“If your experiences are defined by how people treat you because of your race, religion or gender – then that is the identity you will allow to define you”

Indeed, just as white people are finding today.

Thanks for replying, Sunny.
I’m not sure we’re that far apart.
One issue here is: to what extent is “identity politics” distinctively leftist? I mean, the propositions that the police shouldn’t be racist or that wife-beaters or gay-bashers should be rigorously prosecuted should be held by all decent people.
I’d also question your claim “there is now increasing intersection between race, gender and class like there wasn’t before.” But hasn’t there always been such an intersection? The woman who can’t leave her abusive husband because she has nowhere to go suffers from class disadvantage, as do people who are discriminated against in the labour market. This, surely, was if anything even more true in the 70s than now.
And another thing. We should distinguish between two things. One is: how do we understand inequality? The other is: how do we mobilize and organize leftist politics?
For the first question, class is overwhelming important (by definition?). But this might not be true for the second question, at least in conditions where cognitive biases (bourgeois social science-speak for false consciousness!) have led to a fragmentation among the disadvantaged.
Oh yes, I cited that Daily Mail article not because I believed it – surely I’m not that stoopid – but rather to show the sort of stick you can get when you wander near to issues of religious identity.

“Britain’s flirtation with multi-culturalism began around the 60s and 70s when ethnic minorities who came to the UK started organising themselves in response to increased racism they faced.”

That’s one bit of the narrative that surprises me.

You’re saying that Britain was more racist in the 70s than it was in the 50s?

Seriously?

A very interesting piece, Sunny.

There is another, and perhaps equally deep fissure amongst activists: that is the one between those who have a narrative of government (which leads to Tony Blair and other suspected crooks) and those who have a narrative of opposition (which leads to a life of selling newspapers on street corners).

I suspect that geography has a part to play, too, with “class politics” still the more influential north of the Severn-Wash line and “identity politics” south of it. One reason I have argued here for open primaries (rather than electoral reform in general and STV in particular) is that I am concerned to promote class politics at the expense of identity politics. And I am concerned to do that because I think the record shows that societies whose political cleavage is based on class are more agreeable places to live in than those whose cleavage is based on race or religion.

That perhaps deals with Chris Dillow’s second question (and really he and I say the same thing in slightly different words) but it flunks his first. And that I think is the real problem. Ethically, I cannot justify saying to an African woman “you have a right to survive childbirth and the best way for you to exercise it is to come to Europe” and support any form of immigration control – yet I have to do just that if I wish to be taken seriously here, and not just by white people either.

Robert Owen’s conclusion that “the production of socialism first requires the production of a new type of man and woman” still, sadly, holds good.

Tim @3: I’m not sure Sunny is suggesting that the 1950s were less racist than the 1970s. What he may be getting at is that in the 1970s there was by the start of a co-ordinated response to a racism which had by then been institutionalised through a series of government moves in the 1960s, including for example the 1962 Immigration Control act, a 1965 circular from the DES arguing that schools should be no more than 30% full of immigrant children (and LEA’s ‘bussing tactics’, and then the ‘Rubicon’ Commenwealth Immigration Act in 1968 (see a quick summary at http://www.mcgraw-hill.co.uk/openup/chapters/0335223079.pdf). All of this was associated with the rise of race as a political issue (incl the 1964 Smethwick Tory victory), and the development of ‘multiculturalism’ as a response.

Oh, no, I agree absolutely that race as a political issue grew in importance over that time. I’m quibbling only with whether “racism” did.

4 – Great post, I hadn’t heard that quote from Owen before, good insight.

Could I also add that during the post-war years (and before), class in the UK was defined by the trade unions, who themselves weren’t particularly open to gender and race issues. As a member of the NUM for many years, I now look back and can understand why ethnic groups and women were uninterested in class politics.
After Thatcher, the number of union members in the UK decreased and many of the unions now, who represent larger numbers of women and of course black women do not appear to focus on class issues.

