class people that the past was a better place for them. This, of course, does not mean buying in wholesale to the social conventions of the postwar era.

Some scholars, such as Shilliam (2018), interpret white working-class grievances, and this nostalgia, as stemming from the erosion of the historical privileges associated with whiteness. However, we might frame this differently. Whiteness, in itself, has not lost its social power, but it has both been seen by many white working-class individuals as an illegitimate basis for making identity-based claims, and simply as a less relevant frame of reference, less significant than place-based or regional forms of identity-expression, such as English, or even Mancunian, Brummie, or Geordie, for example. Virdee and McGeever (2023) suggest that the lack of class-based forms of recognition has weakened their ability to imagine class as multiethnic, especially in majority-white communities, and left such communities without the resources to understand or reimagine themselves in a more globalised, diverse nation.

This has had implications for those with strong working-class identities who, with few other avenues for recognition across an intersection of class and place-based attachment, may experience deep resentment toward the political establishment, as well as towards groups perceived as the beneficiaries of a ‘new order’ (who may otherwise be seen as working-class) (Taylor Hill et al., 2026). This resentment is often more acute in geographically and culturally isolated areas, where exposure to diversity is limited. Here, white working-class residents frequently feel excluded from the multicultural framework that has increasingly substituted class-based politics and is often perceived as elevating ‘others’ at their expense. Jennings and Stoker (2017) note that people in these predominantly white areas (with over 90% white residents) are 13% more likely to say that rights for ethnic minorities have ‘gone too far’ than those in more diverse communities (47% vs 34%), and 52% believe immigration undermines British cultural life. Such anxieties are noticeably less prevalent in more diverse areas, where ‘everyday multiculturalism’ facilitates casual intergroup contact, and it is worth noting that young white working-class respondents favour efforts to include ethnic minorities by 41% to 11% (Budd, 2025).

Yet even in such contexts, meaningful interaction is not guaranteed, and the absence of everyday interactions in areas where the lived experience of diversity is minimal cannot be overlooked. In such places, like Clacton (which is 95.3% white), other frameworks are needed to reconnect citizens. As Modood suggests, these may need to operate at the macro level of the nation and its narrative, a view to which I have subscribed elsewhere (Taylor Hill, 2024). However, here we must acknowledge the not uncommon belief that multiculturalism appeared to offer no space for class-based claims, while providing recognition to minority groups whose identities included powerful and resonant cleavages beyond class. This presents a conundrum for multiculturalists: the theory of multiculturalism does not inherently exclude class, but its implementation in Britain has sometimes failed to recognise class-based grievances, contributing to the sense of agential loss which was most likely to exclude those who were white, with a strong working-class identity.

Of course, the white working class was subject to forms of deliberate racialisation and inferiorisation well before the advent multiculturalism. The classic community studies of the 1950s–1970s, such as Young and Willmott’s (1957) work in East London, already documented how working-class neighbourhoods were being publicly associated with dirt, disorder, and moral deficiency that also often-marked white working-class people as a distinct and inferior from their white middle-class peers. However, crucially, institutional recognition within the national frame, supported by the Labour Party and trade union movement, as well as wider working-class networks, enabled working-class communities to proactively respond to, and disavow, such characterisations (Beider, 2016). The post-1980 decline of institutional recognition limited the working class ability to challenge a resurgent inferiorisation. Haylett’s (2001) study shows how white working-class people were being increasingly constructed as ‘abject whites’ positioned as culturally backward in contrast to a liberal, middle-class norm, while Skeggs (2004) demonstrated how classed moral judgements produced forms of ‘dirty whiteness’ that rendered working-class white identities polluted and lacking value. These symbolic processes sit alongside material and structural decline. To take a wider perspective, the losses experienced by working-class men—declining industrial work, the erosion of occupational status, and the collapse of settled pathways into adulthood—have affected men across all racial and ethnic backgrounds (Price et al, 2024). Yet, within public discourse, it was the white working class whose decline was disproportionately narrated through the language of moral failure, contamination, and deficient whiteness (Skeggs, 2004, 2005, 2009). This longer history shows that white working-class marginalisation is not a by-product of multiculturalism, but has become more pronounced as space for class-based articulation declines.

