Gordon Brown makes the case for an English parliament

In what is, on one level, an astonishingly insulting and complacent article in the Daily Record yesterday, commemorating the tenth anniversary of Scottish devolution, our hapless unelected First Minister unwittingly demonstrates the case for an English parliament. He achieves this feat not only by extolling, as successes of the Scottish parliament, the very things that most embitter the English about their democratic deficit and fiscal inequality compared with the Scots (“free personal care for the elderly, tuition fees, free travel for the elderly and prescription charges”) but by advancing arguments in favour of the Scottish parliament that undermine the very integrity of the Union and can logically be applied to England in just the same way as to Scotland.

For a start, though, the above list of benefits that devolution has secured for Scotland really is rubbing English noses in it – does he not realise that these are the very stuff of English grievances about the Barnett Formula and the lack of an English government accountable to the English people? If he does realise this, then this can only be described as indulging in Anglophobic schadenfreude. Brown has the gall to imply that the absence of such benefits in England reflects a different political culture and national priorities: he calls these policies “Scottish solutions to Scottish issues”, as if they weren’t issues in England and the different policies that apply to England were somehow the expression of England’s democratic choices – whereas we know that top-up fees for English students in particular were passed into law only with the support of Scottish MPs whose constituents are not affected by them.

This law, and the equally unjust fact that elderly persons in England have to meet the cost of their personal care, which is provided free of charge in Scotland (only yesterday the government was proposing a new system where English people only will have to pay into an insurance scheme – effectively, a top-up tax – or else pay a lump sum on retirement to cover the costs of their care in old age), are perfect examples of the kind of “unpopular decisions [that] were made on health, education and policing”, which Brown brings forward as justification for a Scottish parliament.

Well, just because a government’s policies are unpopular, that doesn’t make them illegitimate if the government is properly democratic and accountable. But Brown implies that the policies for Scotland of successive Westminster governments were insufficiently democratic and responsive to the wishes of the Scottish people, and that they were not only bad policies but bad government: “people now often forget . . . how poorly Scotland had been dealt with in the past. People rightly felt frustrated in recent decades as unpopular decisions were made on health, education and policing. Scotland could be governed better. People deserved better”. Well, if this is the case for Scotland, then it is equally valid for England: New Labour’s policies for England only on health, education and policing are not only unpopular with the people they affect but are an instance of deficiently democratic, unaccountable government, with decisions being made for England by Westminster politicians that are not answerable to the English people.

In fact, the situation now is even more unjust than that which applied to the Scots before devolution. At least then, the legislative activity of non-Scottish MPs affecting Scotland was democratically legitimate, as Britain was a fully unitary state at that time; so there was in principle no distinction between Scottish and non-Scottish MPs, as there was just one national government accountable to all the people in the Kingdom. Ironically, though, the fact that Brown singles out these policy areas is indicative of the fact that, in his thinking, Scotland was not an integral part of a unitary kingdom even before devolution.

Ever since the Acts of Union in 1707, Scotland has maintained distinct policies and systems in education and justice; or rather, the Union state has seen fit to allow Scotland to hold on to its different approaches and traditions in these areas. And this in essence is why Brown views the pre-devolution settlement as unfair to Scotland: the differences between Scotland and England in these regards, and with respect to the Kirk (an aspect of Scottish culture that is highly familiar to Brown), are seen as constitutive of a Scottish national identity that is distinct from that of ‘mainstream Britain’ (aka England). Consequently, the Scottish parliament, when it started its work in 1999, was truly Scotland’s ‘own’ parliament precisely because it handed back to the Scots the responsibility for legislating about those aspects of Scottish life that had always remained distinctive and defining of Scottish identity. So it wasn’t so much that devolution opened up a breach in the unitary British state but rather it acknowledged the pre-existing fact of the difference between Scotland and Britain. As Brown says: “For the first time in 300 years, Scotland once again had its own parliament”.

