Despised: Why the Modern Left Loathes the Working Class

Paul Embery
Despised: Why the Modern Left Loathes the Working Class (2021)
Brexit has been explained to me over and over since 2016, but only twice in terms I understood or with which I could sympathise, even though I remain convinced of it being a terrible idea; and now, this is the third time, and the most comprehensive version of the argument I've yet come across. Embery argues that Britain needed to extricate itself from the European Union in order to free itself from the neoliberal hydra which has been busily asset stripping the economy for the last couple of decades. I've seen the same argument phrased as, once we leave Europe we can get rid of the Tories and vote in a proper Labour government, the sort of thing of which Tony Benn would have been proud. While I have no strong desire to have this particular argument all over again, I can certainly see the desirability of such a proposal, hopelessly optimistic though it may be. Embery suggests that working class support for Brexit has principally been moved by the above sentiment, or that it has been a protest vote amounting to the same.

Having lived in Texas for the last decade with every intention of staying here, I no longer feel deeply invested in either the Brexit circus or its monkeys, but as someone who has grown increasingly exhausted with the modern left, Despised seemed worth a look. The parallels between Brexit and what has been going on over here have been difficult to miss. I have friends who voted for Trump, for example, simply because the alternative really didn't seem like any sort of alternative. They're not racists or Nazis or even the deplorables described by Hillary Clinton, despite that I live in Texas, and despite what people who've never been here but who went to better schools may tell you. Had I been able to vote, I wouldn't have voted for Trump, but I don't know how great I would have felt about voting Clinton either; and the suggestion that persons such as myself might have been somehow scared of her because she's brilliant and she's a woman is just plain fucking silly.

Anyway, the point of Embery's book - to which the merits of Brexit or otherwise are arguably secondary - is the tendency of many representatives of the modern left to shut down debate by branding anything with which they disagree as hate speech. In this respect, the book is pretty much on point from start to finish. I recognise the sort of reductive dialogue by which those failing to toe the party line are habitually branded racist, homophobic, transphobic, or just too fucking thick to be allowed a vote. I've even been on the receiving end, because it doesn't matter so much what you may actually believe once you've expressed misgivings, or simply failed to wave a particular flag with due enthusiasm. Embery is a former firefighter and trade unionist from Dagenham and is therefore qualified to talk about the actual working class, as distinct from what persons subject to regular childhood piano lessons may believe the working class to be; so he understands the accusations and refutes them with authority, even to shed insight on the psychology of all those online versions of Rik from the Young Ones, forever pointing a finger and calling the rest of us Nazis; and as more and more of us get shuffled off to the sidelines and told to shut up because we're too old, too white, too square, or just not one of the cool kids, this book represents the sort of conversation we need to have.

That said, Despised is best taken as the opening of a conversation rather than a scientific treatise for although much of what Embery claims seems solid, I would argue that there's room for interpretation here and there - as one should probably expect of something which treads such a fine line and is, in certain respects, a discussion of nuance. While his summary of the British working class as essentially decent squares well with those two decades I spent working for Royal Mail, the notion that neither steaming xenophobia nor tabloid scare tactics influenced the Brexit result is a little disingenuous, given almost all of the relevant conversations I've had with members of my own immediate family back in the UK; and I personally suspect he's way off in believing that neoliberalism can be sent packing simply by getting it on its own and voting it out of existence.

Nevertheless, I'm very glad that we've had this conversation.