A New Dilemma of Social Democracy? The British Labour Party, the White Working Class and Ethnic Minority Representation

Abstract

Like much of the European centre-left, Britain's Labour Party has struggled to appeal to its former core working class support base in recent years. However, this is largely a failure to connect with the ‘white working class’ (WWC) specifically, whereas support among ethnic minorities remains robust. We hypothesise that Labour could be experiencing a ‘trade-off’, whereby efforts to cater to minorities harm its perceived ability to represent WWC interests. We test this thesis by examining whether WWC voters are more likely to view minority and working class representation in zero-sum terms and shun Labour when they associate the party with minority interests. We show that the WWC are somewhat less likely to view working class and ethnic minority representation as strongly correlated, and Labour's perceived ability to represent minorities is negatively associated with WWC support. This is not (primarily) about ethnocentrism. Instead, we suggest that ‘relative political deprivation’ is crucial.