The fatwa against Rushdie remains in effect, no one has ever rescinded it (in 1998, as a condition of restoring diplomatic relations with Britain, the Iranian government agreed to take no action because of the fatwa, either for or against. Those murdered (such as the Japanese translator of the Satanic Verses) by Muslims acting on it, would no doubt have something to say about the positive outcome you describe in the Times’ article linked. Given that we’ve just witnessed a violent assault on the Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard I fail to share your perception that the Muslim community in the West has somehow advanced past the position it held on freedom of expression at the time of the fatwa.

Hi folks, sorry for the late response.

Chris: to what extent is “identity politics” distinctively leftist?

Well, I’d say identity politics isn’t inherently left-wing, except that right-wingers have less time accepting people’s multiple identities than lefties. But the struggles were initially aligned to the left because they were about power imbalances and how the marginalised in society were constantly demonised by the right-wing machine (Daily Mail diatribes about immigrants etc).

the propositions that the police shouldn’t be racist or that wife-beaters or gay-bashers should be rigorously prosecuted should be held by all decent people.

I completely agree, but the problem was that you need wives from those communities to speak out – and they won’t unless they feel they are going to be treated properly.
Don’t think anyone is arguing that wife beaters or gay bashers should escape punishment.

But hasn’t there always been such an intersection? The woman who can’t leave her abusive husband because she has nowhere to go suffers from class disadvantage, as do people who are discriminated against in the labour market. This, surely, was if anything even more true in the 70s than now.

Not exactly. The woman who felt it difficult to leave her husband because what the ‘community’ might say or whether she may suffer racism in wider society could also be a middle class or from a rich family.

And even if she did suffer from class disadvantage – the problem is that she sees herself defined primarily by a racial or gender identity – which makes it nigh impossible for lefties to engage her through class conciousness dialogue.

And another thing. We should distinguish between two things

I agree. But part of the Left’s problem in not being able to mobilise minorities in their narratives was because class was less of an issue for them. And that had an impact on mobilisation too I’d say.

surely I’m not that stoopid – but rather to show the sort of stick you can get when you wander near to issues of religious identity.

mmmmm… the Daily Mail will use whatever stick it can find. If you wander near class it will accuse lefties of waging ‘class warfare’. Sometimes you just have to take the criticism on the chin surely?

—————

Tim: You’re saying that Britain was more racist in the 70s than it was in the 50s?

Seriously?

I can’t tell you exactly how life was in those days, but big numbers of immigrants started arriving in 60s and 70s – which is when tabloid hysteria and BNP/NF activity got much worse. Before that they faced some racism but not in a systematic way I’d say…

————

And I am concerned to do that because I think the record shows that societies whose political cleavage is based on class are more agreeable places to live in than those whose cleavage is based on race or religion.

I agree with that Mike, I didn’t get your last point though?

Steveb – agreed.

“I can’t tell you exactly how life was in those days,”

50s England had signs around the place “No Blacks or Irish”. Thankfully that sort of thing had gone 10 and 20 years later.

“but big numbers of immigrants started arriving in 60s and 70s – which is when tabloid hysteria and BNP/NF activity got much worse.”

You might want to rethink that particular line of argument. It’s very close to these two observations: 1) immigration causes racism and 2) the more non-whites people meet the more racist they become.

Not views that either you or I actually hold.

[9] Sorry Sunny – it was intended to be a lively way of pointing to the problem I once described as “shall we push poverty over the borough boundary or abolish it globally?” In other words, do we perceive something as an ethical imperative only if we have the resources to fix it?

Err no, you seem to think that I’m saying that increased immigration actually caused more racism.

I’m saying immigration increased, which is a fact. In response to that tabloid hysteria increased, which drove activism by the BNP and National Front.

the more non-whites people meet the more racist they become.

Didn’t say that at all.

