Nationalist Responses to the Crises in Europe

Old and New Hatreds

Cathrine Thorleifsson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780367585068
• eBook ISBN: 9781317089919
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Studi sull'etnia

The last few years have witnessed a remarkable resurgence of populist nationalism as indicated by Brexit, the Trump presidency and the rise of radical parties of the far right. Nationalist Responses to the Crises in Europe examines the drivers, methods and local appeal of populist nationalism. Based on multi-sited fieldwork in England, Hungary and Norway, Cathrine Thorleifsson explores the various material conditions, historical events and social contexts that shape distinct forms of xenophobia and intolerance toward migrants and minorities. Combining analysis of the discourses propagated by populist radical right parties like the UK Independence Party, Fidesz, Jobbik and the Norwegian Progress Party with an analysis of the fears and concerns of supporters, Thorleifsson develops wider conclusions about the drivers and character of populist nationalism and the way in which these differ across national contexts. An empirically grounded study of how the demand and supply sides of populist nationalism are reconfigured in response to the globalized crises of economy, culture and displacement, this book will appeal to scholars of anthropology, sociology and politics with interests in nationalism, populism, the radical right and contemporary xenophobia

1 From coal to Ukip

The struggle over identity in post-industrial Doncaster

Multiscalar overheating

In May 2015, the UK Independence Party (Ukip) got its breakthrough in the UK general election on an anti-immigration, anti-EU and pro-coal platform. The same month I arrived in Doncaster, a working-class town of 18,000 inhabitants, in order to examine the rise of Ukip. The party had obtained 24.1 per cent of the local vote, an increase of 20 per cent from the last general election in 2010. Over the course of three months, in May, June and September 2015, I conducted a total of 30 interviews with Ukip politicians and supporters as well as attended party events and conferences in Doncaster. Before I move on to the analysis of Ukip’s affective politics of fear, it is key to examine the circumstances conducive to the appeal of populist nationalism in a traditional Labour heartland. Based on archival research, secondary literature and ethnographic fieldwork, the following explores the local history and set of conditions central to the rise of Ukip, appropriating nostalgia for ‘Fordist forms of feelings of stability and belonging’ (Muehlebach and Shoshan 2012) with exclusionary ‘coal nationalism’.

In the mid-1980s, Doncaster, a white-majority¹ working-class town in South Yorkshire, went from boom to bust when most of the coal mines shut during Margaret Thatcher’s neoliberal restructuring programme. In Britain, as a society structured heavily around class, the white working class in Doncaster typically belonged to the lower tiers of society, pushed to the margins for centuries as cheap labour in heavy industries. Doncastrians were far from the accelerated growth in London and other urban regions, experiencing a crisis-laden cooling down of the economy with rising unemployment and precarization of labour (Standing 2014). At the same time, diversification processes intensified due to increased global migration. The past three decades, Doncaster has thus been marked by a combination of social forms and ideals constructed at various scales of time and space. Taken together, the accelerated changes caused by neoliberal restructuring of the economy and global migration constitute an overheating effect (Eriksen 2016). One consequence of overheating is that ‘different parts of societies, cultures and life-worlds change at different speeds and reproduce themselves at different rhythms’ (ibid:9). Another (un)intended consequence of overheating, such as socio-economic inequality, has experienced varied growth at multiple geographical scales, from nation-states to regions and neighbourhoods (Sassen 2007).

Recognizing the multiscalar and multitemporal character of both neoliberal economic transition and diversification processes (Vertovec 2007), the following explores the multiple tensions and contradictions emerging out of processes of overheating and cooling-off in Doncaster since the early 1990s. People in Doncaster were not merely victimized by neoliberal policies, but actively strived to cope with and give meaning to the changes affecting their lives. In the space left by the dissolution of industrialism, new competing scale-making projects over meaning, memory and future played out. Some actors engaged with the town’s industrial past, nostalgically appropriating coal as a source of national and regional identity. A few chose to align themselves with cosmopolitan globalism, celebrating the town’s old and emerging diversity. Others embraced Ukip’s anti-migration and anti-EU politics when faced with existential uncertainty. The chapter suggests that the appeal of populist nationalism cannot be reduced to neoliberal restructuring, nor just the legacies of industrialism, nor to the passage of transition or global migration. It is all of these, which in turn constitute the Ukip code.