This trend, which is now coupled with the dismissal of class in the national frame, has made it harder for such citizens to imagine themselves as one body or, to use Virdee’s (2023) framing, one ‘multiethnic class’. In this context, the defensiveness attributed to the white working-class is nostalgic but not necessarily reactionary, reflective of grievances rooted in material and structural decline since the 1980s. While this makes many wary of further change, it also presents an opportunity for a multiculturalist politics oriented around the renewal of communities, civic associations, and of the conditions necessary for shared belonging. I return to this later, but note here that the white working-class is split by generation, with a highly progressive youth and a more conservative older generation, though both are unsure of how to express themselves without the framework of class, and can view multiculturalism with suspicion without necessarily opposing diversity; indeed, the key grievances seem to be a lack of inclusion and belonging (Budd, 2025: Chapter one; Taylor Hill et al., 2026).

Prestige loss and the education system

The feeling of economic dislocation for the white working-class has been accompanied by a profound cultural marginalisation, from a place of relative racial advantage in the status that whiteness once so problematically offered, but one which is now, paradoxically, enabled by it in limited ways. However, to reach this point, we must first acknowledge a class context in which once, practical skills, collective labour, and local networks commanded respect, which is now juxtaposed with the rise of a credentialed culture that has rendered these values more invisible, and where success is now associated with the kind of social mobility and higher education that many in the white working-class feel excluded from, even from the earliest age. Such alienation is not simply imagined. As Reay et al. (2010, 2011) find, many white working-class children internalise negative attitudes toward education as a ‘dead end’. They see the British education system as offering little tangible hope and as something that benefits ‘others’, which Reay suggests is also reflected in a lack of generational resilience. This differentiates them from other sub-groups, who may carry legacies of educational achievement from origin countries or view the British system more optimistically, despite downward mobility upon arrival and, crucially, this applies even to those groups who tend to do worse than the white working-class in educational terms (Stahl, 2015). These conflicting historical legacies shape attitudes toward education in the present, and here we can identify a specific, historically grounded grievance among working-class white citizens who tend to see education as another institution that has failed them, and may never have been ‘for them’ anyway, but which they could reasonably bypass through other modes of gaining prestige.

Lamont’s (2000) landmark study into working-class men shows a glimpse of that prestige system, which is now increasingly internal, rather than respected within wider society. As Lamont suggests, morality sits at the heart of how many working-class people, both white and black in her study, make sense of themselves and their place in the world, which offers a framework through which dignity can be preserved, especially when traditional markers of success—like wealth or status—feel increasingly out of reach in the Knowledge Economy. Living responsibly, working hard, and caring for family and community become ways of holding onto a sense of worth in the face of such uncertainty. However, what is important to note here is the decline of worth in the bigger picture, beyond class, which is much more pronounced in the British context than Lamont’s US study, as the working-class become cut off from a more comfortable and secure mode of living, as well as social benefits once afforded to them. The national frame is especially important here as national identity is one valuable alternative to class identity for the working-class and, due to a lack of other recognised cleavages, including place-based ones, white workers in particular. With the breakdown of class-based forms of prestige and security, and the rise of the Knowledge Economy, here workers suffer a dual loss as their work is no longer understood as vital to the nation; and most are locked out from the pathways available to gain prestige, particularly the education system.

Unfortunately, even for those lucky enough to be able to reach university, there is a distinct class divide, with English and Bolton (2015) suggesting that Russell Group, Oxbridge, and Red Brick universities, often classified as elite universities particularly attractive to employers, have very low numbers of students from a working-class background, whereas lower-ranked universities tend to be disproportionately made up of students from this background. The experiences of working-class students also differ in a university setting, where research Crew (2020) and Crozier et al. (2019) identify significant material and resourcing challenges, including lack of financial support, a difficult work/study balance, and a lack of understanding from peers. Reay et al. (2009) also identifies an alienation or ‘belonging’ gap, wherein the working-class university student feels disconnected from their roots, but unable to fully belong in a middle-class world which works off the basis of cultural assimilation. In this way, they suffer from ‘identity dislocation’; their class identities are challenged within higher education, but equally they feel somewhat detached from their own class. The result is a struggle for authenticity and recognition in a space which has become integral to social mobility, but which challenges and undermines working-class students. Thus, even where social mobility is possible, prestige is not automatically given to those from working-class backgrounds, in part because many of them are excluded from top universities, but also because they face consistent struggles to assert a proud identity, and find recognition for it. This becomes a combative experience to assert themselves and challenge the norms which look to demean them. Education is, therefore, a risk for those from a working-class background and, increasingly, is not even itself a substitute (in that it does not guarantee a secure, high-status job) for the prestige lost as a result of the working-classes’ deterioration in the national imaginary.

