As somebody who comes from an ordinary working class family who have always fiercely and passionately supported politics, it can sometimes come as a shock to me to see just how disengaged the lower social classes can become from the politics that govern their lives. However, it can be easy to understand just why people are apathetic to politics in general, even though they make such a big difference to our everyday lives. Even in my house, filled with people who largely share the same views as me, I find myself holding back in order to not come across as uneducated or naive on certain subjects. And this feeling of doubt about my political knowledge is only exacerbated in the outside world. It is probably a safe bet to assume that many others also feel like this, and therefore find it easier to be switched off rather than face the fear of looking ignorant.

Expanding on the fear of seeming uneducated on the topic, the answer is probably because most working class people ARE more uneducated than those who come from higher social classes, who are more likely to be privately educated. Those who attend state schools are likely to have had no formal political education and therefore begin their developing years already disinterested (Schusmann and Soule 2005).

In terms of electoral surveying, the most common system is social grading, rather than the use of social class; there are 6 different categories ranging from A to E. Social grading refers to the occupation of the chief earner in a particular household, and is used to categorise the entire household (Ipsos MORI 2009). Fig 1. demonstrates the social grading system. Often, the top and bottom social grades will be categorised together i.e. referred to as AB or DE.

Fig 1. Table demonstrating social grading. Provided by Ipsos MORI (2009).

Fig 2. (Hansard Society 2018) Addresses the attitudes of each social grading system in regard to knowledge of politics, whether or not they are satisfied with the current system of governing, and whether or not they agree that getting involved in politics is effective. Although the grading system of AB are reported to have a have a far greater knowledge of politics than the lower social grades, there is little difference in their opinion that getting involved in politics does make a difference in the outcome of certain events and elections. However, this is not reflected in voting statistics.

Fig 2. A graph showing the Political Attitudes of each social grade in 2018. Provided by Hansard Society (2018).

Unskilled workers and the long-term unemployed are less likely to vote, and also less likely to be registered to vote at all. This may be result of being so underrepresented in Parliament; it is easy to feel disengaged from politics when it appears that nobody is standing up for your interests. Being both a young person and somebody from a working class background, it does sometimes feel like a lost cause to be so passionate about something it appears you can do nothing to change. With 30% of MP’s being privately educated (as opposed to 7% of the general population), and 9 out of 10 having attended university (House of Commons Briefing Paper 2018), it does seem as though those who come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, with majority state educations, are overwhelmingly underrepresented by the politicians elected to protect their interests.

The statistics don’t lie, there is a noticeable gap between the classes and their political engagement in the traditional sense i.e. through voting. However, it can be argued that the nature of political engagement is changing from more traditional outlets like voting, to more contemporary ones like protests, pickets and petitions (of which the latter has become more accessible through the introduction of online petitions) (Bakker and Vreese 2011).

These types of demonstrations are quickly becoming more valid forms of political participation and many of these acts involve the working class. Notably, in 2014 when a housing development company called Westbrook purchased a housing estate in Hackney, a group of 300, 000 working class people (mainly tenants), with the threat of rising rent and possible eviction, and along with celebrity supporter Russell Brand, protested outside the office of the company and Downing Street. Singing along to the jolly tune of “housing is a human right, not a privilege”, and with signs reading ‘WESTCROOKS OUT’, the group managed to keep their homes and keep their rent down in a blatant show of working class political participation with a positive outcome.

 

Fig 3. Video showing a news report that documents the protests outside Downing Street.

The working class make up 23% of the population, and while they are starting to make waves using different political engagement tools, there is still a massive difference in what demographics turnout to vote. My question to you is: why do you think this is? And what can be done to change this?

 

 

 

 

References:

Bakker, T. and de Vreese, C. (2011) Good News for the Future? Young People, Internet Use and Political Participation in Communication Research 38 (4), pp 451-470.

Blackwell, J., Fowler, B. and Fox, R. (2018). Audit of Political Engagement 15. [online] London: The Hansard Society. Available at: https://assets.ctfassets.net/rdwvqctnt75b/iHWHYym8BquqsMQ64oaEC/5c151f5dc7302f37633977500f68c104/publication__hansard-society-audit-of-political-engagement-15-2018.pdf [Accessed 4 Mar. 2019].

Channel 4 News. (2014). Russell Brand protesting over rent rise. [Online Video]. 1 December 2014. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP95ySg268M. [Accessed: 4 March 2019].

Dempsey, N. and Johnston, N. (2018). Political Disengagement in the UK: who is disengaged?. [online] London: Parliament. Available at: https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-7501 [Accessed 4 Mar. 2019].

IPSOS Mori (2009) Social Grade: A Classification Tool available at https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/publication/6800-03/MediaCT_thoughtpiece_Social_Grade_July09_V3_WEB.pdf (Accessed 4 Mar. 2019)

Schusmann, A. and Soule, S. (2005) Process and Protest: Accounting for Individual Protest Participation in Social Forces, 84 (2), pp 1083-1108