Political legitimacy after the pits: Corruption narratives and labour power in a former coalmining town in England

Abstract This article examines the erosion of political legitimacy in ex‐mining towns in England. Political sociologists and political scientists have long taken an interest in the politics of coalmining areas, which were characterised by high strike rates and militant left values. More recently, the question of legitimacy in these areas has resurfaced, as now‐deindustrialised pit towns register unusually high levels of political discontent and disengagement compared to areas with similar economic and demographic profiles. In interviews and group discussions with 93 residents of the former mining town of Mansfield, England, I find that many express ideas that profoundly challenge the system of representative democracy in its current form, with almost one in three participants understanding politics primarily through the frame of corruption. Drawing on an emergent literature which casts corruption talk as a moralised discourse of political in/exclusion, I argue that the corruption frame is best understood as the inversion of a now‐defunct symbolic economy. As workers in pit towns no longer received the same tokens of care from their representatives, reflecting their reduced power, many came to understand the political system as corrupt and illegitimate.