The EU Referendum - The poverty divide

During the EU Referendum the more affluent areas were more likely to vote to Remain in the EU whereas the less affluent areas were more likely to vote to Leave and this shows a massive divide in the country. The EU, the UK government and our society as a whole needs to understand the reasons for this divide, to tackle the causes of this division and to heal many of the wounds that have been opened in the debate.

Many areas feel neglected

For decades many of the old industrial heartlands of the UK, the traditional Labour areas, have felt neglected. We are in the process of becoming, or maybe even have become, a post-industrial economy as the traditional heavy industries are replaced by a service-based economy.

After the destruction of the mining economy in the 80s there did not seem to be any urgency on behalf of the Conservative government to help the many mining towns whose economy was obliterated when the mines fell, the industries that supported the mines fell and there was high unemployment. Nothing came in its wake, places like Barnsley (my home town) were just left to plod along as money and resources were diverted to the South-East, to London, to the City. There was no need for the Conservative government to fund these areas, they were not marginals where investment could buy votes, they were traditional Labour constituencies, they could be left to rot (at least that is the general feeling among the people).

When Tony Blair led the Labour party to a landslide victory, in 1997, there was some hope that things would improve for the people of these towns, after-all they were the Labour heartlands, they were the core support. However, I think that these hopes faded. Labour had learned to take these areas for granted, they knew that they could put a donkey in a red-rosette up for election and they would get elected, they knew that people often "inherited" their voting preferences from their parents, from their community. Labour were focussed on retaining middle-England, keeping the marginal constituencies happy.

Things like Tax Credits were there to help people who were the poorest in society, but they are there to prop up what is essentially a failure to provide enough jobs at sufficient wages for people to live. The Minimum Wage only works when there are jobs in the area. For the most-part the country continued to focus on London and the South-East, drawing in more people, more money, in a virtuous circle, or agglomeration economics. The people felt betrayed!

One of the great ironies of this is that it is the EU, far more than any of our own governments, that has been supporting these areas, that sees the need to grow these areas and to try to rebuild their economies. Having voted to leave these areas are now pleading with the government to guarantee that level of investment.

People moved to where the jobs were

As the service economy grew the jobs changed in nature, the old heavy manual labour was replaced by jobs requiring softer skills and these jobs often moved to the bigger towns and cities, in effect draining people with the required skills away from the more industrial areas. This had the effect of drawing the young away from these areas and also drawing the more educated away from many of these areas as they move to where the jobs are.

We are left with a pattern that starts to form, the areas feel neglected, they are devoid of opportunity for the young and educated who then move away to where the jobs are. The area, devoid of their energy fails to find new industry, new ways of working, fails to create the start-ups that might ignite the economy and because they are not performing like other economic hubs then the areas are left devoid of central government funding.

The people who remain, the people who are "left-behind" feel increasingly isolated from the rest of society, they feel that their voice is not heard and that leads to resentment.

The great hope?

Ignored and forgotten by the "Westminster elite" the people look find a new hero, a new champion, someone who listens to them and tells them that they have the solutions to their problems, enter Nigel Farage and UKIP. It is not that these people necessarily represent the traditional socialist views of many of these areas but they are adept at changing their message from area to area, appearing to listen to the pent-up rage within these communities.

"Listen all your problems are because of immigrants and the EU" they say, they repeat again and again that the UK is at "breaking point" and the media seems to be on their side. Several times a week the front pages of the newspapers will be some outrage-inducing, anti-immigrant or anti-EU headline that draws people in. Sometimes they are just extreme cases, one-offs, but are told as if they were common, other times they are half-truths and sometimes they are lies, with a retraction the following day hidden in some tiny corner of the paper, but by then the damage has been done. If you repeat something long enough people will start to believe it.

The promises of UKIP are that, if we leave the EU and gain control of our own borders, then there will be more jobs for everyone and that wages will rise. There are some truths in that, eradicating immigration would mean that if there are the same numbers of jobs available then UK citizens will have to take them, if there are too few people then the companies will have to compete on wages. However, what they do not say is that increased wages increases the price the companies will have to charge, that could hurt exports or cause inflation. They imply more jobs will be available locally when in reality the jobs are more likely to be in the bigger cities.

The only thing shoring up many of these old industrial towns is that many government departments have been moved outside of London for cost-saving purposes, these are now increasingly part of the employment of some of these towns.

They are told the immigrants are coming for their jobs but yet, these are the areas with the lowest levels of immigration, these are the areas that the immigrants will be less likely to go to because there are fewer jobs.

The anger and frustration of the people are misdirected towards immigration and the EU, the ground-work for a Leave vote from these areas has now been done.

So what next?

We have to tackle, head-on, the causes for the disenfranchisement among these people. We cannot afford to continue to leave them behind, we cannot leave them in a political and economic vacuum. It is in such a vacuum that the far-right will insidiously grow, making these people feel that they have a voice, that they can be heard, while misdirecting their fears and anger.

As a nation we have to find a better way to redistribute jobs and wealth to give these people back the feeling that they have a voice, that they are in control over their own destinies, that opportunities are not closed to them and they can make a difference in their world. I see this across Europe, not just in the UK, the disparity in wealth will continue to sow the seeds of division and become a breeding ground for more extreme political movements. No one is served by overwhelming wealth inequality.