Warwick Socio BrumBrexit

Understanding Brexit: 

Inequality, Inclusion,and Social Justice 

January 26 2017 

Impact Hub, Digbeth 

warwick.ac.uk/sociology 1

Contents 

Brexit in Birmingham, Sociology at Warwick 3 

Prof. Gurminder K Bhambra 5 

Dr. Hannah Jones 7 

Dr. Lucy Mayblin 9 

Prof. Steve Fuller 11 

Stay in touch 12 

Brexit in Birmingham, Sociology at Warwick 

Brexit revealed our British community to be divided between older 

voters and younger ones, between those who have been advantaged 

by globalization and those who have been disadvantaged. In some 

commentaries, Brexit has been described as the reaction of the ‘left 

behind’. However, the evidence suggests that it is younger people 

rather than older people who have been ‘left behind’ and they voted 

disproportionately to remain. Similarly, while ethnic minorities and 

recent migrants have been ‘left out’ rather than ‘left behind’, they also 

voted disproportionately to remain. At least, in part, those who voted 

for Brexit seem to have rejected immigration. 

Birmingham is Britain’s most multi-cultural and diverse city. It is the ‘youngest’ in 

Europe, with 45.7% of Birmingham residents under the age of 30, compared with 

36.8% for the rest of England. 1 A long history of migration and race relations issues 

configure the city, with Smethwick’s 1964 election deemed the most racist in history 

following its Conservative MP Peter Griffiths’ infamous racist slogan. In more recent 

years, the cuts following the 2010 Coalition government saw the Council face a 40% 

real-term reduction in spending, forcing it to shed all but two of its youth service 

programmes – once a national example 2 - and reduce staffing and hours by half 

at the flagship Library of Birmingham, just one year after it opened in 2013. While 

Birmingham was once a pioneer of “municipal socialism” and front runner of lifechanging 

schemes like “free school meals”, 3 today it is fighting to turn the tide of 

inequality and lack of social welfare. 

1 BBC News, ‘Birmingham, Nine real facts about young UK city’, 2015. Accessed: ‘http://www.bbc.co.uk/ 

news/uk-england-birmingham-30775684 

2 The Guardian, ‘Birmingham council chief: years of cuts could have catastrophic consequences’, 2016 

Accessed: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/12/birmingham-council-chief-years-of-cuts-co 

uld-have-catastrophic-consequences 

3 Crewe, Tom. “The Strange Death of Municipal England.” London Review of Books 38 no. 24 (2016): 6-10, 

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n24/tom-crewe/the-strange-death-of-municipal-england. 

2 warwick.ac.uk/sociology warwick.ac.uk/sociology 3

How will these challenges facing Birmingham be affected by the EU vote? Birmingham 

voted by the slimmest of margins to leave the EU (50.4% of more than 450,000 4 ). The 

spike in racial violence that followed the Brexit vote saw the West Midlands Police 

Force deal with 498 racially related incidents in the month between 23 June and 

24 July 2016, the fourth highest total in the country 5 (after the Metropolitan, West 

Yorkshire, and Greater Manchester forces). 

Tonight’s event will bring some of these issues to life, and engage the city’s residents 

in a sociologically and historically grounded conversation about Birmingham’s future. 

Sociology at Warwick 

The Sociology department at Warwick teaches and does research on a broad variety 

of themes. This briefing paper aims to show-case work from academics researching 

the real-life implications of societal change. The following pages detail this work, with 

viewpoints relating specifically to Brexit or pointing to some of its associated themes 

of identity and nationalism, immigration and asylum, citizenship and inclusion. 

4 Birmingham Mail, 2016. ‘EU Referendum results: did your area of Birmingham vote to Brexit?’ accessed: 

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/eu-referendum-results-your-area-11536368 

5 Burnett, J. (2016) ‘Racial Violence and the Brexit State’ accessed http://www.irr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Racial-violence-and-the-Brexit-state-final.pdf 

Prof. Gurminder K Bhambra 

Professor | Deputy Head Research| Sociology | G.K.Bhambra@warwick.ac.uk 

The UK referendum on continued membership of the European Union was less 

a debate on the pros and cons of membership than a proxy for discussions about 

race and migration; specifically, who belonged and had rights (or should have 

rights) and who didn’t (and shouldn’t). One of the key slogans of those arguing for 

exit from the EU was: ‘we want our country back’. The racialized discourses at work 

here were not only present explicitly in the politics of the event; they are implicit in 

much social scientific analysis. Populist political claims are mirrored by an equivalent 

social scientific ‘presentism’ that elides proper historical context. In recent work, I 

have discussed the importance of understanding Brexit in the context of an historical 

sociological understanding that would enable us to make better sense of the politics 

of the present. 

