The Lived Experiences Reform Thrives On Deserve Respect

Steamrolling towards the 2010 General Election, and needing to recoup votes lost to David Cameron’s Conservatives and ‘Cleggmania’, Prime Minister Gordon Brown headed to Rochdale to engage with Joe Public. Unfortunately for him, it all ended up going awry, as Brown ended up committing a political gaffe of the ages following his televised conversation with 66-year-old Gillian Duffy. The exchange touched on pensions, university tuition, and immigration, as well as other topics, and seemed to end well for the Prime Minister, with Duffy admitting she would be voting for Brown despite expressing doubts beforehand. However, while departing in his governmental car, Brown, not realising his microphone was still recording, labelled Duffy a “bigoted woman” to one of his aides. 

Before his insult, Brown had persuaded an unconvinced voter to cast their ballot for him by engaging with her concerns, disagreeing respectfully where appropriate, and articulating his narrative clearly and concisely. It was all very effective. No wonder Duffy was convinced.  Without the flagrant use of an off-the-cuff insult, it would have been a model example of political communication with an undecided voter. If we are to learn anything from this, it’s that respect is deeply important, even with those we disagree with, and it seems pertinent that we apply this lesson to British politics’ current big fish: Reform UK. 

There is a flagrant rudeness in everyday discourse toward Reform UK voters that is strikingly unsympathetic. 64% of self-recognised Labour, Liberal Democrat, and Green voters think Reform voters are categorical racists. People are flocking to Reform because they feel (economically) left behind, particularly by Britain’s political establishment, and by taking into account their lived experiences and the built environment in which they occurred, we can begin to understand why. 

Reform is still, by traditional means of assessment, a small party. Despite recent gains, it has only a few more councillors than the Greens and the same number of Parliamentarians as the DUP. However, polling data, media narrative, and general political atmosphere present an overwhelming sense of looming ascendancy. Some would even go so far as to call them the inevitable government-in-waiting, and while this is farcical, it demonstrates how there’s no time like the present to dissect this new political beast. 

Having frequented Skegness, constituency of Reform Deputy Leader Richard Tice, on several family days out, Morecambe only a short while back, Canvey Island (which borders on Nigel Farage’s Clacton) for the first time last summer, and having spent my entire life (excluding my time at university) settled on the outskirts of Hull, I feel I have a grasp of many of the places in which Reform are thriving. All of these places, and many of those nearby, such as the heavily deindustrialised towns of Scunthorpe, Selby, and Grimsby, are already Reform or will become so in the next general election, according to a recent forecast. 

What links these places? They are all economically past their prime. Many are former domestic tourist hubs, where staycations once provided vital seasonal income for local enterprises, businesses that have all but dried up amidst the rise of cheap package holidays. Hull and Grimsby were fishing centres, which have been in decline since the brilliantly-named Cod Wars Britain fought with Iceland in the mid-20th century, while the other areas have suffered from the global shift in manufacturing, often to Asia. All of these areas share the commonality of losing their primary industry, and, of course, they are only a small sample of a widespread phenomenon. All of these locales prospered in the past, yet over time, have been left there. Every place has its upsides, whether it be a rich local sense of identity or a unique history, but these places all suffer from the same ills: high unemployment, anti-social behaviour, dereliction, political apathy, as well as a general desire to leave, particularly among the youth. 

Visit London, and it feels alive; heart beating, blood pumping. You’re at the centre of a thriving economy, as if you’re in the midst of where the rest of Britain pivots. Though I rarely visited the big smoke in my childhood, during my recent escapades, I haven’t been able to fight the desire to live somewhere that exists in the here and now. Comparatively, my strolls through some of the places previously mentioned as likely Reform gains convey an entirely different experience. There is a particularly striking bleakness, as if hope has been ever-so-slowly carved out of the built environment. 

I’m not here to blindly affront these places; everywhere has its merits, and I’ll be the first to talk up Hull’s outstanding submarium (a fancy form of aquarium), The Deep, or the quaint fun of a sunny day with chips and ice cream at Skegness (or Skeggy, as it is colloquially termed), but there is a particular downtroddenness that emanates even from more optimistic locals. It manifests as a sort of reluctant acceptance of their decline, even among those with a proud sense of place. They talk less of their present state, but instead about a long-gone past, the sort that one only learns of in tales of yesteryears. 

