Review: The New Snobbery – could the Tories empower the working class?

The New Snobbery: Taking on Modern Elitism and Empowering the Working Class by David Skelton (Biteback), £16.99.

Behind this provocative title is a book about far more than snobbery. We are shown how the British political, industrial, and cultural landscape has changed over the past 50 years in a way that allows the new snobbery to be displayed without embarrassment by people who don’t even realise their prejudice.

David Skelton’s starting point is that from the early 1970s, deindustrialisation and globalisation began to hollow out working-class industries which had previously been home to cohesive communities which took pride in skilled work and local culture. Often they were based around particular industries such as the mines, the mills, or the car plants.

From these communities, particularly in the post-war period, emerged generations of aspirational men and women who entered politics, journalism and were well represented in the entertainment industries. The political left often idolised working-class culture and expressions of contempt for the “working man” were not heard from that direction. 

Skelton touches only briefly on “rainbow politics”, but the point is made that whereas previously the left saw society through the prism of class, now much of it looks only at race and sexuality via a complex hierarchy of which group is the most oppressed.

Most of the jobs in the industry have been replaced with low skilled, low paid, and insecure employment. There’s little “dignity in labour” for a woman working in a call centre on a minimum wage zero-hours contract. The stability and cohesiveness of the former age has been replaced by fractured communities, boarded up town centres, and increasing cynicism about not only if the political class can do anything about this state of affairs but if it even cares.

As globalisation gathered pace in the twenty-first century, so did levels of higher education. In the 1980s, roughly 12 per cent of adults had university degrees; now, it is about 50 per cent. This has dovetailed with the rise of “woke politics” and critical race theory to create an atmosphere in which disdain for the working class has become acceptable even in liberal-left circles.

Things came to a head in the 2016 Brexit vote. On the morning of the result, there was an avalanche of anguished comments about “shock” and “cannot understand how this happened” by educated people in the public eye who failed to realise that their social media posts translated as “I know very little about the country I live in”. 

This quickly morphed into describing Brexit voters as stupid amid a fixation on statistics suggesting that the less educated someone was – the more likely they were to have voted Leave. This conveniently ignored the substantial number of university-educated Leave voters (approximately 25 per cent). There was also a refusal to internalise the ethnic minority vote, which was approximately 33 per cent Leave. 

The narrative quickly emerged that the uneducated, gullible, bigoted white van driving chav had ruined the country. As Skelton writes: “Working-class voters found their comparative lack of education weaponised against them.”

The blinkers are still on. Skelton delves into the statistics showing how white working-class children are being left behind in the education system. Enlightened educationalists have finally woken up to this, as have some of the more serious-minded and brave politicians who recognise the damage this is doing to the social fabric of the UK. However, the virus of identity politics appears to have taken such a hold that outrage at the abandonment of so many young people has been muted, and in some quarters, there has been actual hostility towards even debating the issue.

“White privilege” is a complicated idea about the structure of society, including taking in its history. However, it is faith-based, and, as with most religions, true believers prefer not to entertain difficulties such as statistics which challenge its basic tenets.

Labour appears paralysed by its flirtation with identity politics. It supports both LGBTQ+ and Muslim rights. This may be commendable but can throw up some interesting moral dilemmas, as we saw in the Batley and Spen by-election, as the interests of large sections of the Muslim vote were not compatible with the interests of the LGBTQ+ communities. 

Labour was too frightened to take a stand, leaving the field open for George Galloway to agree with some locals about “transmania” and write, “I don’t want to see my children taught in a moral vacuum”.

Labour’s push back against this was muted compared to its dog-whistle leaflet denouncing the Conservatives as friends of the Indian Prime Minister Narender Modi. Boris Johnson was pictured shaking hands with Modi with the text saying, “The risk of voting for anyone but Labour is clear”. The unwritten subtext was – “Muslim voters, Labour will protect you from the Hindu Modi.”

And there is the problem with rainbow politics. Its adherents seem to be so naive that they believe that, as all the colours are victims, they will unite to defeat the oppressors once they see the light. And, of course, none of them could actually be so human as to have their own horrible prejudices. The subtleties of the shades of thought in voters who are Hindu, Muslim, and or LGBTQ+ seem to be beyond them.

This brings us back to the new snobbery. Because white people are considered at the top of the oppressor hierarchy, due to structural racism, they cannot be victims. It follows that because of white privilege – if the white working class are at the bottom of the educational pile, it cannot be the system that has failed them. This leaves another alternative – that it is their fault, and if it’s their fault – well, are they not to be despised, are they not in fact “gammon”?

Apart from a few activists from various ethnic minority communities, mostly white middle-class graduates would use such a term. It’s certainly not one you’d hear in a white working-class area. Skelton hails from a working-class background in Consett and writes that he could not stand back while “left-wing people” found “new ways to describe the working class as bigoted or stupid”.

Skelton writes briskly, with clarity, and punches straight through to the facts which have led us to the demonisation of the working class and the cowardice of those who will not call this out. He concludes with ideas about restoring both the esteem and the power of the working-class, including representation within company decision making, wage increases, and creating quality manufacturing jobs in post-industrial areas.

It is striking that this is part of the new Conservative thinking. Labour are also exploring these ideas, but as long as they are trapped in identity politics, putting such policies into practice will be left to one party – and it’s not them.