In the context of financial collapse and economic recession since 2008, questions of 

belonging are once again becoming increasingly pertinent to political debate. One 

of the common features of this debate is the presentation of the history of European 

states – and Europe more generally – as culturally and ethnically pure, or culturally 

homogeneous, only to be disrupted by the subsequent arrival of a diversity of 

peoples from elsewhere. I have contested such attempts to purify national and 

European histories by calling into question the very idea of autonomous national 

histories existing separately and separated from their locations within broader 

complexes of empire and colonialism. Overall, my argument has been that basing 

political arguments for citizenship and rights in exclusionary histories of belonging 

and citizenship is, at best, politically naive and, at worst, a precursor to the very 

authoritarian populism we are seeing on the rise across Europe and elsewhere. 


Selected Publications 

‘Locating Brexit in the Pragmatics of Race, Citizenship and Empire’ in William 

Outhwaite (ed.) Brexit: Sociological Responses. London: Anthem Press, 2017 

http://www.anthempress.com/brexit-pb 

‘“Our Island Story”: The Dangerous Politics of Belonging in Austere Times’ in Stefan 

Jonsson and Julia Willen (eds) Austere Histories in European Societies: Social 

Exclusion and the Contest of Colonial Memories. London: Routledge, 2016 

https://www.routledge.com/Austere-Histories-in-European-Societies-Social- 

Exclusion-and-the-Contest/Jonsson-Willen/p/book/9781138909380 

Open Access Publications 

‘Brexit, the Commonwealth, and Exclusionary Citizenship’ 

Open Democracy Dec 8, 2016 

https://www.opendemocracy.net/gurminder-k-bhambra/brexit-commonwealthand-exclusionary-citizenship 

‘Class Analysis in the Age of Trump (and Brexit): The Pernicious New Politics of 

Identity’ Sociological Review Blog Nov 23, 2016 

https://www.thesociologicalreview.com/blog/class-analysis-in-the-age-of-trumpand-brexit-the-pernicious-new-politics-of-identity.html 

‘Viewpoint: Brexit, Class and British ‘National’ Identity’ 

Discover Society #34 July, 2016 

http://discoversociety.org/2016/07/05/viewpoint-brexit-class-and-british-nationalidentity/ 

Dr. Hannah Jones 

Associate Professor | Dept. of Sociology | h.jones.1@warwick.ac.uk 

Immigration has been a key focus of 

political debate and public concern, 

but this focus did not begin with the 

referendum campaign. I have been 

leading a collaborative research project 

with researchers at six other universities, 

examining the impacts of high-profile 

Home Office campaigns against irregular 

immigration, in six local areas of the UK 

and at a national level. Identifying the 

notorious ‘Go Home van’ which circulated 

in areas of London in summer 2013 as 

part of an increasing visibility of anti-immigration communications from government, 

the team worked with national and local civil society organisations to identify what 

the effects of such government rhetoric and action is on communities, individuals, 

and activism. 

Key findings from the project were: 

1. We found no evidence that government communications about immigration and 

enforcement are based on research about ‘what works’ in managing immigration. 

2. Government campaigns on immigration provoked or increased anger and fear, 

among irregular migrants, regular migrants, and non-migrants, including people 

opposed to immigration. 

3. For people who were the subjects of immigration campaigns (or felt under threat 

from them), talking about the publicity campaigns often led them to think about 

their own experiences of immigration enforcement and feelings of fear and 

anxiety. 

4. Hard-hitting government publicity on immigration seemed to provoke new 

waves of pro-migrant activism, including of people who had not been engaged 

in activism before. 

5. Some, but not all, activism has been migrant-led, and we identified inequalities in 

who felt able to take part in political debate because of real or perceived threats 

to their residency status as a result. 


6. Traditional anti-racism campaigns are finding it hard to keep up with changes in 

the focus of hostility and discrimination. 

7. Our local case studies demonstrated local variations in how government 

campaigns were experienced, and the activism that was produced in response. 

8. There is not always solidarity between people being targeted by antiimmigration 

campaigns. 

9. The different legal statuses that migrants can have is confusing. Many people 

reported harassment for being ‘illegal immigrants’ when they had settled status, 

or were British citizens. 

10. We heard that many people had come to the UK because of ideals often 

promoted as ‘British values’ – such as democracy, the rule of law, individual 

liberty and mutual respect and tolerance for those with different faiths and 

beliefs. Their experience since arrival called into doubt the existence of these 

values in Britain. 