Contributing to this alienation in the national frame is the way the white working-class is represented in the media, understood to belong within the country, unlike some working-class sub-groups, but treated as an underclass; a drain on resources rather than the builders of nation which they once had been. Skeggs (2009) illustrates how scorn and prejudice toward the poor is most comfortably and unproblematically directed at white members of the working-class. She shows how the demonisation of working-class children—through the figure of the ‘chav’—is disproportionately applied to white working-class youth, precisely because applying such stereotypes to other ethnic groups would provoke accusations of racism. For instance, New Labour’s ‘respect agenda’ was illustrated in the media through images of white working-class teenagers in hoodies (Le Grand, 2015; Skeggs and Loveday, 2012). Similarly, BBC programming that depicts working-class life negatively has predominantly shown white Britons, which often escapes criticism. The BBC’s 2020 Diversity Report noted that ‘those from lower socio-economic backgrounds are depicted negatively, fuelled by stereotypes and seen as the object of ridicule,’ citing shows like Little Britain and characters such as Vicky Pollard—socially housed, teenaged, and a single mother—as emblematic of how working-class identities are mined for entertainment value. This pattern extends more widely, too. Programmes like The Jeremy Kyle Show routinely depicted guests as unintelligent, dysfunctional, and morally deficient—covering themes like alcohol abuse and domestic violence in ways that portrayed these struggles as inherent features of working-class life. Benefits Street similarly showcased shoplifting, drugs, gangs and more (Van Der Bom et al., 2018). Though these issues can occur, the overwhelming focus on such depictions gives the impression that they define the class, particularly its white members. These portrayals often feel degrading to those within the class, and, crucially, the negative representations tend to fall most heavily on its white members as the target of such portrayals.

This has accelerated in the wake of Brexit, where negative portrayals of the white working-class specifically have intensified. Because a minority of white working-class people expressed racist views during the Brexit debate, this is now used to stereotype the group as a whole (McKenzie, 2019). As Skeggs and Loveday (2012) argue, media representations are not easily challenged, and instead reinforce the devaluation of the working-class. These degradations may be applied to the whole class or they may target specific sub-groups, with white workers portrayed as bigoted, or British Pakistanis as unwilling to integrate (Mirza, 2020; Vinter, 2022). Ethnicity, in other words, clearly shapes how different forms of class-based stigma are experienced, hence this articles position on intersectional recognition. This dynamic also helps explain why whiteness, paradoxically, can operate as a disadvantage. Because whiteness is often treated as invisible, class-based scorn directed at white individuals escapes the accusations of racism that would rightly arise if other groups were targeted (Skeggs and Loveday, 2012). Thus, the white working-class often become the most visible—targets for class-based contempt, with few protective counter-narratives available to them (Skeggs, 2013). The loss of routes to regain the prestige lost by the collapse of class-based recognition in the postwar economy, coupled with this portrayal of the working-class as a liability in the national imaginary represents a profound shift in status (Denham and McKay, 2023).

Structural decline and civil society renewal

Long-term pessimism and alienation have a structural and institutional component too. As I argued in my book, we simply do not have the infrastructure to make connections with others, and we have not done for decades. Indeed, if we look back to the 1970s, political parties could boast millions of members, whilst trade unions accounted for nearly 14 m people, building broad coalitions for better pay, conditions, and treatment. Industry and towns were also more connected, by working men’s clubs—some 4000 in 1970 with an estimated membership of 10% of the adult population (down to 1800 as of 2024), as well as sports teams, pubs, and clubs (Brown, 2023). Whilst some of these spaces remain, the vast majority have long since disappeared, whilst working people have been increasingly priced out of their remaining meeting places. Pubs now regularly charge over £5 a pint, and men’s football clubs, especially in the Premier League, expect fans to fork out upwards of £40 a ticket. The cost-of-living crisis has continued to squeeze incomes, making interaction in these spaces even more difficult, whilst real wages have not risen for the working-class as a whole since 2005 (Tinline, 2023).