Well, I’m sorry, no: for 300 years (i.e. ever since the Acts of Union), Scotland did have its own parliament – the Union Parliament. If Scotland and England are parts of a genuine Union – two nations merging into one state – then the parliament for that state is the only legitimate parliament for each of those nations. You can’t have it both ways: either Scotland, before devolution, was part of an integral Union, so that devolution brought about something fundamentally new (a distinct Scottish-national polity); or it was never truly integrated into the United Kingdom state, so that Holyrood was in fact the restoration of something that had been lost for 300 years: a properly Scottish parliament. This is clearly how Brown sees it. But if this is the case, it undermines the legitimacy of the Westminster parliament to act as a parliament for England and, indeed, it undermines the foundations of the Union itself. If the Union Parliament’s jurisdiction in properly Scottish domestic matters has never been legitimate – if it has never been ‘Scotland’s own parliament’ – then how can we accept its legitimacy in English domestic policy and legislation? But, more fundamentally, the assertion of a distinct Scottish polity that is said to have continued in a suppressed form throughout the duration of the Union implies that the Union has never been authentic or complete: not the two nations merging to form one but remaining two separate entities merely governed through a common system that did not really belong to either of them – a common-law (indeed, Commons-law) partnership and marriage of convenience, rather than a true marriage of equals on the basis of which there is no longer any distinction between the spouses, who hold everything in common after they are married.

Either that, or the model is that the Westminster parliament – despite being avowedly the parliament for a unitary state – remained fundamentally the English parliament it had historically been, to which Scotland was effectively subordinated through the Union: a situation that the present Scottish parliament remedied. This indeed seems to be the model that Brown adopts with all of his talk about “how poorly Scotland had been dealt with in the past”: as if Scotland were something that the Westminster parliament merely ‘dealt with’ as an object of policy, rather than being a nation that governed its own affairs through the parliament of a Union of which it was an integral part. This model undermines the assumptions of the Union just as much as the idea of Scotland and England remaining separate entities while governed by a common system: in this instance, the Union is merely the political instrument of an English nation that ruled Scotland essentially in its own interests; as opposed to a common structure of government that belonged to neither of the distinct nations.

Well, if the Westminster parliament has always in essence remained the English parliament, let it become an authentic English parliament once more, just as Holyrood, in Brown’s view, is an authentic Scottish parliament: English-elected MPs only making the laws that apply to England; rather than England being ruled, as now, in the interests of the ‘Union’ (i.e. of the devolved nations) by a parliament that is not accountable to the English people. This is a direct reversal of the historical situation that Brown adduces as the justification for creating the present Scottish parliament: a Union parliament (effectively, the proxy of England) ruling Scotland undemocratically in a way that placed the needs of the ‘Union’ above the wishes of the people of Scotland.

But, in such a restored English parliament, there would be no place for unelected (non-English-elected) prime ministers such as Gordon Brown: there would be no opportunity for gravy train-riding Scottish politicians to have their Westminster cake and eat devolved government or, as I would put it, have their own Scottish cake and eat England’s, too. The way Brown puts it, in his article, is: “devolution gives Scotland the best of both worlds”. Well, yes. That statement comes after Brown has reeled off a list of ways in which the fact of being part of a ‘Union’ works to the advantage of Scotland (and very often to the corresponding disadvantage of England), such as: the bail-out of “Scotland’s two main banks” (I thought they were financial institutions vital for the British economy), which “saved thousands of Scottish jobs and protected Scots’ hard-earned savings” (what about the HBOS jobs in Halifax? Well, you see, as the Scots are so hard-working and thrifty, they deserved it more than us spendthrift English); and preferential treatment of Scottish shipyards in defence contracts building two “state-of-the-art aircraft carriers” whose actual benefit for the Armed Forces, in terms of providing capabilities that are needed (as opposed to offering subsidies to Scottish industry), is highly questionable.

And that’s to say nothing of “the [Scottish] parliament’s £35billion annual budget” that enables Scottish people – good luck to them – to enjoy 20% higher levels of per-capita public expenditure than the English: those free university and personal-care places being subsidised by the lack of them in England. No wonder that Brown affirms, towards the end of this homily to Scottish self-interest, that “I’m proud that this Government [i.e. the UK government] has never stopped focusing on delivering for the Scottish people”.

Well, perhaps it’s time we had an English government that would focus a bit more on delivering for the English people. And we know who wouldn’t be in charge of it.