The single best article I’ve ever read on the relationship between identity politics and class – and how it’s done the left a lot of harm to increasingly think of the latter as though it were the former – is here:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n16/walter-benn-michaels/what-matters

compulsory reading for anyone who takes these issues seriously, I’d say.

Sunny H. The left have totally failed to understand the development of technology and globalisation on the employment of people. The inability of the left wing ,middle class , white collar, largely arts graduates who dominate education have failed to develop a technical training scheme to match that of Germany. Consequently, when heavy engineering collapsed, those unskilled and sem-skilled were unable to move into advanced high value engineerig engineering.

Once India and Pakistan gained independence, the cloth which was produced in Lancashire beganto be woven in these countries. When a country industrialises, the first industry to develop tends to textiles. Textile machinery from British factories and mills has been exported to China. Consequetly, the textile areas of Lancashire, Yorkshire and Leicestershire have suffered massively leaving to mass unemployment. The skilled craftmen who manufacture and repair equipment can be retrained, but the unskilled and semi-skilled labour invariably lack the education and skills to enter high value manufacturing.

If left wing politicians were really concerned in reducing social and financial inequalities; they would ensure that the working class had the education and skills, to best ensure they had well paid and relatively secure employment in a time of rapidly evolving technology and increased global competition. The print industry changed because computers made many of the skills redundant ; what was needed was electricians and controls technicians. I believe the EETPU was one of teh few unions which had training facilities to enable their memebers to keep up to date with new technologies.

We need a an education system which teaches knowledge and theory which enables pupil to be rapidly trained in the most advanced technical skills. It used to be the case that a Briton who had come through the British apprenticeship system, especially from such places as the railway wokshops of Swindon, Crewe or Derby or Rolls Royce could obtain a job anywher in the World.

Most left wingers believe in evolution, yet totally fail to underdstand the impact of evolution of technology and international trade on the working class’s employmet.
The wealthy of the World buy Mercedes and other top of the line machines. Britain cannot support manufacturing capability the size of Germany’s because we do not produce enough school leavers who can be trained to such high standards. In the days of the YTS, a German equivalent covered in 6 months what a Briton took 2 yrs to achieve, beacuse they had a far better technical education at school.

It’s not so much ‘identity’ politics that’s the problem, it’s self-defeating ‘victim’ politics. Up till the 80s the working class didn’t see themselves as helpless in the face of capitalism because we had strong unions; feminists were making leaps forward, homophobia was in retreat and racial inequalities were decreasing.

After a series of union defeats there was a feeling of helplessness among the working class *as* a class, feminists turned their focus away from economic independance, and the Rushdie affair began a process whereby *every* ethnic or religious group (including whites and Christians) not only redefined themselves as victims of someone or other but wallowed in fealings of grievance.

There’s a widespread abandonment of *agency* as a liberating force in favour of structural analyses that are so all-embracing they offer no chance of escape. This had always been the case with the academic left of course but it was only in the 80s that wider society embraced defeatism.

@3 Tim Worstall: “You’re saying that Britain was more racist in the 70s than it was in the 50s?”

As Sunny implies @9, very few of us have distinct memories of racism in the 1970s, let alone the 1950s. (In the 1970s I learned two things from Rock Against Racism: 1. Don’t be a racist 2. Stay away from trots.) And I don’t know enough to know whether one era was more racist that another.

But ignorance doesn’t preclude comment on a lefty forum (I made that remark up for you, Tim.)

The 1950s was the first decade(?) when commonwealth immigration was encouraged, to fulfil civil labour market shortages. From description, the 1958 “Notting Hill riots” seem pretty tame, with respect to the innocents who were seriously injured. Organised racism was reborn in the early 1960s, predominantly in the Nazi circle around Colin Jordan. That circle encompassed the people who created the far right groups that have been around for most or all of our lives.

In 1968, London dockers marched in support of Enoch Powell, a significant mass exercise. The sentiment was identical to that at the notorious 1964 Smethwick “nigger for a neighbour” by-election. Smouldering resentment that puffs into fires.

