Whither England: Gareth Young takes on ippr
Gareth Young reviews Beyond the Constitution: Englishness in a post-devolved Britain by Michael Kenny, Richard English and Richard Hayton, ippr.
New ippr report calls for positive engagement with Englishness but ignores the need for political recognition.
(ippr, February 2008, 11pp)
This ippr pamphlet challenges the widely held assumption that the rise of Englishness necessarily signals the death-knell of the values and identities associated with Britishness and the legitimacy of the UK’s polity.
That a sense of Englishness is on the rise is not disputed. What is disputed is the political salience of that rise in relation to the current devolution settlement. Englishness it is argued, refreshingly, is not necessarily a malign force that will undermine Britishness.
But the authors’ wish to confine English nationalism to purely cultural terms; to deny a “for-itself” political expression of Englishness. This stems from their idea that a politically assertive England would undermine the multi-national solidarity of the UK.
Those familiar with Arthur Aughey’s The Politics of Englishness will experience a feeling of déjà vu. Not only is the terrain the same, but so are the arguments traversed, and the conclusions drawn. Crucially:
There may be a good case for a concerted re-evaluation of the relationship between Britishness and English identity, and a consideration of how a positive vision of Englishness can compliment, rather than threaten, a rejuvenated civic Britishness.
This is the crux. According to this paper Englishness does not require political nationalism, nor the democratic and institutional trappings of nationhood recently acquired by its partners in the UK. It can instead be sated and mollified by positive engagement with Britishness and a flowering of English cultural nationalism and self-awareness.
The authors cast doubt on the notion that greater identification with England stems from any political resentment and financial grievances that have arisen as a consequence of devolution. Rather the phenomenon of increasing Englishness is a culturally-orientated wave of consciousness that began in the mid-1990s.
It is noted that, in spite of English dissatisfaction, the Conservatives have resisted the temptation to play to the politics of English resentment (David Cameron’s “sour little Englanders” is referenced), preferring to leave that to fringe groups on the far-right. No opinion is offered as to whether these fringe groups are the best vehicles for the articulation of English resentment but the authors do state that:
none of the parties displays any kind of confidence or willingness to bring Englishness into the heart of its strategic and policy thinking. Fearfulness and the hope that English nationalism will quietly subside have been the abiding watchwords of the political elite.
And though this may change, the parties as a whole do not envisage a scenario in which “English nationalism will mutate into a small-nation resentment at its position within a larger multi-national entity”. Put bluntly the authors do not envisage the English resorting to an Anglo-centric version of the little-Scotlander mentality, the political ramifications of which have disadvantaged England and precipitated the need for the very English renaissance called for. It is suggested that politicians have failed to engage with Englishness as this might signify a readiness to contemplate constitutional reform in a manner that acknowledges England. Catch-22.
Quite what the English have to gain by forgoing political nationalism is left unsaid, though it is suggested the Union may be endangered and that Britishness is a more attractive national identity to liberals and ethnic minorities. Britishness may be more accessible because it is the idea of values, as opposed to substantive moral and cultural traditions; again, among liberals, rather than the population at large. What British values are is left unclear and a quote from Brown’s Green Paper offers no clues:
A large part of what we describe as Britishness traces back to our own civil war, its ultimate resolution the Declaration of Rights of 1689 and the Acts of Union. Our relative stability as a nation is reflected in a relative lack of precision about what we mean to be British.
The irony of the English points of reference is apparently lost on the authors, although they do suggest that the confidence of this statement of ‘British history’ could lead to parallel discussion on English governance. But having dismissed regionalism and warned against the populism of an English parliament or English Votes on English laws (they muse upon how the Government might build a bulwark against these seductive proposals) it is hard to understand what the authors are actually proposing, other than a nice poetic Englishness that can cosy up to a splendid civic Britishness. There is no discussion on the potential benefits of English citizenship and English civic nationalism.
