Brexit and the working class on Teesside: Moving beyond reductionism.

Luke Telford, Jonathan Wistow

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

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Abstract

Too often, members of the working class who voted to leave the European Union in the 2016 referendum have been framed as uneducated and unaware of their own economic interests. This article, based on 26 in-depth face-to-face interviews and a further telephone interview on Teesside in the North East of England, offers an alternative perspective that is more nuanced and less reductionist. The article critiques some of the commonly heard tropes regarding the rationale for voting leave, it then exposes how leave voters rooted their decision in a localised experience of neoliberalism’s slow-motion social dislocation linked to the deindustrialisation of the area and the failure of political parties, particularly the Labour Party, to speak for regional or working-class interests.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-20
Number of pages20
JournalCapital and Class
Early online date16 Sept 2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 16 Sept 2019

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