The 1970s onwards are a bit different. The National Front put its politics on the street and Nazis pranced along the road. Moving forward very rapidly, the BNP tries to put on a respectable face and welcomes the actions of EDL.

I would not argue that there is more or less racism over any period, but that the nature of racism changes. How do you quantify racism?

It’s not so much ‘identity’ politics that’s the problem, it’s self-defeating ‘victim’ politics

Wow, shatterface actually making an intelligent contribution than just ad-hominems?

It’s also arguable that ‘victim’ politics is what drove those conflicts. The working class trade unions saw themselves as being crapped on by the ruling class – feminists saw themselves as victims in a patriarchal world while the whole point of race activism was in response to attacks by far-right activity. They were all victims and many remain victims.

It’s arguable that money has screwed things up, in the case of trade unionism and race/religion relations activism. There’s no money to be made in green/feminist activism so I wouldn’t throw the same accusation there.

There is a feeling of helplessness now as the unions have been pushed back. But the answer, in my view, lies in the trade unions working for their own interests rather than just to bankroll Labour, and other movements growing in tandem as part of a broader left. The continued conflation of Labour and The Left has screwed over the latter.

Charlie2: If left wing politicians were really concerned in reducing social and financial inequalities; they would ensure that the working class had the education and skills

But they do! That’s the whole point of all these skills training centres, asking the govt put more money into re-training schemes rather than just leaving it to the market… demanding a Green New DEal so that new skills can be developed in new green technology etc.

the German trade unions don’t demand anything different to British TUs. The former are just better at getting it and demonstrating why it’s good for the country IMO.

Ahh, it all used to be so easy?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXvfileSEyc&feature=related

It’s been done (with voluminous comments)

‘Diversity and equality are not the same thing

Racism, homophobia and sexism are on the wane, but Britain is more unequal than ever’

Deborah Orr

(I agree with her on this occasion)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/22/diversity-equality-deborah-orr

When we say “working class” do we really mean “poor unskilled white people”? Because we never seem to discuss the problems of nonwhite poor people.

“the German trade unions don’t demand anything different to British TUs. The former are just better at getting it and demonstrating why it’s good for the country IMO.”

Really? I mean, reeely, reeely? German unions have recently been arguing that for the good of the country their members have to accept low pay rises and possibly even pay cuts and reductions in conditions of employment.

For the good of the country.

Seen that in the UK recently?

[21] “Seen that in the UK recently?”

Certainly not amongst the higher echelons of the banking industry.

[21] Tim, whenever you want to make a claim like that, please source it. I’m sure it’s true but all it means is that the German TUs aren’t doing their job which is to advance the interests of their members not to do a right-wing Government’s job for it.

There are substantial reasons why black and Asian residents of the UK did not follow the American Civil Rights movement. American blacks in the USA were almost entirely the descendants of slaves who had been brought there against their will. They were denied the franchise. There was discriminatory legislation in place against them.

In Great Britain, as it was then known, an overwhelming proportion of blacks and Asians had entered the country of their own free will or were descended from those who very recently done so. The vote was available to them, if citizens, without any restrictions. There was no legislation which, on racial grounds, prevented them from doing anything in law or closed any doors to them. Additionally, many had come as refugees from persecution elsewhere – and many of them very recently.

It is no wonder that they had entirely different attitudes to established authority to those of similar skin colour in the USA.

Their lot in the UK has not really been much improved by radicalisation, by voluntary ghettoisation, by efforts to channel them as a body into politics with a pervasive racial connotation.

Some notion that they should mostly share Labour values or be willing trade unionists are based on the assumption that they can be manipulated because they are black – that they be organised as a political bloc purely because of skin colour, is social engineering at its worst. That very assumption has harmed their prospects in many ways and the willingness or wilfulness of the Left to treat and indulge them as separate has lead to the disassociation of some Muslim youth from our society.

