December 14, 2020 - 11:21am
‘English nationalism’ got both barrels from politicians and the commentariat this weekend. Tory grandee Chris Patten declared Boris Johnson to be an English nationalist, not a Conservative. The Observer opined that he was blinded by a ‘schoolboy English nationalism’. Blaming English nationalism for the political upheavals following Brexit has been the lazy option on Left and Right. Will Hutton railed against ‘xenophobic English nationalism’. Gordon Brown accused the Tories of ‘whipping up English nationalism’. Former Tory MP Guto Bebb has done the same.
But the inconvenient truth is that Johnson and his critics are all nationalists and of the same ilk. They are all British nationalists. They certainly disagree about what is currently the British national interest, but they share a profound disdain for England and its national identity.
Johnson is in a long tradition of Anglo-centric British nationalists who see the union as the extension of English institutions — our monarchy, our parliament — by including others. Because the union is the augmentation of England, England itself did not need, nor could it have, its own identity. Johnson’s view of the union is undoubtedly distinctly English but no different to many in previous generations. When Brexiteers harked back it was to the British empire, not England, as Patten, the last imperial governor of Hong Kong might have acknowledged.
Scotland saw the union as allowing its own legal, educational, and cultural identity. Gordon Brown stands in that tradition, happily claiming Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights and other pre- Act of Union events as British history while seeking greater autonomy for Scotland. Brown, like British nationalists north and south of the border, has always wanted to suppress England’s own voice.
On Europe, Johnson’s Conservatives and the Brexiteers did capitalise on English discontent. They won the support of the ‘political English’: people who emphasise their English identity, who put England and its interests ahead of both the union and the EU, want fair funding, and for English MPs to make English laws. They also favour public ownership and more investment across public services.
A real English nationalist would stand for those aspirations; but other than on the EU Johnson does not. The truth is that English nationalism has no voice, no political party, no programme, no public intellectuals, no civic or cultural institutions.
England is the only part of the union to have had no debate or referenda on governance and no new national democratic forum in the past 20 years. If England has not been able to re-imagine itself as a 21st century nation, it is the British nationalists — Left and Right, liberal and conservative — who have worked so hard to silence its people. It’s time they owned the consequences.
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SubscribeIf Scottish and Welsh nationalism are acceptable then there is no case for claiming that English nationalism is not.
Breathing life back into the idea of Britain is going to involve being brave enough to take a sledgehammer to the existing Union and going completely radical with an entirely new country-building project. As I know the Scots, they’re creative, hardworking and industrious people and I have great affection for them – an invitation to participate in a new and ambitious “Great Britain 2.0” project could appeal. What you could set up is a kind of 4-nations thinktank or committee comprising members from all four nations to put together ideas for the new Britain – this would re-enfranchise the peoples of the Celtic fringe as it would lessen the feeling of being dictated to by an overbearing Westminster to wean more autonomy off and allow them to have real ownership over the new project. England would still be the most powerful and influential nation within it (this is simply a matter of fact)…but Scotland would have more power and influence in such a new country than it would do in a dysfunctional EU of going on 30 member states. Considering the current state of the EU (in serious existential crisis because of problems of far greater gravity than Brexit), Scottish independence seems like a bigger risk than ever before. What if the 300 year union is dissolved and all the costs of independence (including a new currency) are taken on…only for the final destination, the EU, to disintegrate? This isn’t such an outlandish idea as most people think. Against that background, Nicola Sturgeon’s impatience to be the one to lead Scotland to independence could prove seriously damaging.
Why are you not in a senior position in a UK political party? This is the most sense I have read on this issue for a very long time. Very well said
Thankyou, Peter.
So, if the EU is “dysfunctional” and in “serious existential crisis” then what situation is the UK in ? Maybe Scotland is better of as just one of the patients on a ward of more or less equals rather than being pushed around by the dominant psychotic ? I too “have a great affection for the Scots” and I hope that our combined condescension makes “them” feel more positive !
