Britishness was originally a multi-national identity, but now it's a multi-cultural identity which means that the nations that comprise it should have no special status.

Except, of course, they do. Some have parliaments. Legal. Constitutional. Recognition. We are no longer all equally British, even if the equal voting rights at Westminster give pretence to the myth.

"Britishness was originally a multi-national identity"

That's a bit of a euphemism isn't it Gareth? In reality it was greater England with some Celtic bits stuck on. It was a state in which the largest nation and national majority dominated both culturally and politically via fair means and foul.

It may be a euphemism if you are engaging in faux-Celtic historical revisionism but Britishness required the English to downplay their Englishness, it wasn't just Scots that objected to Britain at conception.

In any case, it's not as if 'the English' had much say anyway. There was no constitutional convention in 1706, not even a New Labour focus group or YouGov survey.

Given today's demographics and economy (which make the English even more numerous and powerful) I can see why you feel the way you do - I would feel the same in your situation I'm sure.

The fact is that it is the Government, the Establishment, that wants to run the UK as 'Greater England'. This ignores the fact that Britain was always a multi-national state based on institutions, not 'shared values' or even a shared sense of purpose (although these, especially anti-Popery, were crucial).

The attempt to define 'shared values' to underpin Britishness is an attempt to reinvent Britain as a state based on a mult-cultural (rather than multi-national) identity, but unfortunately the government has already given ground to the idea of multi-nationalism (and ethnic nationalism) when it allowed Scotland to have its own government with a distinctive Scottish polity. This step also diminished the institutional sense of Britishness, which makes the search for 'shared values' an even more pressing urgency.

Marquand's oppositional Englishness looks to reconnect the English with their tradition of radicalism, to make them worthy of self-government, to give England itself 'shared values' of Englishness. The problem with this approach is the traditions of English are the 'shared values' and traditions that Brown claims on behalf of Britain, which is why the English have had fewer problems describing themselves as British than the nations peripheral to England (which as you say have been 'dominated both culturally and politically'). England's case - which to a lesser extent is also your case - rests on reclaiming England from Britishness and, of course, in re-establishing a distinctive English (non-British) polity for England (which sets the 'Celts' free as much as it does England).

John Major said that devolution in Scotland killed Britishness, strange as Britishness was never popular in Scotland, except by the Edinburgh educated people that went on to jobs in the London government.

With the SNP in power in Scotland, any remains of Britishness are quickly eroding away, thankfully, and British if anything means a geographical position. We hear a lot of these shared values, more so since we got our parliament. But nobody ever says what these are. We don't hate the French, many of us have no interest in wars, English football teams, or cricket. So what are the values?

Maybe it's time that the UK called it a day just break up. Maybe the purpose has been served, goals were achieved, and now it's time for a divorse. There is no conceivable case to stay together.

Although I do take issue with the Celts name. I think the only Celt country that has gotten it right is Ireland: it's tricolor flag recognizes that its island is composed to folks that are both Anglo-Saxons and Celts. The Union Jack retains the old Irish flag, a recognition of the Irish heritage in the UK.

Nevertheless, a break-up like the former Czechoslovakia is perhaps in order.

It will be interesting to see who is the first to say "Goodbye! Yes, we mean it!"

Interesting post, Philip. I very much agree with you that successful integration of ethnic, national and religious minorities depends on strengthening and affirming the national identities of the different nations of the UK - including Cornwall - and giving equal political and constitutional status to the nations, as opposed to the present asymmetric devolution settlement. English people will not be able to fully embrace and integrate the migrants already here, and the waves of further settlers that are expected over the next few years, if they're expected to do so through a British national identity that denies their Englishness. That's not integration but the suppression and drowning of a national culture.

These points are very much germane to Margaret Hodge's remarks about the Proms yesterday. In my analysis, what Ms Hodge objects to in particular is the implied 'ethnic-national' Englishness of this particular celebration of Britishness, as opposed to what Gareth rightly identifies as the project to establish a new multi-cultural Britishness.

But it's perhaps a bit more complicated even that that. There's a multi-cultural / multi-national (in fact, really international or supra-national Britishness): the culturally engineered variety advocated by Ms Hodge in her speech yesterday. Then there's the 'mono-national' (and by implication, mono-cultural) Britishness of Gordon Brown: a political project to create a unitary Nation of Britain based on a formally defined and 'statutory' British identity and set of values - which could well be quite inimical towards the cultural diversity Ms Hodge favours. Is that the real reason why Downing Street appeared to slap Ms Hodge on the wrist by issuing a partial recantation and preventing her from appearing on the World at One yesterday?

David, aka Britology Watch

I don't think mono-national is by implication mono-cultural.

Brown acknowledges the distinctiveness of Scotland (for example). And diversity is a by-word.

The search for shared values is an attempt to pull together Britain in a less nebulous form, it's a search to bring together not just the nations, but also a society increasngly divided on socio-political, economic, ethnic and religious grounds.

The unitary institutions of state have been diminished for 'the Celts' by Tory rule, and for the English by devolution, so I agree with you that the present search is one for something (anything) unitary - something uniting that can give credence to the idea of Britain. He will no doubt try to give the unitary British statement of shared values statutory status. This is the basis of his constitutionalism, it's not about 'rights' or limiting the State, and that's why he should be told to sling his hook.

Gareth,

Yes, I'm not sure about the mono-cultural bit. I am worried about it, though. Brown clearly wants everyone - recent immigrants and long-established citizens alike - to sign up to his British Values, and British Rights and Responsibilities, as the watermark of true British civic nationality. This is a political-national identity, or a nationality identified with / defined through the British-state polity, as you call it. But insofar as national identity is also thought of as grounded in culture (cultural Britishness), to what extent is Brown's monolithic Britishness also predicated on a unitary British culture - conceptually, at least, even if unenforceable in practice?

Ways in which a government drive to establish and impose a unitary official British culture could be manifested could include things like: a) the attempt to reinvent / rewrite English history, culture, literature, music, etc. as British; b) further erasing any reference or official status for England and Englishness in public discourse, including in education, for instance: children taught to be British and taught nothing about English history or tradition; c) conscientious objections on the part of religious groups and individuals to the new Britishness as a secular creed being overridden in the courts, legislation and citizenship tribunals. For instance, Muslims, and even Christians and members of other faiths, could be made to promise to always respect British values such as a 'right' for gay couples to adopt children or a 'right' to abortion that run counter to their beliefs; or - on the 'responsibilities' side - they might have to swear to regard their 'duties' to British society as paramount, even if these might conflict with the teachings of their faith. E.g. a 'duty to work' could imply an obligation for married women to go out and work in a secular profession where they have to respect a certain dress code, which for some Muslim women, for instance, might violate a decision to be a full-time wife and mother, and to wear the veil in public if that is what in conscience they feel their faith requires.

That's what I mean by mono-cultural: the desire to engineer a culture that gives tangible expression to the otherwise abstract concepts described as British Values.

David, aka Britology Watch

[...] mono-culturalism? I had a mini-debate on ‘mono-culturalism’ with Gareth Young on OurKingdom the other day. For me, this term refers to the would-be imposition and engineering of a new [...]

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