In search of Britishness

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This is a report from the first in a series of seminars the Rowntree trust is running on issues connected to the governance agenda. The seminar was based on a paper by David Beetham, which is published below.

Stuart Weir (Cambridge, Democratic Audit): I don't want to find myself mired in the deficiencies of the discussion on "British values" in the July 2007 green paper and in Lord Goldsmith's citizenship review. But briefly - in their different ways both are intrinsically un-British: the green paper is, as David Beetham says in his paper, published with this note, prescriptive and exhortatory; Goldsmith turns to crass symbols, rituals and ceremony on the basis of a "historical narrative" that Beetham expose as partial at best, and false in its essentials.  Worse still, Goldsmith's design is to separate out citizens and non-citizens in pursuit of a narrow concept of citizenship; and his description of the citizen's relationship with the state comes straight out of Leviathan. Wake up, man, our shared values about democracy, human rights, citizenship, society and life have moved on since then!

At a seminar for people from organisations involved in human rights and democratic renewal, David Beetham advised us to abandon the "decaying corpse" of Britishness that he saw as a strategy to discipline us all.  Almost immediately, participants began resurrecting the corpse.  The intensity of the discussion round the table breathed new life, values and vital elements of belonging and security into the concept which will hopefully find expression in the "national conversation" that Gordon Brown wants to hold.  None of us want to throw out the baby with the bathos.  But the conversation has to be open and transparent; it must not be a PR exercise; and it should not be a political ventriloquist's act, but should genuinely reflect the publics' voices.

There was a robust rejection of the government's clear intent to define British values for us as individuals and for our society, and a very British insistence that we should all be free to decide what our values are.  However, the state should adopt clear values of respect for democracy and human rights that could unite settled inhabitants and new communities; one participant recalled how for example Britain stood for security and tolerance for her parents as second generation immigrants. There were fears that a subliminal message within the government's rhetoric might take away some of that security for some communities.

It was also said that concern over the alienation that concerns the government (disengagement from the formal political process; alienation within some ethnic minorities from modern British society) should be extended to take in the host of young whites for whom hopes of a rewarding life were remote.

It's impossible to sum up the discussion and I will miss out important issues which some of those present should add in further posts here.  Two things then.  One, there was a strong view that the roots of disengagement from politics derived from people's perception that they were no longer in control of their lives and nor was government. It was said that the free market was demolishing prized institutions and that the democratic debate should recognise and seek to deal with the shifting settlement between market power and public power; and secondly, that economic and social rights were as important shared values and elements of progress as were civil and political rights. On dear, some scoffed, here is "sub-marxist" babbling and the same old left intellectual preoccupation with equality rather than freedom.

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