It is no coincidence that both of the great Irish rebellions against Government initiatives over the last couple of decades have been primarily led by the working class. The water charge protests, for example, were almost a wholly working class movement of the populist left. The present immigration protests, which are probably more persistent (but get much less media attention) are also, indisputably, dominated by the working class, or, in the language of the media, by people from so-called “deprived communities”.
Across the western world, much of the populist discontent that has given the world Donald Trump, Brexit, Georgia Meloni, and various other right wing triumphs share this trait in common – in each case, it was primarily the votes and activism of “working class” communities that drove the change. Trump cleans up, for example, amongst those Americans who do not have a college degree. Brexit cleaned up in Northern English towns that suffered the most from the de-industrialisation impact of Margaret Thatcher. This map of Italy, from the BBC, shows that Meloni and the Italian right do the best in the one-time industrial heartland of Italy in the north, and do the worst in the highly educated “culture belt” around Florence and Pisa. There are lessons here for Ireland, and Irish activists.
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