The prospect of an increase in pay, and therefore access, to many of these spaces are also low. In fact, the success of Trade Unionism, outside a select few sectors, is a distant memory, and the lowest paid have had to settle for the slow increase of the minimum wage since its introduction in 1998—a wage which has not kept pace with inflation—and is so insufficient that 42% of full-time workers earning below the real Living Wage have less than £10 left over after paying for their essentials each month, whilst a number of others struggle with the additional burden of zero-hour or other precarious contracts (Living Wage Foundation, 2024). Social mobility seems to hold no real answer to this problem either, in spite of increased university attendance for the working-class, the Social Mobility Foundation (2023) has found that professionals from working-class backgrounds (albeit determined using the occupational class measures only) are paid an average of £6,287–or 12%–less per year than their more privileged counterparts in the same occupation. In a sense then, this struggle for community continues as professionals from a working-class background tend to remain isolated, with social mobility being no guarantor of a comfortable life, nor likely to enable those with such a background to transition into middle-class communities or modes of living.

As well as a structural decline and the pricing out of working-class people from many leisure activities, many working-people increasingly find themselves facing threats to their own existence in an economy which, even if they are lucky enough to be socially mobile, is a source of constant degradation; where they feel isolated from those civil society associations that still exist. The white working-class is not unified here, and may not even interact within itself, let alone with the wider working-class or other groups within community. As a recent More In Common Report (2025) suggested, most of us ‘feel like strangers’, not because of immigration, rather, because some citizens cannot afford to know their neighbours, cannot find spaces to do so, or do not feel like they can trust them—particularly in areas with rising crime and poverty. This realisation holds a particular relevance for the BSM. Indeed, the experiences of the working-class, both white and non-white, suggest that the success of a multicultural project hinges not only on its ability to reconnect communities in cultural and social spaces, but also to engage with the deep economic inequalities that are so prevalent across the length and breadth of the nation. Working-class and progressive voters find overlap with Reform voters in this regard (Elgot, 2025). To this end, both for the purposes of recognition for the struggles faced by the working-class, including its white workers, and in the interest of the wider multiculturalist project , attention must be paid to the economic sphere, perhaps beyond what scholars of the Bristol School have typically been interested in.

Indeed, space in civil society for citizens to meet are important as a good in themselves, and access remains a key issue for the working-class. The evidence does not suggest that they are unwilling to engage in these spaces; in fact, like most citizens, they want connection (More In Common, 2025). However, they are limited by their circumstances quite significantly. Many simply cannot afford to engage in civil society in the manner that they might wish, whilst others do not have the time, especially during a cost-of-living crisis where it has become far more normal for working people to seek extra hours to help pay for their bills. There are, then, clear financial and time-based barriers placed on working people—barriers that cut across the entire class. Whether it is in care work—poorly paid, with long and unsociable hours, and often staffed by women, many from ethnic minority backgrounds—or in supermarket jobs, we see a working-class without the time or financial capacity to connect its fellows. This disconnect creates fertile ground for the misunderstandings and misrecognitions which enables the politics of resentment—which too often pits working-class subgroups against each other. Whilst there is still more work to be done to explore this white working-class sub-group, we can be reasonably confident that working-class whites, on the whole, desire renewed belonging, which could be acknowledged as part of the broader effort to foster a more inclusive nation.

A forgotten literature: Civil society and the reconciliatory state

With this in mind, it seems fitting to point to ‘answers’ that are, in part, structural and institutional—centred on civil society and the capacity to connect meaningfully with their co-citizens. Though it may stretch the bounds of this discussion, a distinctive feature of my contribution to the BSM lies in drawing from British Idealists like Bosanquet and T.H. Green, who saw civil society as central to cultivating moral citizenship, alongside Ethical and Guild Socialists such as Tawney, Laski, and Cole (Taylor Hill, 2024). While not themselves multiculturalists, much in their work resonates with the aims of a multicultural nationalism, helping to shape what I have elsewhere called the Reconciliatory State. Key BSM concepts—acknowledgement, recognition, symbolic inclusion—can be complimented with the inclusion of such insights. This approach speaks to multiculturalism’s adaptability and potential for a progressive vision. The Idealist and socialist traditions offer both theoretical and practical resources for multiculturalists, especially in grappling with the position of the white—and wider—working-class experience. Idealism, particularly Green’s, is indispensable here because it offers an account of the kind of state action needed to re-engage this group, since it acknowledges what they feel they have lost; agency and connectivity in both local and national communities, while at the same time offering a vision for a kind of institutional and structural renewal that would benefit minority-majority relations more broadly.

