In Defence of White Freedom: Working Men’s Clubs and the Politics of Sociability in Late Industrial England

Abstract

Abstract While ongoing discrimination in jobs, welfare, and housing in 1970s England belied the social democratic promise of ‘equality of opportunity’ and the much-touted British value of ‘fair play’, racism at the door of the working men’s club told a different story. For reactionaries and liberals alike, it spoke to the uncertain future of working-class politics in late industrial England. This article shows how the legal and political controversies surrounding whites-only working men's clubs contribute to our understanding of the ‘white working class’ as a political subject in British public life. Even more, it reveals how—among club members—whiteness came to be invested with feelings of intimacy, kinship, respectability, and independence.