A coal place

Several scholars have shown how long-term neoliberal restructuring of economies as well as short-term developments like the more recent financial crisis (2008) have accelerated socio-economic inequalities at various scales (Carrier and Kalb 2015). The following section examines the effect of and responses to structural change and economic transformations in Doncaster, taking the early 1980s as the point of departure. At this particular moment in time, industrialism was fundamental to British national identity. Like other towns in South Yorkshire, Doncaster was synonymous with the coal and mining industry. In an utopian mode, it was referred to as the ‘Northern Jewel of England’ and a site for endless progress fuelled by fossil fuels. ‘Coal was king’ and it was impossible to imagine a future when the bustling region would not depend on or thrive because of it. In addition to jobs in the pits, thousands worked in the National Coal Board’s office and in firms that made mining equipment or provided support services to the men who went underground. Other major employers included the tractor maker Case, or International Harvester, as most people called it, and mega-factories such as Bridon Wire and Pegler that provided jobs for tens of thousands of skilled and semi-skilled manual workers.

In the mid-1980s, Doncaster went from boom to bust as a pit-closure programme went into full swing under the Thatcher Government. Thatcherism represented a programme of neoliberal restructuring, spearheading the policies that would become the dominant political and ideological form of capitalist globalization throughout the world. Faced with the declining profitability of traditional Fordist mass-production industries, states began to dismantle the basic institutional components of the post-war settlement and to mobilize a range of policies intended to extend marked discipline, competition and commodification throughout all sectors of society. Neoliberal doctrines were employed to justify the deregulation of state control over major industries, dismantling Fordist labour relations and Keynesian welfare programmes (Brenner et al. 2009).

In Doncaster, the neoliberal policy agenda had immediate and devastating effects. Several collieries shut and other major employers were ‘shedding jobs like confetti’. Unemployment shot way above the national average and in pockets hit more than 40 per cent. Resistance to the closing of the mines took form in the Miner’s Strike of 1984–1985 that was a terrible struggle for communities across the UK (Tuffrey 2011). The closing of the mines resulted in stagnation and deprivation, themes that were frequently covered by the local newspapers, The Doncaster Star and The Doncaster Gazette.

A survey amongst youngsters in former pit communities in Doncaster in 1993 showed that more than 40 per cent would like to move elsewhere (The Doncaster Star 1993). Locals were not passive victims, but active respondents to the effects of the changes. In 1997, the Coalfield Communities Campaign issued a manifesto to every member of Parliament (MP) at Westminster that said: No other industry in Britain or the rest of Europe has suffered such savage and sudden cutback. It has been an economic hammer blow. Pit closures have devastated not just miners and their families, but entire communities. But where is the help we deserve? The campaign claimed that unemployment, poverty, ill health and spiralling crime were the direct result of the pit closures (Yorkshire Post 1997).

The miners, albeit in a Fordist compact of management–labour collaboration, had experienced job security, fully equipped with extensive social rights and organized in trade unions. Mining was a physically demanding and risky form of work that nevertheless created visions of camaraderie that extended from the workplace and into social life. Mining, like Fordism, was in short an ‘affect factory’, organizing women, men and children into an ‘econometrics of feelings’ (Muehlebach and Shoshan 2012). When the mining-related industries closed, families did not only lose their job, but also the very activities that gave locals a sense of community, identity, certainty, dignity and friendship.

The precarization of labour

Ten years after the Miner’s Strike, in 1999, the EU recognized South Yorkshire as one of the most deprived areas in Europe, sparking investment in the region’s regeneration. Unlike post-industrial towns like Sheffield and Leeds that have developed strong service-sector economies, smaller industrial towns like Doncaster continued their relative decline. Despite the investment in new infrastructure, a new library, council hall, a lavish cultural centre and the Robin Hood Airport, growth was low. Unlike other towns in England such as Leeds and Sheffield that previously had relied on traditional industry for jobs, Doncaster saw little growth during the good times (Mollona 2010). New jobs were created in sales and customer service, leisure and sales, but not enough to curb the relative deprivation of the borough.