For context, T.H. Green’s Idealism which is grounded in a belief in the moral development of individuals through social institutions, provides an important philosophical basis for reimagining recognition that is both symbolic and rooted in lived experience, shared responsibility, and collective self-realisation. Despite his insistence on a diffusion of power across a ‘society of societies,’ Green (2008) also reserves an integral role for political institutions in enabling individual and communal flourishing that much reminiscent of BSM’s ‘community of communities’. For Green, politics is the exercise of ethical principles—flourishing being the highest of these for the community as a whole (Tyler, 2019)—and political institutions are not legitimised by efficiency, but by their commitment to moral development of citizens. The state has a duty to uphold, nurture, and protect the conditions that allow citizens to live well with one another. This means a state not only committed to providing basic services or maintaining order, but one whose existence is fundamentally oriented toward service and moral purpose. Green sees the state as responsible for sustaining social cohesion, extending educational and civic opportunities, and providing the groundwork for ‘integration’ or understanding between citizens. He acknowledges that political harmony does not emerge naturally either. The state must mediate between competing interests and identities, acting to sustain principles of mutual respect, non-exploitation, and shared obligation. Its role is not to flatten difference, but to ensure it exists within a wider framework of belonging.

In this regard, Green introduces what Morrow (2007) describes as a ‘double ontology’ of the individual. Citizens are at once universal—equal in dignity, moral worth, and rights—and particular, with their own histories, affiliations, and identities. The task of the state, reflecting multicultural nationalism, is to build the institutions and narratives that make both realities possible: to craft a shared identity in which citizens can locate themselves, and to ensure that no one is asked to give up their particularity in exchange for belonging (assimilation). It is this balancing act that makes Green’s Idealism such a rich resource for thinking about multicultural recognition in respect to the working-class, because it justifies both philosophically and ethically a particular progressive vision that meshes well with the desire for the protection of minority groups and the practical and dignified inclusion of the white and wider working-class as a constituent group within society. Indeed, Green (2008) articulates a kind of ethical-reconciliatory state—one which takes seriously the challenge of alienation and builds toward national cohesion through the cultivation of shared meaning and civil society expansion and inclusion. Yet, this vision does not solely rest on moral principles; it demands institutional reform and meaningful cooperation with civil society.

Laski (2014) expands on this ethical underpinning with a more socialist-inflected institutional vision. For him, reconciliation is not just cultural or narrative, it must also be material. It requires that the state work with a range of intermediary associations, from trade unions to neighbourhood groups to identity-based organisations, to ensure that every reasonable citizen can participate meaningfully in the democratic life of the nation in cooperative social federalism—a system in which government recognises the pluralism of society and builds its legitimacy through collaboration with the people and their associations. I do not have space to here to elaborate significantly, but both Green and Laski believe that these associations matter because they expand the reach of participation. They make it possible for working-class communities, and others whose lives are defined by constraint—whether economic, geographic, or cultural—to have a meaningful say. They ‘scale up’ individual agency, translating the concerns of those who may never step foot in a policy meeting into actionable, collective demands. Given the time pressures many working people face—particularly during a cost-of-living crisis—this collective infrastructure is a necessity. Although not multicultural in intention, both Laski and Green’s ideas come together here in a way conducive to the BSM by building a bottom-up approach to multiculturalism, one that derives legitimacy from ‘the situation of flesh and blood people seeking recognition and inclusion in their societies as they are and for what they are’ (Levey, 2019).

What emerges here is a picture of a pluralistic civil society, one that collaborates with the state in pursuit of the common good. Bosanquet (2008, p. 290) captures this well in his description of ‘civilised societies exercising their wills through the state in order to encourage progress in the condition and quality of its members’ lives.’ This is not about the state doing everything—but about creating the conditions for citizens to act, associate, and build together, with the backing of institutions that care whether they flourish. It is about dignity for the working-class, recognising their material and other struggles and giving them the space to speak for themselves and, alongside their representatives and co-citizens, shape their local and national home. A cooperative, reconciliatory state therefore orients itself toward active inclusion. It is attuned to both the symbolic and material aspects of recognition—concerned with the stories we tell about who belongs, and with the structures that make that belonging real. This approach seeks to avoid any group, including the white working-class, or however they might define themselves when given voice to do so, feeling abandoned or unrecognised, so long as that group recognises the equal citizenship of others. The pluralistic and socialist elements of this vision push multiculturalism onto terrain where redistribution, recognition, and agency sit together. If done well, such a model could help restore agency to working people, bringing their voices back into national conversations. This is the sort of shift that could help rebuild trust in a state that has too often felt distant from the people it claims to serve—a trust that is crucial if citizens are to feel seen, heard, and valued (NatCen, 2024). Adding a deliberate structure that is useful for this and reflects the claims of the WWC in the process is itself a way to help them overcome their hesitancy towards an avowed multicultural project.

