What was happening in Burnley Town Hall when the British National Party was winning and holding seats there? What lay behind the far right’s advance, and what effect did it have on local government and wider policy trends? How did mainstream parties respond? This is the inside story of these developments, written by the council worker responsible for promoting good race relations in Burnley during the turbulent years following the ‘northern town disturbances’ of 2001.
On Burnley Road is both a remarkable example of granular social history and an urgent contribution to current debates on issues which affect us all. Makin-Waite’s perspectives on political identities, multiculturalism, and the potential of ‘civic mediation’ will interest anyone who is looking for effective ways forward to overcome racism and inequality, and to rebuild our democratic culture.
Foreword by Professor Claire Alexander
1. Introduction: riots in retrospect
2. What we learned in the Weavers’ Triangle
3. How political space gets created
4. When tomorrow belonged to them
5. ‘How do we get back to normal?’
6. Cohesion in context
7. ‘How do we handle the BNP?’
8. From Belfast to Burnley
9. Mapping future options
10. From Burnley to Brexit … and beyond
Roundtable discussion:
Rushanara Ali MP, Jo Broadwood,
Deborah Grayson, Professor Anoop Nayak
This book surveys the deindustrialisation of Burnley from the 1970s onwards, the hostilities of a Conservative national government to a stubbornly unionised Labour north, and Labour’s failure to address decline … Makin-Waite opens up complex questions with sympathy and understanding.
– Professor Claire Alexander, Director of Research for the School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester
A rich and deeply engaging account of politics, race and class in Burnley. Grounded in the author’s experience from the front-lines of local events, the book provides a lucid and analytical approach to key questions of national identity and belonging.
– Dr Shamim Miah, Senior Lecturer at the University of Huddersfield and author of Muslims, Schooling and the Question of Self- Segregation; Muslims, Schooling and Security; and co-author of Race, Place and Multiculturalism in Northern Englan
On Burnley Road challenges the generalities and reductionism that have characterised the debate about the ‘left behind’ and the ‘white working class’, showing us that more interesting things are happening on the ground in deindustrialized towns and cities. It is quite simply the best book that I have read on the demoralised class politics of our populist moment.
– Steven High, Professor of History at Concordia University, Montreal, and author of Industrial Sunset: The Making of North America’s Rust Belt