Cameron will win: it’s a generation game

I’ve been privately participating in the fever of speculation there’s been over the past few days – particularly since Labour’s local election debacle on Thursday – as to whether the tide of political fortunes has now turned back in the Tories’ favour, meaning they’ll win the next general election. Initially, I was sceptical about David Cameron’s prospects, as the Tories’ resurgence seems to be dependent more on people rejecting New Labour and Gordon Brown [GB] than on support for the Conservatives’ programme – whatever that might turn out to be. However, after the local election results, which saw Labour drop to third position on share of the votes behind the Liberal Democrats, and a consistent nationwide swing towards the Tories, I feel that, maybe, Cameron could just pull it off at the general election, which will take place probably in 2010.

Thinking about it further, there’s another reason why I think Cameron will win. This is my theory of generational evolution of society, or, putting it more simply, the way social changes are influenced by successive generations. I’m sure professional sociologists have developed a more scientific version of this idea, presumably with a technical name to boot; so I’m pretty sure this is not an ‘original’ theory, if such a thing exists in any absolute sense. However, if it is, I hereby dub it the ‘political generation game theory’, on the analogy of the amateur contestants of the immortal Bruce’s show who had to imitate the dazzling skills of professionals of one sort or another.

What the idea is, in essence, is that particular periods of a nation’s history – often defined or named in relation to the dominant political personality associated with it – have a character that is determined to a large extent as a function of the periods that immediately preceded them and the period before that. More precisely, each period is a reaction to the one before, which draws its inspiration in large part from the period before that. And it does this because the people who are most influential in shaping the character of any given age – the political, business and media opinion formers and decision makers – spent their most formative years (say, between the ages of about 10 and 19) in the period preceding the period in relation to which they are defining themselves.

An example: ‘the Blair years’ and New Labour were clearly in part a reaction to / against ‘Thatcherism’ and the period of ruthless market economics that is denoted by that term. And it was a reaction that represented in part a reprise of the social-democratic Labour that had been in power for much of the 1960s and 1970s, which was precisely the period in which the leaders in society during the Blair years spent their formative years. With the difference that the New Labour period was also a continuation of Thatcherism, which had in a sense laid the economic and political foundations for Blair’s social-democratic ‘redistributive capitalism’ to actually work – whereas the economic stagnation and political / union antagonisms of the 1970s had thwarted Labour’s ambitions to create a successful, prosperous welfare state. So what we got under Blair was a new blend of social democracy and market economics: social-market economics; equality of opportunity mutating into ‘equality of market opportunity’: the goal of government being to free up people to participate more fully in, and reap the rewards from, the market society (society as a market).

Similarly, you could say that Thatcherism itself was a reaction against the whole political and social model of the Wilson and Callaghan years: initially, the idealistic 1960s, with the vision of a socially and morally freer and more equal world, underpinned by economic prosperity and technological developments that enabled people to have a bloody good time, and enjoy hitherto only dreamt-of material and physical pleasures; later, collapsing into the cynicism and recriminations of the 1970s as the downward economic cycle and spiralling inflation caused industries to collapse, and engendered strife in the workplace, on the football terraces and in the inner cities as people sought scapegoats for the fact that living the good life was increasingly unrealistic.

The Thatcherite reaction to all that was indeed a reinstatement of the Tory values from the 1950s, when many of the leaders of the 1980s were in their ‘tens’ (aged 10 to 19): the individual standing on their own two feet and creating prosperity through their own hard work and enterprise – rather than just expecting a good standard of living to be handed to them effortlessly on a plate by their employer or the state. And yet, Thatcherism also carried forward much of the ethos and attitudes of the 1960s and 1970s: the anti-union and anti-industrial-working-class antagonisms on the part of the Thatcher government were in a sense the continuation of the 1970s industrial unrest, with the difference that Thatcher took on and saw off the unions, whereas Callaghan tried to instil reason in them through comradely beer and sandwiches at No. 10. Similarly, the materialistic individualism and hedonism of the ‘I’ve-got-money’ 1980s was a continuation, in the selfish-capitalist Thatcherite mode, of the increasingly cynical, materialistic direction that originally idealistic 1960s explorations of self-fulfilment and sexual freedom had followed in the 1970s.

