The North has been affected a lot by gentrification and the buying up of property by the South.
The number of Southern Landlords to Northern Tenants is part of the issue. No one is addressing or acknowledging this problem and how it has significant impacts.
Communities have been uprooted and forced out of areas they have lived. Or they have become totally deprived and effectively exploited for rent.
I've yet to meet a Reform voter who wasn't racist though.
I live in the North. I would say I probably have met Reform voters who aren't racist. I don't agree with them at all but I get where they are coming from. They think the other parties are also racist. What they have issue with is, is the ignoring of other issues because they are inconvient to the accepted narrative.
They are white working class, and are frustrated that money is given to other communities and not their own. They aren't racist. Just fed up because the criticia for accessing who needs help seems to be based on identity not economic need and social deprivation. So they are seeing others getting opportunities they aren't getting because they tick the right identity box. Its about the concept of being overlooked because there are others deemed worse off because of skin colour when they might live in the same street for example. Meanwhile they feel like they are being told they are priviledged because they are white and 'slavery'. They know their history and feel exploited by the same people who owned slaves - they aren't comparing themselves to the same level of abuse as slaves, but they don't feel their families were those who benefitted from the trade either. They have long family histories of abject poverty and exploitation by the industrialists. They just want the poverty and desparation they are experiencing to be recognised and for money to be invested into their community and opportunities given to those from working class backgrounds. I do think this is fair comment given we know that social mobility is at its lowest level since before WWII. I think its more about having their own box to tick rather than removing those who are ticking those boxes in a lot of cases.
It gets complicated further by the fact that many immigrants tend to be the equivalent of 'middle class' when they come here so perhaps have educations and aspirations which are higher than those who have lived in the same place their whole lives. If you've travelled half way across the world your are going to have more about you than someone who hasn't bothered to travel to the opposite side of the pennines or has never been to London. Attitudes in the UK to education in working class communities are very different to a lot of immigrants. Education is seen as a way out for immigrants but this isn't the same in some white communities. Its seen as 'getting ideas above your station' and the mentality was you got a local job and looked after your family. And there was honour and pride in doing that. The expectation was you never left your community and you stayed there. With industries disappearing there hasn't been that structure and the blame is placed on those making decisions who aren't investing in these areas. If they are championing social mobility citing examples of immigrant families, then it is going to grate. Again, its not necessarily racist (but it is very easy to become racist and to be exploit as racists) but its about this inability to get access to opportunities and an attitude towards education as not being 'for them' (white working class - educated type are 'snobby and middle class') so you get this vicious cycle.
Its complex and its not as clear cut as straight racism. Jealous I think perhaps better describes it, but its undermined by poor attitudes to education generally (which isn't helped by Middle Classes looking down noses going 'eeewwww trashy stupid working classes').
Its hard to unpick.
One of these I know was utterly disgusted by a racist incident she saw and she wouldn't accept that behaviour at all. I really don't think she's racist. Shes a carer and wants to be a nurse, but keeps getting rejected even though she's got cracking references and the place she works is recommending her. She just doesn't speak in the 'right way' and hasn't been coached in interviews and keeps getting overlooked by recent school leavers who are a lot more polished. She's doing all 'the right things' but isn't getting the breaks.
I very much think there is a class thing going on in the midst of the entire arguement thats brushed aside as 'racism' because its easier to do that rather than acknowledge there is a class war issue raging. Thats why we are seeing political divides along educational and class lines to the degree we are. Its profound and as big as other splits in voting patterns, if not bigger.