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"Toxic" caricatures of the white working class have poisoned political debate, a report warns today.

The 56-page study by the Runnymede Trust and the Centre for Labour and Social Studies (Class) insists today’s working class is multi-ethnic and includes recent migrants.

Such communities struggle with unreliable work, zero-hours contracts and have been hit hard by austerity, according to the think tanks.

A foreword to the report, Connecting the Dots of Institutional Prejudice, by Class director Faiza Shaheen, says: “One hundred and fifty years since the creation of the term ‘working class’, we are confronted with a new class reality.

(Image: Daily Record)

“Rather than ‘working class’ being redundant, as Thatcher suggested 40 years ago, it has mutated from being a term used to foster solidarity and to describe those working in industrial jobs, to being a divisive concept within which the ‘white working class’ are pitted against immigrants and the minority ethnic population.

“A caricature of the working class – as male, white, racist, Brexit voting and residing only in the North of the country – has seeped into the public psyche, creating a phase of class politics that is both toxic and wholly divorced from reality.”

Runnymede Trust director Omar Khan said: “It’s long past time that we stop presenting a narrow caricature of the working class and instead listen to their experiences and design better solutions for the injustices they face.

(Image: Geoff Wilson)

“Migrant and ethnic minority working class people have been just as left behind and vilified in public discourse, in turn leading to a ‘punitive culture of services’ whether in terms of the hostile environment immigration policies.”

Ms Shaheen added: “This research was born from a desire to fight against the weaponisation of the term ‘working class.’

“For too long we have allowed the term to be used as a way to divide the multi-ethnic working class, creating a hierarchy that only sees the ‘authentic’ working class as white, male and in the North of England while simultaneously demonising the white working class has lazy and racist.”