So what of David Cameron, then? Are we about to enter into the ‘Cameronite’ reaction against Blairism and its feeble successor / continuation that is GB; just as the ineffectual Major saw out the dying phase of the Thatcherite period, and Callaghan stood watch over the waning of the initially optimistic Wilson Labour years – all prime ministers that took over mid-term from leaders that had really set the political tone for a whole period, but whose increasing unpopularity was a sign, perhaps, that one period was on its way out and the new epoch was about to begin?

If so, then a putative Cameron era, following my theory, should be both a continuation of some aspects of the preceding period (the Blair / Brown epoch), and a harking back to and blend of some aspects of the period before that, during which the leaders of the new age were growing up – which, in the case of Cameron’s relatively youthful team, was mainly the Thatcher years. Incidentally, the fact that it is now being said that people are no longer ‘scared’ of the Tories, for all Cameron’s charm, probably owes more to the fact that the people in the worlds of politics, business and the media who are, as it were, ‘of the same age’ as Cameron (or younger, as are many in his team) and are preparing his coronation grew up under Thatcher and would have regarded her attitudes and politics as normal, not as a grim assault on so much that my generation (growing up in the 1970s: the latter end of the ‘Blair generation’) held dear.

But we’ve already had the Thatcher ‘revival’: that was Tony Blair – Thatcherism with a socially caring face. And that’s part of the problem faced by David Cameron’s Conservatives (the ‘New Tories’ in all but name): they want to be ‘Conservatism with a caring face’ but Blair has already done that. So perhaps they’ll just have to reverse the paradigm and become ‘a caring society with a Thatcherite face’, perhaps?

The difference between these two terms can perhaps best be illustrated by the ambiguity of the ‘tag line’ – as the marketing bods might put it – for Cameron’s party philosophy: ‘modern compassionate Conservatism’. ‘Modern’ and ‘compassionate’: here are two words that could have been plucked straight from Blair’s vocabulary; and they sit comfortably – naturally almost – alongside ‘Conservatism’. Indeed, Conservatism has always been associated with the idea of compassion (of the wealthy) for the poor, and with social, philanthropic responsibility towards them. So this conveys the idea of classic, one-nation Conservatism (the Conservatism before Thatcher) – which in one sense was the space in the political spectrum that Blairism inhabited – but modernised in keeping with the challenges of today.

On the other hand, if you just insert a comma into the phrase, as follows – ‘modern, compassionate Conservatism’ – it changes the whole meaning. Syntactically, ‘modern compassionate Conservatism’ suggests a ‘compassionate Conservatism – single concept: one-nation conservatism – that is modern’. ‘Modern, compassionate Conservatism’, on the other hand, implies a ‘modern Conservatism, one of whose distinguishing features is that it is also compassionate’; in contradistinction to a previous form of Conservatism – Thatcherism – that is perceived as having lacked compassion. But by implication, this could suggest that the modern, compassionate Conservatism is also an updated, more compassionate version of Thatcherism itself. So this tag line is appealing to all three strands: modern, ‘Blairite’ care and compassion for the poor and disadvantaged in society (in keeping with the traditions of one-nation Conservatism) that also draws on all that was ‘good’ about Thatcherite Conservatism – its effectiveness, leadership qualities, appeal to English-British people’s distrust of state interference and ‘nannying’, and their wish to provide the best for themselves and their families, using their own skills and hard work, whether in material comforts, housing, health or education.

This in essence is the appeal of Cameron. On the one hand, he’s Blair Plus: embodying all that’s ‘good’ about Blair (the concern to alleviate society’s ills), but if anything pushed even further. Instead of Blair’s reform agenda, which in essence was economic reform (instilling market principles into the public services), we have a social reform policy. Instead of merely tinkering with the benefits system, attempting to provide more efficient public services and carrying out a bit of inner-city regeneration, Cameron’s Conservatives have set out their stall as a party that’s really trying to get to the bottom of what has caused the collapse of stable, responsible society in so many of our cities, and have so far come up with a rather traditional Conservative answer: that it’s about the break-down of the two-parent family, the absence of father figures, and the lack of discipline at school and in the home. And what is seen as being absent in such social contexts are the very values that Cameron is trying, in more neo-Thatcherite mode, to invoke as being at the heart of his political programme: individual and collective responsibility for making things better, rather than relying on central targets and the nanny state to deliver the improvements.

