TY  - JOUR
AU  - Morrison, James
JF  - Javnost-The Public
TI  - Decay, ‘Dependency’ and Deindustrialisation: The Evolving Discourse of ‘The Left Behind’
VL  - 32
IS  - 4
PY  - 2025
SN  - 1854-8377
PB  - EURICOM
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1080/13183222.2025.2579391
N2  - This article examines the conceptual evolution of a defining trope of the UK’s Brexit era: “the left behind”. Widely used today as discursive shorthand for marginalised post-industrial places and populations, the term “left behind” was popularised to describe older white working-class voters alienated from mainstream politics and susceptible to right-wing populism. It has since become a floating signifier for competing conceptions of social inequality. The Left has mobilised it as a counter-hegemonic signifier for socio-economic and socio-political marginalisation seen to affect areas scarred by deindustrialisation. The Right has weaponized it as a synonym for values cherished by such communities – arguing that these have been socio-culturally marginalised by latter-day mores promoted by metropolitan global elites. But prior to its conceptual capture by political scientists seeking to explain the resurgence of nativist politics, earlier iterations of the “left behind” concept had begun circulating in the language of press and Parliament. Drawing on critical discourse analysis of Hansard and newspaper from the years between the formation of Britain’s post-crash Coalition government and the 2016 EU referendum, the article traces the early emergence of “left-behind” narratives in discursive practices spotlighting problematic social groupings: othered communities scarred by “worklessness”, underachievement and “dependency” on social protection.
U1  - Print ISSN: 1318-3222
ER  -