Listen to the voice of the English working class

Rather than paint the 52% who voted Leave as xenophobes, bigots and far right sympathisers, we need to listen to what they’re trying to tell us.

England hasn't had an indyref in which to debate its positive hopes for the kind of future it would like to see, and it didn't have the option to voice the same kind of protest Scotland did in the 2015 general election (they had mainly a choice of neoliberal parties who haven't listened to the working class for decades). This was their chance to kick the establishment and they took it. Nobody can blame them for that.

It's regrettable that the win for Leave can now be spun as a vote of confidence in the UKIPpy right.

Now that Cameron has gone, we can expect the Tories to turn right, thinking that's the message they've received. But is it? Isn't it possible that forgotten working class England just felt powerless, excluded, unheeded and angry? Farage will say it's about immigration. Do we simply take his word for that?

The plan for the left in England should be: listen to the voice of the English working class and amplify that.

If, however, middle class liberals in the media and the establishment hear what's been said and say "you're all racists", then they show only that they're still not listening.

I'm not in England. The dynamic here is somewhat different. But the working class in England has spoken with a louder voice than it has for a long time. If it is left to the xenophobic right to act as interpreter, then the blame is squarely at the feet of those who didn't listen for decades and are still not listening now: the cozy establishment consensus.