The initial outline of the vision that we were given at the Tory party conference last autumn suggested that one of the forms this new affirmation of the Thatcherite principles of personal moral responsibility for improving the things that matter to you in life could take was that of ‘local privatisation’: rolling back the frontiers of government and public-sector ownership and control not just at a national level but at the local level where people are users – ‘consumers’ – of services. So, for instance, rather than the Blairite approach of setting out a single blueprint for introducing market principles into schools and hospitals, which often meant putting them directly or indirectly in the hands of major corporate enterprises, the Cameron policy could well involve local people themselves taking managerial responsibility for their schools and hospitals – whether in the form of continuing public ownership of some sort (for instance, through trusts), or by actually establishing new schools (or taking over existing ones?) as businesses in which local people could take out shares and which would genuinely have to compete for private and public funding – while service levels were guaranteed, perhaps, through some form of charter and contractual agreement with local authorities.

To some extent, the finer details of this are just speculation, as the Conservatives have yet to outline their specific policies. But it’s informed speculation based on Tory statements, and reports into things like the family and the problems of the inner cities they’ve already produced; but also based on this generational theory of mine: that the Tories have this dual motivation to carry out the social-market agenda of Tony Blair more effectively and profoundly, and to do so in a way that resurrects the best principles of the Thatcherism they grew up under. This involves the idea of empowering and motivating ordinary individuals and communities to take responsibility for improving their lives by giving them a stake and a real say in the things that are most important to them. I think that however these fundamentals of ‘Cameronism’ are translated into tangible policy, they will help the Tories to win the next election because the people who are most influential in shaping public opinion were formed under Thatcher and want to see a return to her values of self-reliance and of the public taking private ownership of, literally, their own public services.

Looking at the massive nationwide swing to the Tories in this week’s local elections, the psephologists have come out with their usual meaningless predictions about how a general election would turn out on the same shares of the vote: a Tory landslide, with a possible 150-seat majority. What if this did happen, though? Would this mean, as Anthony Barnett of the OurKingdom blog put it, that “any democratic reform agenda is now in jeopardy”? The point is, if Cameron did win a comfortable outright parliamentary majority, he could – and probably would – ignore all the widespread support and calls for constitutional and institutional reform, such as a more accountable parliament (better still an English parliament), reform of the House of Lords, PR, a genuine bill of rights that protects civil liberties, and even an English Grand Committee to discuss England-only bills (why bother if the Tories have a majority both of English and UK-wide MPs?). Cameron might be a social and economic reformer at local level, but at national political level, it would not be in the perceived interests of his government or his party to do a single thing.

Cameron is no more interested in addressing the English Question, nor even in uttering the word ‘England’, than is GB. When Cameron talks of ‘our nation’, he means ‘Britain’ not England, even if the policies that are being discussed relate to England alone. Indeed, he has gone on record, in a Telegraph interview a few months back, as saying he’s not interested in being a PM for England – even though that’s what he effectively will be in most of his domestic agenda. And there seems little difference in the Tories’ description of their ‘responsibility agenda’ below from Brown’s emphasis on Britishness and his bringing together of the formulation of citizens’ rights with prescriptions about, and enforcement of, their responsibilities: “To make the most of the new world of freedom, we need to strengthen the structures which bring stability and a sense of belonging: home, neighbourhood and nation. Our Responsibility Agenda will therefore include Green Papers on welfare reform, health, marriage and relationships, addiction and debt, responsible business, social care, cohesion, and National Citizenship Service” (my emphases).

Like I said, the Cameron era will in many respects be a continuation of the Blair / Brown period. And it seems that the efforts to articulate, formalise and impose prescriptive definitions of (British) national identity and citizenship / responsibilities will be part of the baggage that is carried forward. I suppose that that’s also part of the Conservative unionist tradition and the British-nationalist Thatcherite legacy that the Cameron era will reaffirm; so there’s a ‘natural fit’ there between Brown’s wrapping of himself in the Union Flag and the New Conservatives.