17. Sunny H. Both Rose of M and S and Leahy of Tesco have complained about the poor standard of education of many of their school leavers they employ. If someone’s poor education has an adverse impact on their work in a supermarket;it will certainly be inadequate to work in high value manufacturing or working as electrician.

When Lonbridge closed M Hodge said working at Tesco’s was suitable employment for a tool maker. Hodge has no industrial experience . As leader of Islington she was responsible for their many poor schools. The Blairs lived in Islington but chose to send their sons to London Oratory: they chose a tutor from Westminster Scool. Many of left wingers actually buy property in the catchment of Camden Girls Scool. D Abbot lives in Hackney but pays to send her son to the City of London School. H Harman represents Peckham yet sends her sons to London Oratory and St Olav’s and St Saviours Grammar in Kent( practically a public school ).

The left wing middle class have spent decades mocking traditional approaches to education and training which has resulted in poor standards in many comprehensives, yet they send their children to schools which teach using this approach.

Harman pushing equality while sending her children to exclusive schools while working class children have to make do with comprehensives in Peckham ( or Abbott for that matter) typifies middle class arts graduates who have no industrial experience. Not only do so many of our school leavers have massive gaps in their education, too many are not willing to accept the demands being trained . East Europeans are now being employed because they are willing to accept gracefully the rigours and disciplines of working in highly competitive jobs.

Unless we take education as seriously as seriously as countries such as India, Singapore , Japan and China, and that means pursuing excellence, quality not quantity, we are unlikely ever to rebuild our manufacturing industries. Many public schools have dropped GSCEs( because they are too easy) and are taking IGSCEs( old O Level) which are taken in Singapore and Hongkong. So a British working class pupil will be at a disadvantage to those educated at a public school or those from Hong Kong or Singapore when it comes to starting their A levels.

When the Labour have craft trained foremen and chartered engineers from high value manufacturing, drafting education and training policies; then perhaps the working class will receive a decent education and enter well paid careers.

Hi Mike – I take your point at #11, my response at #12 was addressed to Tim. In response to you – my answer is I don’t know. We can’t take on the world’s problems but we can be fair in how we do things here and lead a model for the world perhaps.

Viktor: Some notion that they should mostly share Labour values or be willing trade unionists are based on the assumption that they can be manipulated because they are black – that they be organised as a political bloc purely because of skin colour, is social engineering at its worst. That very assumption has harmed their prospects in many ways and the willingness or wilfulness of the Left to treat and indulge them as separate has lead to the disassociation of some Muslim youth from our society.

Well, ethnic minorities and feminists generally were left-wing because they shared principles that the marginalised in society should be given a voice. This is why the trade unions helped (in a limited way) and as the Labour party was more progressive on immigration – minorities voted for them. The Labour party has also been more about women’s rights than the Conservatives.

Charlie 2: The left wing middle class have spent decades mocking traditional approaches to education and training

How exactly do you substantiate this?

Harman pushing equality while sending her children to exclusive schools while working class children have to make do with comprehensives in Peckham

But that doesn’t mean she actively tried to destroy “traditional approaches to education” or skills.

Unless we take education as seriously as seriously as countries such as India, Singapore , Japan and China

Right, and that means investing more, and investing in industry, engineering and technology – not having an economy relying on the banking sector

Paul, interesting article you linked here. It says:

My point is not that anti-racism and anti-sexism are not good things. It is rather that they currently have nothing to do with left-wing politics, and that, insofar as they function as a substitute for it, can be a bad thing. American universities are exemplary here: they are less racist and sexist than they were 40 years ago and at the same time more elitist. The one serves as an alibi for the other: when you ask them for more equality, what they give you is more diversity. The neoliberal heart leaps up at the sound of glass ceilings shattering and at the sight of doctors, lawyers and professors of colour taking their place in the upper middle class. ….

I agree with this, partially. There is a reason why the left took on the diversity agenda – which is less to do with inequality and more to do with distribution of power broadly.

