Mike Waite has been a youth and community worker for local councils in Lancashire and on Merseyside, and with several charities. He is an experienced mediator, trainer and researcher.

He worked in local government for over thirty years and was the senior manager responsible for community cohesion and equalities at Burnley Council in the years after the 2001 ‘northern town’ disturbances. Mike led the council’s work to promote race relations during the decade when the BNP was represented on the council.

His new book, ‘On Burnley Road: class, race and politics in a northern town’ has been praised by reviewers as ‘perceptive, incisive … a wake-up call’. The Guardian described it as ‘instructive for anyone who wants to understand today’s politics’.

He has recently become a research associate with the Montreal-based international academic network on ‘deindustrialisation and the politics of our time’, which is considering the historical roots, lived experience and social consequences of deindustrialisation and the political responses to it.