There’s no doubt that the Conservative values, and the generational swing back to them, that Cameron appeals to are also in many respects English values: self-reliance, freedom from government interference, private ownership and enterprise, social responsibility and neighbourliness, and fairness towards the ‘poorest’ in society – as the Conservatives’ website continually refers, somewhat patronisingly, to the working class. And, in this respect, if English voters are largely responsible for electing a Conservative government with a large majority next time, then they can hardly complain when that government ignores the demand for an English parliament – except, of course, that government won’t have been elected by a majority of English voters; and if none of the major parties are even vaguely talking about the possibility of an English parliament, then the English people aren’t being offered the chance of voting for one.

This raises the possibility that the best hope for representative democratic English governance, accountable to the people of England, could again come from Scotland. Scotland and, to a lesser extent, Wales are unlikely to swing towards Cameron’s Conservatives to the same extent as the English. This could mean an increasing polarisation between ‘Tory England’, and nationalist and Labour Scotland and Wales, potentially resulting in growing antagonism and political divergence between England and the rest of the UK. Together with pressure in England to reduce the Barnett differentials (the formula guaranteeing Scotland and Wales a higher per capita level of public expenditure than the English), this could really give the Scottish-nationalist cause a massive shot in the arm. And, who knows, there might yet be a Scottish referendum that would say ‘yes’ to independence.

Cameron’s Conservatives, by continuing Brown’s Britishness crusade, might well yet set the seal on the Union’s demise. In which case perhaps, in ten years’ time, we might all be saying, along with Bruce (the English one, that is), “didn’t they do well?”

Manifesto: New Englishness: Re-expressing the Relationship Between England and the UK

2 June 2006

All campaigns need a manifesto! So I’ve trawled up this piece written a year ago, which pretty much gives you an idea where I’m coming from. Some of my views have evolved a little since then; but if you check back to this blog every now and then, you should get an idea of how. So, here it is:

The ambiguous overlaps and interrelationships between the national identities referred to as ‘English’ and ‘British’ are familiar to us all – to say nothing of the extra layer of confusion concerning the use of the terms ‘Great Britain’ and ‘United Kingdom’. Generalising a bit, we could say there has been a tendency – on the part of the English, at least – to merge the meanings of the terms ‘English’ and ‘British’. When referring to British values and culture, the English have often viewed these as an extension to the whole of the UK of what are essentially cherished English characteristics. Similarly, naïve usage has often involved substituting the word ‘English’ for ‘British’ when referring to all the peoples of the UK. Children and foreigners frequently ignore the distinction to this day – getting muddled up, for instance, between English and British sporting teams; or referring, as do the French, to the culture of the British Isles and North America as ‘Anglo-Saxon’. (A parallel and, in fact, even more anachronistic mislabelling sees us referring to French culture as ‘Gallic’.)

This identification of the English with the whole of Britain has now been largely repudiated: by the politically correct classes, which view it as exhibiting the kind of cultural and political imperialism which did, in the past, lead to the projection of the English-British identity across a worldwide empire; by the Scottish and Welsh who, with their own national parliamentary bodies, are reaffirming their identities as distinct from the English-British; and by ethnic and religious minorities, some of whom define themselves as ‘British + ethnicity/religion’ (e.g. British Asian, black British, British Muslim) rather than English – even if they live and work in England, and enjoy (to some extent, at least) social and economic opportunities that the English of whatever race have struggled to achieve and uphold over the centuries.

Partly in reaction to this rejection of shared English-British values, there has been a popular attempt to reclaim a distinct English identity, one of whose manifestations is the mass display of flags of St. George and of patriotism around major sporting events such as the football World Cup. Interestingly, in the 1970s and 1980s, English football supporters tended to demonstrate their patriotism by parading the Union Jack (while Scottish fans – even at that time, it has to be said – mostly carried the St. Andrews Cross and the Royal Standard of Scotland (red lion on yellow background)). Nowadays, hardly a Union Flag is to be seen, as the sporting competition concerned is taken as a relatively harmless opportunity to celebrate the English identity and nation, as distinct from that of the British as a whole.