The problem which faces those who take the approach of our three authors is that multi-national solidarity rested on a contract between the peoples of the UK, a contract that was renegotiated by the devolution referendums and, crucially, renegotiated without input from the people of England. The fear now is that any real or imagined grievances that follow from the asymmetric settlement will lead to an English renegotiation on English terms, for-themselves.
This passage from The Politics of Englishness crystallises what the authors are grappling with:
Devolution…has clearly modified the relationship between England and the other parts of the United Kingdom as a legal and political agreement and as a consequence the English question has become in large part England’s British question. The question, in short, is to what extent this constitutional modification has undermined English patriotic identification with the United Kingdom.
The fix that the authors seek is not a constitutional one. For them it is a problem best solved by English acquiescence in the face of the English-British dichotomy. A self-confident Englishness embellished by patriotic identification with the UK is what is needed. In fairness the authors do debunk Kumar’s thesis that English identity is subsumed in Britishness. To argue otherwise would oppose the very premise they start from: that English identity is strong enough; that it is capable of being part of a multi-layered English-British identity and secure enough to have just the British part of that multiple identity recognised constitutionally - it’s a sacrifice the English must make while allowing the other UK nations to do the exact opposite.
In summary the authors, like the politicians, don’t know what to do. The only explanation as to why the English should not have a parliament of their own is a reiteration of Prof John Curtice’s mistaken claims that the English are content with the Status Quo.
This is the first of two reviews by Gareth of the new ippr reports on the future of the Union. Gareth is a member of the Campaign for an English Parlament.
Filed under: Britishness, England, English Parliament, National Question, Reviews
Quite, Gareth, though the problems thrust upon us are also partly due to the identity crisis of the Labour Party in the 1990s. As spoken about by a certain nasty, ginger Welsh nationalist.
They were once the representatives of the downtrodden working classes and those who believed Communism was the Val Hala of those classes. That was their voting base. They knew it. We knew it., though most voters preferred to ignore the Communists that were rife in that Party (and stil are) Between them and the Unions, the working classes began to prosper. Communism was shown for what it was and the Iron Curtain came down.
The old message the Labour party sent out was a vote loser. Working people were earning decent wages mostly and many owned their own homes. They no longer needed the old socialists, who appeared to be trapped in a time warp.
But the Labour Party was hungry for power. They needed to appeal to a new audience to broaden their voting base. They boasted that the traditional Labour voters would stick with them, because there was nowhere else to go. And they did for a while. But meantime, NEW Labour needed to ensure they stayed in power. Old Labour voters were dying out. They needed to be replaced - but with what?
Labour had always been dominated by Scottish socialists and they held deeply ingrained anti-English/ Tory hatred. They campaigned on that rhetoric, calling the Toried the Englsih Party, thereby seeding in the minds of the Scots in particular, the them and us mentality that prevails today.
They assumed their Scottish and Welsh voters would stick with them as they always had done. Split them off and stop the Tories from taking those Labour Kingdoms at any time in the future, with what they considered to be their English supporters. Scotland would therefore always provide them with power. They never for one moment considered that the Scots would stab them in back and vote SNP. But Scottish Labour are riding two horses at once and not staying in the saddle of either one.
Behind the scenes, Blair and Brown et al, began opening up England’s borders in particular. They welcomed the incomers as their future Labour voters. New Labour cast aside the old working class voter base and cosied up to the rich for their money. They used that money to appeal to the newcomers. They were in effect conducting their own land clearances. But to them, it was not land clearance, it was voter replacement.
The incomers would be British and see the Labour as their saviours. The English would be drowned out with large waves of migration and a policy of multiculturalism would ensure that the newcomers did not adopt the mentality of the English Tory voters, who did not appreciate Scottish socialism.
Objectors would be silenced with yells of racism. Prosecuted, if necessary. The new Labour voters would not be encouraged to mix. Multiculturalism would prevail. Laws were adopted, to make sure the English were not first choice for positions of employment. The Common Purpose and the New World Order, which Gordon Brown speaks of, is, in his mind, a future with a permanent Labour government. They will walk over anyone to achieve that aim.