The situation of the EU and the UK mirror each other very closely – this is a point of view which I have held for a long time and which is drastically underexplored in the media on either side of the channel. Whether in the UK or in the EU, the Scots will be pushed around by the “dominant psychotics” (in the EU, that’s Germany and France – frequently to the chagrin of the smaller member states)…and both need to drastically change and restructure in order to survive. What Brexit has done is to create a real impetus for change in the UK which I hope to goodness is acted on instead of just muddling along lazily. There is a great deal of talk about how to reform the EU but there is no real impetus to do it and the political and practical hurdles to such change are so enormous as to make the undertaking virtually impossible. I think the UK, as a much smaller entity, could still manage reform. But it needs absolute bravery and coherent vision and to be presented and pushed by someone who is liked and can be followed by people from all four nations. I’m at a loss to say who that might be as more or less all prominent figures have got themselves so drenched in the poison of the Brexit debate that the reform discussion would just end up as yet another Brexit squabble.
I like this really sensible proposition Katherine, except for the one area where it would fail. That is forming so called ‘think tanks’ and it’s sister in in killing ideas that do not confirm to ‘the norm’ the committee and it’s off shoots. Sub committees, enquiries and so on. All run by the usual cohorts, civil servants, failed MP’s, and former Qango nobodies.
It could though be the forming of a new political party, just dream of people with an interest in say your GB Mark 2. Hell’s teeth even I would go out and vote for that.
Fancy giving it a whirl? There are millions that agree with a clean break despite what we are fed by the MSM.
The only problem with this idea is that England is very much the larger country.
You talk, as if, the four nations are all equal in size, they are not.
Unless the think tank takes account of this, it merely disenfranchises the English.
If you take account of it, then you have something like Westminster.
As England has a population of 56M. Scotland 5.5M.Wales 3.3 and NI 2.0. one can see the difficulty.
Nationalism has its place in defence for example but I think people most want localism. To be able to change as much as possible at a local level. In terms of that we are a million miles away from where we were even 50 years ago.
Perhaps English nationalism needs a voice but for me that voice would sell the benefits of traditional English localism and traditional English Law but I would add in swiss style direct democracy. Beyond that the English are among the most tolerant people in the world. Its the British Ruling class that constantly demonises them because English nationalism threatens their money and power.
I gave my apologies for missing a previous meeting by explaining that it had clashed with my becoming a British citizen. Everyone expressed interested surprise and pleasure. Then one person said “Of course you will never be English.”
It wasn’t the place to discuss what he meant. He certainly was not rude or making a stand. He’s never struck me as an aggressive, blood and soil type. He was just stating what he considered was a fact,
The citizenship ceremony in Winchester moved me to my surprise. Particularly the registrar who spoke about Hampshire’s history as part of her address. Understated, unemotional, very quietly, very English, she clearly loved her county and country, warts and all.
Afterwards we stood around shyly drinking soft drinks and nibbling on biscuits. One women wearing a veil said, “Today for the first time in my life I feel free.”
That’s basically Britishness in a nutshell: standing around feeling awkward but being so very, very free.
Spot on John
At the next GE, I will not consider voting for any party that does not have the early establishment of a Parliament for England in its manifesto. If none, then I will not vote.
A really fascinating and interesting article and subject to discuss.
But if: “truth is that English nationalism has no voice, no political party, no programme, no public intellectuals, no civic or cultural institutions” is true, how
can we then define English nationalism? Anyone has some solutions for it?
It’s saddening to see apparently otherwise professional people using the hopelessly ungrammatical word “referenda”. Four years of constant misuse, and still they persist: unwilling or unable to educate themselves. The plural form of “bum” isn’t “ba”, and it’s the same for “referendum”.
When I learned Latin the gerundive had a full set of cases and ‘referenda’ was the neuter plural nominative, vocative and accusative of refero. I would agree with critics of a Second Referendum that ‘referenda non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem’. Which bit of this does Mr. Hart have difficulty with ?