The project was supported by a grant from the Economic and Social Research 

Council between 2013 and 2015, and though the formal research is now 

completed you can still follow related updates on the team’s website 

(www.mappingimmigrationcontroversy.com) and Twitter feed 

(www.twitter.com/micresearch). A team-authored book documenting findings 

and analysis will be published in April by Manchester University Press, as a 

paperback and free e-book (see http://www.manchesteruniversitypress. 

co.uk/9781526113221/). 

A policy report from the project was published in 2015 and can be downloaded 

at https://mappingimmigrationcontroversy.com/findings/. 

Dr. Lucy Mayblin 

Assistant Professor | Department of Sociology | l.mayblin@warwick.ac.uk 

Asylum, welfare and work 

Asylum seekers in Britain can apply for permission to work only if they have 

waited for over 12 months for an initial decision on their asylum claim, and are 

not considered responsible for the delay in decision-making. However, if granted 

permission to work they are restricted to jobs on the shortage occupation list, 

which presents a barrier to employment for the majority of asylum seekers. This 

list currently includes jobs such as “skilled classical ballet dancers who meet the 

standard required by internationally recognised United Kingdom ballet companies”, 

“nuclear medicine technologists” and “manufacturing engineers (purchasing) in the 

aerospace sector”. Studies have found that most asylum seekers who wish to work 

either have qualifications from their home country which require additional (and 

costly) conversion courses, recognition processes which are beyond their means 

(such as teaching), or would like to find low skilled or unskilled work. In effect, this 

means that the vast majority of asylum seekers do not have any form of access to 

paid employment in the UK today. 


This policy approach appears to create a number of problems for the government, 

and for wider society. Despite the imperative of austerity, the state makes itself liable 

for the accommodation and living costs of asylum seekers if it is not to breach their 

human rights by making them destitute. ‘Asylum support’ includes housing and 

financial support (for food and other basic subsistence goods) which is set as low 

as 50% of the welfare payments made to citizens for some. This is below the official 

poverty line. Living precariously has negative consequences for the physical and 

mental health of asylum seekers as well as for wider society. 

Though recent governments have sought to minimise welfare provision for the 

unemployed and promote working as positive for both individuals and society, 

asylum seekers are maintained in a position of welfare dependency. At the same 

time, politicians warn that welfare benefits act as an incentive to economic migrants 

to use the asylum route to enter Britain, thus providing a justification for limiting 

financial support as much as possible. 

This project seeks to investigate the reasons behind these policy choices. Why are 

certain approaches favoured over others, and what evidence is drawn on in reaching 

these conclusions? It also looks at the impacts of the policy approach taken and 

the ways in which non-state actors (such as charities) become involved in providing 

supplementary support to aid asylum seekers. 

For more information please visit the project website: asylumwelfarework.com 

Prof. Steve Fuller 

Professor | Department of Sociology | S.W.Fuller@warwick.ac.uk 

Since the 23 June 2016 referendum that voted to take the UK out of the European 

Union, Fuller has published the following posts which can be found collected here 

on his Warwick webpage here: 

http://tinyurl.com/z2zdowc 

The articles draw on social and political theory to explain the outcome along 

several dimensions, including the role of elites, expertise, political discourse, 

cosmopolitanism, intergenerational conflict, political timing and populism. 

In his piece for University World News (07 October 2016 Issue No:431) Fuller 

discusses the implications of the striking “anti-expert” rhetoric that surrounded the 

referendum for academics and universities, using a comparison with the ‘think for 

yourself’ trends of the Protestant Reformation and Enlightened University pioneer 

Wilhelm von Humboldt. Rather than necessarily a cause for pessimism for producers 

of academic knowledge, Brexit’s rejection of ‘expertise’ could constitute a rallying 

call for academic leaders to return the Humboldtian value of “openness of inquiry” 

and the training of “citizens with the wherewithal to be active participants in the 

governance and enrichment of their society” (Fuller, 2016). 

Fuller also made two videos (available on his YouTube channel: Prof. Steve Fuller) 

explaining Brexit: 

They are entitled “What is Brexit?” and “Aftermath of the EU Referendum” 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1WGCvbISDr5-t0ZeYw9tHQ 


Stay in touch 

Thank you for attending this evening’s event; we hope you’ve found it useful and 

stimulating. If you would like to send feedback or any additional thoughts you’ve 

had on the subject of Brexit in Birmingham, please do. 

Our contact details are: 

Email: SociologyImpact@warwick.ac.uk 

Department of Sociology, Social Sciences Building, 

The University of Warwick, 

Coventry, CV4 7AL, United Kingdom 

warwick.ac.uk/sociology 

50554

Warwick Socio BrumBrexit

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