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Episode details

World Service,18 May 2017,17 mins

Industrial Decline and Europe's Left

Business Daily

Available for over a year

With rising inequality, stagnant wages and the disappearance of traditional working class jobs - why are Europe's left-wing parties doing so badly? Edwin Lane reports from Ebbw Vale, a former steel town in Wales where people feel left behind and voted heavily for Brexit. Many working class voters there blame immigration. We hear from Professor Thom Brooks of Durham University - himself an American immigrant living in a strongly pro-Leave part of the UK. Ebbw Vale has for decades been a heartland for Britain's left-wing opposition Labour Party. Yet despite their voters' hardship, many are turning away from the party. It is a pattern replicated in many other former industrial regions of Europe. Presenter Ed Butler speaks to political scientist Simon Hix of the London School of Economics to make sense of this seeming paradox. (Picture: A woman passes a derelict site in Ebbw Vale; Credit: Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

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