Referendum is an English noun taken from a Latin phrase. Its plural form therefore follows the rule of English nouns. People who say “referenda” are using the plural form of a noun that doesn’t exist in Latin. Showing off always risks the possibility of being corrected by those with greater knowledge. See Wikipedia.
You know this is obviously far more interesting than the article Has anyone any more obscure justifications? This could run for years.
Meanwhile an important anti-natonalist Union is being destroyed by barbarians. Never mind though.
Thanks for explaining this rule for pluralising English nouns. I’ll teach that to both of my childs.
They’ll believe anything I tell them – they’re just like sheeps.
Anyone know the plural of never-endum?
Latin adjectives, including gerundives, are susceptible of substantive use, as you are surely aware. Perhaps you are confusing gerundives with gerunds. Or perhaps you have some other agenda. It would certainly be good to know which Classics department you are from.
You must stick out like a sore thumb in the Labour Party
The solution is simple, a united Ireland, an independent Scotland rejoining the EU and poor Wales, stuck like a withered conjoined twin to its parasitic host. England will be free to rule the waves and demonstrate its exceptionalism for all to see.
A few minor stumbling blocks to your Anglo-phobic paradise:
1 – Scotland has no currency of its own, benefits disproportionately from the union (compared to Wales, NI and England) and will not be allowed to join the EU by Spain, Italy or France among others.
2 – A significant proportion of NI does not want to be united. I would recommend looking into some Irish history on that one. A few things came up.
3 – Wales is the poorest region of the Union. Do you think that has anything to do with its low population spread across a large rural region with limited infrastructure (among other things) or because the dastardly English come by once every few weeks to collect a tithe before retreating to their Westminster palaces?
Apart form those, feel free to cut off your nose.
Maybe the English should have been more assertive in expressing their great and distinct identity within the Union – rather than the expressing of Britishness as an encapsulated English centric identity.
Dissolve the present United Kingdom into four independent countries. Then re-combine them with the other three Canzuk countries (Australia, Canada, New Zealand) to form a loose “British Union” with the Crown and the Union flag as their unifying symbols.
This would be a new start for Britishness in a new kind of Union. It would solve the “English problem”, satisfy the more reasonable Scottish and Welsh nationalists, and bring all the principal countries of the British Crown into a proper relationship with each other.
English nationalism is so hard to define because the English for so long were the powerful ones. A firm sense of national identity, in my opinion, comes about from having to defend the nation against a larger, external power. The Scots and the Welsh have a much better sense of who they are because they’ve had to assert that identity against the English. In other words, when you’re put in existential danger, you learn who you really are. And since the end of the 17th century, the English have been dominant in whatever structure they were bound up in – Britain, the British Empire, the modern UK and even (together with Germany and France) in the EU. For over 300 years, the English never had to really think about their identity because no one put them into a position where they had to. That all changed as Britain’s imperial power dripped away and the power of the EU increased during our period of membership. Brexit has been a time when English values have been evident for the first time in centuries because they have been the driving force behind the vote to leave. And I’d say those values are: democracy, freedom and self-determination…unfettered self-determination by a (nation) state at least is in stark contrast to the ideals at the heart of the EU project. That’s why the divorce is so poisonous. The values at the heart of each party’s identity represent an existential threat to the respective other party.
I take issue with JOHN DENHAM and his assertion that England does not have a political party. It most definitely does. He is a typical British Politician, he knows we exist and have done for 18 years. The British and its cohorts in the media have conspired against The English Democrats from its inception. 37m People identified as ENGLISH (2011 census) and that frightens the brits and british parties (The British are the minority), who are the british parties Tories (socialists), Labour (socialists controlled by the fabians who were funded by Rockefella and Rothschild to con the working class), Lib Dems (Socialists, mostly fabians).
The only English Political party, The English Democrats, we now have an English Trade Union Council, The Workers of England Union and to combat the British controlled media, The English Press Association. I am one of those Journalists! John, would you like to do an interview?