How great the past was in these locales, I cannot verify, simply because many of these primes came during the formative years of my parents or before. Whether these periods of greatness are as great as they are depicted, or if they suffer from a MAGA-style glorification of a vague, idealistic past, is therefore beyond the scope of this piece, but what we can be sure of is that these places are certainly suffering from a downward trajectory, if not a spiral. This decline has been occurring for decades, and for many, is the primary construction of these places’ identity on the national stage. Canvey Island, Scunthorpe, and Morecambe are known to the average Brit as areas of deprivation that once prospered, and these ideals in turn shape the lives of those who grow up in these places. If you grew up in such a place, suffering what can only be described as abandonment by governments of all stripes, wouldn’t you resent the political establishment? 

Reform’s success feeds off these lived experiences. Individuals feel politically unheard, powerless, and deserted. But that doesn’t make them something lesser, and that’s where people get this large swathe of the electorate wrong. You need to address the issues of economic neglect and the other baggage with which this often comes, including concerns over immigration, as the worries of people who are as deserving of your respect as the comfortable middle-classes of Surrey. If you attack them, label them xenophobes, bigots, or, as is becoming increasingly popular amongst elder statesmen and contemporary politicians who ought to know better, fascists, you do little more than reinforce their lived experience of political desertion. It is worth remembering that nefarious folk exist in every ideological group, from the soft left to the hard right. 

It’s worth remembering that Gillian Duffy lived in Rochdale, a seat projected to turn Reform, just like the many we’ve discussed. Duffy’s view of immigration seems to have prompted Brown to refer to her with his infamous pejorative, which, as mentioned, if Brown had opted not to use, would have left her otherwise convinced. Many conversations of a similar nature will be occurring between Labour members and those of other parties in the coming years, as they aspire to win back dissenting Reform voters in Rochdale and hundreds of other seats like it. Politicians, canvassers, and political marketeers need to understand what Brown got so right before he got it all so horribly wrong. Name-calling is going to do little but further entrench disillusioned voters, as one cannot convince someone to whom they do not give a shred of basic decency, no matter how much your views may differ. If someone called you ‘scum’ for considering voting for a political party, would that really make you want to vote for theirs, particularly when that party is part of an establishment which has largely abandoned them?

There is obviously a question as to whether these people have been truly neglected, or whether they are just unfortunate victims of the specific, localised economic decline. The answer is likely to differ for every location, but in a representative democracy, it isn’t for the elected to tell people how to feel, but to convince them of how they will act based on those feelings. The electorate isn’t a playground of children but a set of rational adults, regardless of whether or not you often side with the majoritarian opinion. We need a better understanding of the priorities of political debate; you should never tell someone their lived experience is wholly wrong because, beyond being condescending, you will never change someone’s feelings or thoughts by attempting to delegitimise them. 

What this reminds me of is something that came up in my and Andrés De Miguel’s discursive debate earlier this year: how Labour thwarted the rise of the BNP in East London in the 2010 local elections. As Labour peer Margaret Hodge reflected, the Party succeeded not by entrenching the disillusioned with harsh words and contemptful labels, but by shifting policy to constructively resolve voters’ concerns without capitulating on their values. It didn’t attempt to ostracise harsh viewpoints or those who held them, but, in a metaphorical way, invited them in for tea and talked at length – not as enemies, but as equals with different perspectives. Unsurprisingly, this approach convinced swathes of voters, far more than any offensive strategy would have. (If you’re interested in how the Labour Party has both today and in the past adapted its policy in such a manner, a process I call ‘political phototropism’, you can read more about it here.) 

What I hope to have made abundantly clear is that ‘attacking’ Reform voters is likely a counterintuitive measure. The support Farage and co. have received is grounded in the lived experiences and nationally imposed identities of many, and by fixating on and pressing them, you do little but reinforce the very perspective you wish to challenge. We should orient our politics around solutions, not attainting individuals who clamour for them. If Reform is to be taken to the wire, we need to land decisive blows on the issues they have excelled in discussing, as opposed to chastising the very people we aim to persuade. 

Be Brown – without the unnecessary vulgarity.

Image: Flickr/Marc Barrot

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