Paper short abstract:

There is, in Britain, a new policy focus on 'Britishness' instead of multiculturalism, which is said to be either a right-wing agenda or one that dangerously promotes radicalism. What do these policies mean for the white working classes, increasingly preoccupied with defending their own 'culture'?

Paper long abstract:

There is, in Britain, an new and explicit policy focus on 'Britishness' and a movement away from multiculturalism, which is positioned either as an out-of-date right-wing agenda or one that dangerously promotes radicalism. The new focus, then, is on what British people have in common rather than on what differentiates them, which are all the various categories into which kinds of British persons are to be classified and understood. Focusing on the kinds of classifications used in educational statistics this paper explains what categories of Britishness can tell us about white people and, in particular, the white working classes who increasingly rely on an explicit idea of their own 'culture' to defend their interests in Britain's multicultural cities.