The economic decline accelerated in the mid-2000s (Beresford 2013). One week before Christmas in 2006, more than 300 jobs were lost when McCormick Tractors closed down its Doncaster manufacturing plant after 70 years, switching production to Italy (Tuffrey 2011). If the labour conditions during the industrial era were rough and risky, the neoliberal and service-oriented economy has created even worse living conditions. According to the Office of National Statistics, Doncaster Central, a ward of around 18,000, has one of the highest youth unemployment and teenage pregnancy rates in the country, poor educational attainment, poor levels of health and pockets of high crime rates (ONS 2003). Doncaster, and particularly those relying on the enterprise economy, was hard hit by the global financial crisis that intensified the recession that had begun two decades earlier. In 2009, the glass production at Polkingson in Kirk Sandall closed after nine years of manufacturing. In 2010, more jobs were lost when the railway firm Jarvis closed and the City Council underwent restructuring. The numbers of job seekers’ allowance claimants rose faster than the national average, reinforcing the relative deprivation of the town.

John, a hairdresser in his mid-fifties, has run a salon in Doncaster for 30 years. Located at the northern part of Highgate in a greyish three-storey building from the 1970s, he complained that his business was struggling. Some of the difficulties he attributed to the spatial restructuring of the town. Before, Highgate street was buzzing with life. After many shops were relocated to Frenchgate, a combined shopping centre and interchange for traffic, customers moved away from the market areas. His shop is now surrounded by boarded-up shops and one of many tattoo parlours that are located in the town. John is proud that he has managed to be in business, but described dramatic changes. Before the financial crisis of 2008, John had customers who would regularly come to have their hair coloured and cut. John noticed a sharp decrease in customers when the crisis hit in 2008:

Women started to colour their hair at home. And you could see more on telly these commercials for home dyeing products. We had to cut staff. It became very difficult to do business here. And I cannot say it has improved. Today you see shops opening and shops closing. Like during Christmas. You had these pop-up shops selling Christmas decorations for a few weeks and then shut. You see a lot of this now.

For John, and many other struggling shop-owners, the financial recession merely exaggerated the pre-existing dynamics set in place by major economic transformation. In an age of globalization and accelerated change, places that once experienced stability have become uncertain and precarious (Bauman 1998). Labour in globalizing Doncaster had gone from being predictable, to insecure and vulnerable to marked fluctuations. The part of society recovering from its dependence on heavy industries, felt exposed and vulnerable under a new economic reality associated with casualization where they had to compete with cheap labour from elsewhere. Mining that once represented stability, now entailed highly uncertain future prospects, being vulnerable to forces beyond the reach of the community, such as the world price for coal and EU environmental policies.

In June 2015, during fieldwork, Hatfield Colliery, England’s last remaining privatized deep-pit mine located in Doncaster, closed one year prematurely. The closure, resulting in the loss of some 500 jobs, brought to an end almost a century of mining. The situation that already was precarious turned into yet another defeat. The decline and marginalization of the mining communities have paralleled increased wealth concentration and growth in the metropolitan areas. The widening gap between an affluent London and deprived Doncaster can be analysed as a localized version of the Global North and the Global South divide, revealing the very logic of neoliberalism across geographical scales: its production of socio-economic inequality (Ekholm Friedman and Friedman 2008).

In addition to the restructuring of the economy, Doncaster’s demographic composition has changed over the past 30 years. Doncaster, while being a white-majority town, has always been multicultural. It has the largest Roma and Traveller population in the UK. However, in the 1990s and later 2000s, diversification processes intensified due to global migration. The process has been analysed by the sociologist Steven Vertovec as ‘super-diversity’, or the ‘diversification of diversity’, reflecting more ethnicities, languages and countries of origin. Since the EU enlargement and opening of borders, the biggest rise in new residents has come from Poland and Latvia. In addition, descendants from the first waves of British Commonwealth citizens from India, Pakistan and the West Indies who migrated to the UK after World War II have relocated to Doncaster where housing is comparatively cheap. After English, Polish is the most spoken language in Doncaster Central, followed by Kurdish, Urdu and Panjabi (localstats.co.uk). Along the main street of Highgate, a large variety of cuisines reflect the different ethnic communities present in town. The names of stores and restaurants and the myriad religious congregations reflect the town’s old and new diversities. Located in the centre of Doncaster is the ‘Chinese, Indian and Oriental Supermarket’ and ‘Polskie Delikatesy’ (Polish delicatessen). In the context of the UK, the diversity is not extraordinary, but locals said that these are rather new developments in Doncaster. Several ‘kippers’ (supporters of Ukip) I interviewed claimed that all the Polish shops were indeed indicative of how Britain had ‘lost its identity’.