Power is all to the New Labour Party. And without England, that power is nothing. The English Tories have to wiped out at all costs in their nasty little minds. Democracy has nothing to do with narrow Party political idealism.
Heaven help our “ethnic minorities” when they too, turn against Scottish socialism. And they will. (I hate the term ethnic minorities. It propogates division)
[...] A shorter version of this article has been published by Open Democracy’s Our Kingdom. [...]
“In summary the authors, like the politicians, don’t know what to do”
That did actually make me laugh Gareth; thanks.
Oh the irony of ironies, England has joined the two inconvenient peripheries- Cornwall and Northern Ireland - that the unimaginative nobodies in Westminster don’t have a clue what to do with; Inconvenient Peripheries: http://www.psa.ac.uk/journals/pdf/5/1996/payt.pdf
It always puzzles me that Britishness would be thought of as a progressive project - it is perhaps a failure of intellect, or worse still mendacity. Certainly, it’s strange that the Empire’s brand would be thought attractive to ethnic minorities (many of whom hail from former colonies and current neo-colonies of Britain).
Better the little Englander than the bullying Brit?
I certainly hope Englishness will undermine Britishness - to the benefit of all of the nations that comprise the UK.
Charlie,
As J.B. Priestley said:
For Big Englanders read Brits.
Ah, wonderful quote… Thanks for that, Gareth.
And what a man Priestley was - a true organic intellectual. Sound politics, too: democratisation of the economy through public ownership and workers’ management of industry, not to forget his role in CND…
“‘English nationalism will mutate into a small-nation resentment at its position within a larger multi-national entity’”.
While on the subject of ‘Little Englanders’, I love the way the ‘British nationalists’ (misnomer in the case of the liberal defenders of Britain, because Britain isn’t a real nation - which is why they prefer it to England) cast England on its own as a ‘little’ country, in size and mentality. If England, with five-sixths of the UK population (and growing) is a little country, what is the UK: a small-to-medium-sized country?
‘Big Englanders’ could also perhaps be called ‘Great Britons’: those who are dazzled by the myth of the greatness of Britain - a greatness defined in terms of Britain’s imperial past and its continuing pretensions to be a major military, economic and political big hitter on the global stage. To this, one could perhaps contrast a truer greatness of England, stripped of all the Britishness bunkum, which is indeed bound up with its culture: something that is both quite particular to the English themselves, with all their idiosyncracies, distinctive characteristics and way of life, and, at an international level, could be called the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ civilisation [in the cultural, not ethnic, sense] - the political culture, philosophy, religion, value system and mindset of the English-speaking world (especially, North America, Australia, etc.), admittedly spread historically by the British (English) Empire.
But the fact that Englishness represents a distinct culture and civilisation in this way does not mean that England is not a nation. I think this is what it really comes down to, and why the authors of the report - along with the British political establishment - simply don’t know what to do about the English question. The passage you quote from ‘The Politics of Englishness’ (”the English question has become in large part England’s British question”
could, in my view, be re-stated as: “the search for British values is a displaced expression of England’s search for national identity”. The establishment and many supporters of the liberal ideals associated with Britishness can by definition express this quest for national identity only in the terms of Britishness; but these are not the terms in which the quest can be resolved, which are those of England and Englishness. And so long as this is not acknowledged, the endless and fruitless attempts to define Britishness and craft a new Nation of Britain will forever go round and round in circles; because unless the nation to be redefined is recognised for what it is - England (albeit an England still connected politically to the other nations of the UK) - any formal definition of the nation’s identity will not connect with the English people.
David, aka Britology Watch
“As spoken about by a certain nasty, ginger Welsh nationalist.”
I really hope that is sarcasm, since Kinnochio was anti-Welsh nationalism, going to the extent of saying that Wales had no history (rubbish of course). He certainly had issues about his Welsh background to the point of self-loathing.