But that doesn’t mean many of us on the left who also write about race don’t recognise that class also matters. Even feminists acknowledge this.

Which is why I applauded John Denham’s speech. We’ve made enough progress on social issues to come back to class inequality again.

Where I disagree is the idea that focusing on the social harmed the class agenda. To me, being left isn’t entirely about class – it is about power. The distribution of power in my view is more important than simple economic inequality since I find the latter a simplistic measure.

[26] Thanks for that, Sunny. May I now be deliberately controversial?

AIUI social classes ABC1 (using the old classification which the Government abandoned in 2008 in favour of a schema I can scarely begin to understand, but which seems designed precisely to conflate the kinds of distinction I wish to make) – generally regarded as “middle class” – now account for over 50% of the population. Labour traditionally looked to social class C2 – skilled manual workers who had (usually) served long apprenticeships in large factories and who were radicalised by their first-hand experiences of exploitation and solidarity there (it also looked to officers and gentlemen of the Clem Attlee type, of course). This, as Charlie the One-String Harper reminds us, has shrunk very considerably, not least by its own efforts in educating itself into the “middle classes”. FWIW, Charlie, I am an arts graduate with an engineer father. He never criticised me for choosing the arts, but then he never had the benefit of your wisdom.

So what is left of the “working class” is far more made up of DEs than it ever used to be. And this group has never been Labour bedrock. Marxists (and others) call it rude names. Identity politics could even be seen as trying to help people out of class DE who were only ever in it as a result of race/sex discrimination.

The point of NuLab was to work with all this: to attract the C1s by denying that NuLab was in any sense “left” – no to Clause 4, yes to Imperialist War – and to attract the DEs with celebrity politics – Tony’s grin and Cool Britannia.

In truth, Labour is between a rock and a hard place. The country – England in particular – now has the most right-wing demographic in its history. Its “core vote” is thus more isolated than ever before. Tony’s grin and Tory panic elected NuLab three times but now those have left us we see the true shape of things: NuLab can retain either the voters it attracted between 1987 and 1997, or its core vote, but not both. Hence “Red” Toryism as a response to the new demographic – 40% to the left of the Tories, 40% Tory and 20% to the right of them (UKIP/BNP).

And now I’ll put my One String Harp away!

27. Mike Killingworth. My comments are that education has been dominated by by middle class arts graduate with little or no technical education and industrial experience . Craft trained foremen and chartered engineers be involved with the education system to ensure school leavers have the skills and attitude to enable them to undertake employment in high value education. Too many children come out of school ” Am I bothered ?” attitude so accurately portrayed by C Tate which makes them unsuitable for training in precision engineering or dangerous activities such as the construction industry. When a retired prof from Imperial who is fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering says A level standards have declined, I believe him.

Sunny H . Discipline has declined in many schools; teachers from countries such as Australia and New Zealand are horrified at the level of disruption. Unruly pupils are very difficult discipline let alone expel. Competitive sports mocked . Methods such as phonetics for teaching reading have been sidelined for decades. Grammar and syntax are rarely taught. Children come out of school without being to undertake arithmetic- add, subtract , multiply, divide, calulate areas and and volumes, percentages, simple equations. The type of maths needed for apprenticeships in engineering and construction. The learning of facts. is dismissed as outdated by many in the education world. Look at being a top chef , the amount of knowledge required is massive from; from all the types of produce, to to how to cook them.

The ability to remember facts is vital to becoming a good craftsman. Craftsmen need to to be able to complete quality work, under tight deadlines in pressurised work places. If a child spends 11 years of education with having to remember few facts; never being harshly criticised when they deliver slap dash work or have a sullen or agressive attitude; then they will have a massive shock when they enter high a pressure work place such as michelin starred kitchen or a construction site. Talking back or being rude to a teacher may not result in being expelled but try that with a foreman and the teenager will be lucky if they are only sacked.

Charlie 2 it was your conservative government of the eighties which brought in policies that destroyed the apprentice system