Taken together, these ideas offer a way of creating genuine space for the recognition of the white working-class within a multicultural nationalism. Green’s Idealism is particularly useful here because his ethical vision of the state, rooted in collective self-realisation and shared flourishing, is compatible with a more inclusive national project. His insistence on the moral capacity of all citizens, and the duty of institutions to foster that capacity, provides the grounds for a recognition that is meaningful and mutualistic. By extending this through the traditions of Laski we can begin to see how a pluralistic, associational life might underpin the kinds of relationships needed for democratic belonging. What this demands, however, is not only cultural recognition but also a material commitment—an active engagement with the economic inequalities that limit the ability of working-class people to participate fully in civic and political life. Without this, any appeal to shared identity could well ring hollow. A reconciliatory state, therefore, must work in tandem with civil society to enable connection, amplify otherwise marginalised voices, and rebuild the conditions for community solidarity. This would entail support for, amongst other things, the development and expansion of cooperative and mutualistic inclinations in the economy, as well as trade unions, including the lifting of restrictions placed upon them in successive laws passed since 1984, and protections for its membership, including stronger rights of association for those wishing to join a union. ² However, we might look beyond, toward local associations, including place-based faith and neighbourhood groups, community organisations like sports clubs, youth clubs, or other meeting spaces more widely, whilst I have also made the case elsewhere that civil society expansion should ultimately be understood as part of a more expansive programme for the expansion of agency, and the reduction of inequality, across the full breadth of our national community (Taylor Hill, 2024)

It is through this kind of sustained cooperation, across civil society, in localities, regions, and at the level of the nation, that we might begin to recover a national story in which citizens can locate themselves. The WWC claim for recognition, and its institutional and structural outcomes, can therefore mutually enrich minority and majority groups and their relations through a renewal of ‘that which was lost’, building on a popular nostalgia; made good for a more diverse present. This is a somewhat abstracted response to the concerns of the WWC, but it serves as evidence of the intellectual strength of the BSM as the framework in which a form of social democratic renewal is well positioned to take place.

The continued saliency of the BSM

This special issue has sought to develop and sustain the intellectual potential of the Bristol School. I have sought to expand upon the approach of the BSM by focusing on class as a relevant and enduring factor of identity which, together with ethnicity, shapes the lives of citizens in profound and unique ways. This amounts to an attempt to consider the class experience more fully within an intersectional, multicultural context, with potential to tie future research to the ongoing resurgence of class in the academic mainstream. The development of these class and intersectional frameworks, inclusive of place-based identities, as well as established multiculturalist foci such as race, ethnicity, and religion would only broaden the capacity of the Bristol School to reflect upon, identify, and respond to developments in nations across the globe. Further, the Bristol School has extensive capacity to explore the inclusion of other such majority-minority straddling groups, like the WWC discussed here, on their own terms, which may itself prove a fruitful research agenda necessitating some rethinking of the very distinction between the majority and minority within multiculturalism itself.

More broadly, however, we have seen the enduring capacity of the BSM’s multicultural nationalism to recognise and take seriously the grievances of sceptics, most likely to come from working-class whites. What emerges from this experience is a case for the inclusion of the working-class within a multicultural framework that itself represents a broader vision of political renewal grounded in moral purpose, civic connection, and structural reform. It is only through a multicultural commitment to the renewal of civic and economic institutions, and to sustained dialogue between all citizens, that we might begin to rebuild the social democratic settlement, and to make it more inclusive for those historically overlooked. Drawing from the ethical depth of Green’s Idealism and the institutional imagination of Laski, this argument points toward a reconciliatory state capable of holding difference without flattening it, and committed to building the conditions in which citizens can flourish together. Recognition here is rooted in lived experience, shared institutions, and the reweaving of a civic fabric that too many feel has frayed. As I have suggested, to recognise the white working-class in this context is to deepen the Bristol School’s multiculturalism—to extend its democratic promise through structures that honour dignity, agency, and belonging, within the national frame (Taylor Hill et al., 2025). The Bristol School is thus as relevant and consequential as ever.