Unless this is sarcasm/irony, this is bizarre, and deluded as calling Gordon Brown a Scottish nationalist. The man certainly isn’t!
“The incomers would be British and see the Labour as their saviours. The English would be drowned out with large waves of migration”
Oh, please. Now it seems as if you’re serious. I don’t know what’s more racist, your attitude to non-white English folk, or to the Scots and Welsh.
“Certainly, it’s strange that the Empire’s brand would be thought attractive to ethnic minorities”
Odd, perhaps, but ethnic minorities in England overwhelmingly identify themselves as British rather than English. In my opinion, this is a big problem - when…oops, I meant if…Scotland (or Wales) becomes independent, England’s large immigrant population will identify only with a country that no longer exists. We’d better hope integration isn’t as important as people say, or we’re screwed!
Bebedora, We’d have to tell them, ‘for “British”, read “English”‘. The two words are virtually co-terminous anyway; except ‘English’ is less imperialistic, and more pluralist and inclusive of diversity, which should be attractive to minorities in any case. Plus Britain doesn’t have a football team for them to support - mind you, some would say England doesn’t, either!
David, aka Britology Watch
“… ethnic minorities in England overwhelmingly identify themselves as British rather than English”
Really, do you have any sources to substantiate this? I’ve heard it before, but haven’t seen any evidence myself.
If this is true, maybe they confuse England/Britain because of the Govt’s deliberate obfuscation of the truth. Or maybe it is a result of them reading their Parliament’s literature, ie. Scottish, Welsh, British…
Either way, it’s not insurmountable
You often hear more recent immigrants / new citizens (at least, in the media) referring to themselves as ‘British’ - cf. the recent Radio Four programme about the ‘Britistanis’ (British Pakistanis). But part of this is precisely because Britishness is not a real nationality in a cultural sense but only in the formal, civic sense - relating to citizenship. So of course, they’ll refer to themselves as Pakistani and British, African and British, Jamaican and British, Polish and British, or whatever it is. The categories used in the UK census confirm this split cultural-ethnic identity, referring to umpteen dual British-other national/continental identities alongside just three categories for various types of ‘white’ (British, Irish and ‘other European’
- something that is incredibly divisive and, by the way, discriminatory towards those who identify as English, Scottish or Welsh in the first instance.
But when either first- or subsequent-generation migrants really feel at home here and abandon their dual national identity, that’s when they start considering themselves to be English first and foremost (in terms of their cultural identity), and then British by virtue of being English. If what we want is to accelerate and facilitate the process of integration, it would be far better to shorten the whole thing by encouraging migrants to see themselves, and to welcome them, as English, Scottish, Welsh and (Northern) Irish, and to encourage them to learn about true Britishness as something that already embodies multi-cultural diversity before you even consider that which the more recent waves of immigration have brought to our society.
David, aka Britology Watch
Terry, the first few paras here shed a little light.
I have to agree with David, in Cornwall it is common for new minorities who have been in OurDuchy for a while or who were born their to opt for Cornish + other.
For example I have a Cornish Indian and a Cornish Jewish friend.
In the popular / working classes saying you are English is not so common (seen as a bit snoby) where as saying you are British is just square and/or too BNP.
If English folks, myself included, whose parents and grandparents hailed from the colonies of the British Empire identify as British it is perhaps because they have been encouraged to do so by the education system, state and corporate media, etc.
I don’t see much of a problem in England, actually. Far more problematic might be northern Ireland where generations of Protestants have been encouraged to think of themselves as “Britishers” (in the words of Iain Paisley) - what happens when “Britain” ceases to exist? (My own hope is the establishment of a 32 county workers’ republic - if only to astonish Martin Macguiness…
Would be more impressed if they had better command of the English language and did not write “compliment” when they mean “complement”.
The English question will not be answered until there is an English Executive with the same powers as those devolved to Scotland. The longer politicians refuse to face up to this the greater is the danger of the Union disintegrating. It may already be too late.
Sad to say that’s my error Don!