Nostalgia in an age of uncertainty

Turbulent times can lead to, as many scholars have noted, the proliferation of narratives about the past, the enforcement of cultural stereotypes, the rediscovery of religious identities and strengthening of ethnic nationalism. A typical response to radical social and economic change is nostalgia. Nostalgia can be approached as a form of social imagination that plays with the lateral possibilities and the longing for what might have been but is now unattainable because of the irreversibility of time (Pickering and Keightley 2006). Particularly, in times of existential insecurity, nostalgia can function as a potent source of social reconnection and identity (Strathern 1995).

Figure 1.1 A Polish shop in Doncaster

(photo courtesy of the author)

In Doncaster, the tension between an idealized past and the discomfort with the present state of affairs surfaced as a frequent theme in the narratives of former miners, their children and grandchildren. Several of my interlocutors valued experiences and practices constitutive of individual and collective forms of self-understanding during industrialism. Transition as progress or improvement of life as promoted by Thatcherism had a counterbalance in experiences with loss of status, resources and self-worth. The promise of economic growth and prosperity at the invisible hand of Adam Smith did not materialize. Pit closures resulted in economic stagnation, and consequences such as deprivation and spiralling unemployment.

The dramatic changes remained fresh in locals’ memories, even during casual chats. Lucy (49 years old), working as a receptionist at a family-owned hostel, recalled with bitterness and emotion the devastating consequences the closing of the mines had had for her family:

We are still lying with our backs broken. My father, my uncles, cousins and brothers, they were all miners. I went down the pit with my father as a child. Mining was in their blood, and in mine. My husband Paul moved to different pits as each closed. We hoped the pits would be saved for the next generation, for our son. For Paul it was like this. He quit school on Friday and was working the pits by Monday. Like his grandfather and father had done. People don’t realize that in our community, mining was all they ever known and done.

Responding to my interest in the local working men’s club, Bob (70) showed me framed black-and-white photos of Doncaster. The widowed grandfather of three is working part-time in the club that for generations has played a central part in community cohesion for the working class. Located in the Frenchgate Interchange (a £250 million structure and the 18th largest shopping centre in England), the club seemed out of place next to a selection of standardized chain stores like H&M, Tesco and Debenhams. Talking with nostalgia about the old days, Bob remembered his working life. He left school at the age of 14 and began working in a local mine. A photo depicting Rossingly colliery appeared loaded with meaning. ‘It hurts, yes …’, he says. Bob recalls in a low, but firm voice: ‘I had my last day at the pit 7th May 1993. I remember the time, 2:40. It was a tear-jerking moment. British coal put me on the scrap heap. That was it. Who would employ a 47 year old?’

Figure 1.2 A pound shop in Doncaster

(photo courtesy of the author)

A sunny Friday in June 2015 I meet with Stewart and Jennifer Jones at Market Place, which has been the historical centre of Doncaster for centuries. Amongst fishmongers and fruit sellers, the couple in their late sixties spends time with their four-year-old granddaughter. Stewart and Jennifer, who met in their teens, returned to Doncaster from a six-year stay in Benidorm when their granddaughter was born. Their daughter and their son-in-law both have retail jobs, but cannot afford the cost of nursery. ‘I’m telling you, Britain has become an absolutely terrible place to live!’ Jennifer says upsettingly.

It is a disgrace. Young, hard-working people who are struggling to pay their mortgage. Who have to use foodbanks. They can’t even afford to buy their own home. And Doncaster has some of the cheapest housing in the country! Things have changed here, and I don’t mean for the better.

‘Born and bred’ in Doncaster, Jennifer remembers her childhood with affection. Her father worked at the Railway Plant, her mother was a housewife:

Although I was the only child, my dad never spoilt me! I wished for a bicycle, but never got one. To my confirmation I got a gorgeous cocktail watch, but he never gave me that bike. I have tried to pass that one. I would walk an extra mile to save a pound. I like Doncaster, but things are changing here. We used to have the door open, now they are all locked. I would be careful to go into town at night with all the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction: Rupture and resentment in twenty-first-century Europe
• 1. From coal to Ukip: The struggle over identity in post-industrial Doncaster
• 2. In pursuit of purity: Populism and the politics of whiteness
• 3. Disposable strangers: Far-right securitization of migration in Hungary
• 4. The Swedish dystopia: Violent imaginaries of the radical right
• 5. Human waste in the land of abundance: Prejudice and ambivalence towards itinerant Roma
• Conclusion
• References
• Index