There is always a risk that this sort of patriotism could cross over into a more aggressive nationalism, characterised by racism and xenophobia, and indeed Islamophobia. This is partly because, in some people, it involves an element of hurt pride and anxiety about the perceived threats to the integrity of the English identity and the country’s prosperity and security. But just because of those concerns, the aspiration to affirm and be proud about what it is to be English should not be dismissed out of hand. Few countries, in fact, have been less nationalistic and given over to pompous displays of national pride than the English – at least as the English and not via their alias as the British. And it is arguably necessary to the cultural and political health of any nation to take pride in being a nation, with the caveat that that pride must be prevented from spilling over into contempt towards other cultures and peoples.

And this is the point: the English have historically defined their national identity – in a formal, political and institutional, sense – as British; while their sentimental national identity has remained English. This is one explanation for the emotional infusion of Britishness with all things English, on the one hand, and the technical misnomer of referring to officially British entities as ‘English’, to which I referred above. Now that the sentimental projection of Englishness on a Britain-wide scale is rejected by many of those upon whom that proxy-Englishness has been foisted, perhaps it is time also to change the official, public discourse: to actually allow the English to develop a language to express their Englishness that is neither culturally insensitive to the Scots, Welsh and other British minority peoples; nor is formally inaccurate, in that it uses the ‘wrong’ term – ‘English’ – to refer to what is technically British. But to enable this to happen fully, it would almost certainly be necessary to change some of the highest institutions in the land, so that an English nation as such could come into being.

At this stage, it is worth taking a step back in time to consider the origins of some of these terms. Originally, ‘Britain’ and ‘British’ referred to the pre-/non-Anglo-Saxon island and its peoples. The Latin ‘Britannia’ – precursor to our ‘Britain’ – derived from a Celtic word that is seen to this day in the Welsh ‘Prydain’. In a sense, then, it is ironic that ‘England’ has projected itself historically into an identification with the whole of Britain – an entity that originally did not have England as its centre – and that the non-Anglo-Saxon Britain has increasingly withdrawn from the project, leaving Englishness with, almost literally, nowhere to go.

One of the purposes served by the assimilation of England to ‘Britain’ was to find a way of not actually calling the English-dominated state ‘England’ – as, for instance, the centrist state of France originally drew its name from that country’s own Germanic invaders, the Franks. Calling the nation ‘Britain’ or ‘Great Britain’, from the 17th century onwards, was a way to invoke a ‘united kingdom’ through reference to the unified geographical territory that that kingdom encompassed – neatly eliding the fact that this was a nation ruled by the Kings, Queens and Parliament of England, albeit with a grafting on of Scottishness through the Stuarts. (The name ‘Great Britain’, by the way, was not originally a reference to some idea of a Greater Britain – a greater political union of all the nations and islands of the state – but merely a term distinguishing our Britain from the ‘Little Britain’ that is Brittany: in French, ‘Grande Bretagne’ versus ‘Bretagne’.)

But has there ever really been a unified British nation as such? Even Roman Britannia did not encompass the whole of this island but was more a forced political union of foreign invaders with the Celts of what are now England and Wales, in which the vigorously independent, non-Celtic Picts of Caledonia declined to participate.

‘Britain’, as a political concept, has always been more of an idea than a reality: the idea of a political, national and – in the post-Reformation context – religious union encompassing all the British Isles that has been driven and to some extent imposed by peoples coming originally from outside the actual island of Britain – the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Normans. In a similar way, the very identity and existence of the nation of England has for centuries been parasitic on the British project: the raison d’être of ‘England’ has been to bring about, uphold and embody the union of Britain. Perhaps this mission is the particular way England has striven to reconcile the tensions from which it was born: the pull between an identification with the authoritarian centre of power in the land, on the one hand, and an identification with the people of the land on whom that rule – coming from the outside – has been imposed.

The shift in our thinking and language about English nationality I am advocating essentially involves re-centring our current concepts of Britishness on the English. It involves accepting that the British project was always primarily an English undertaking and, to the extent that they have shared and participated in it, the Welsh, Scots and Irish have identified with a Britain and with a cultural and political entity that was essentially ‘made in England’. We should then start to use ‘England’ and ‘English’ to refer to all of these ultimately ‘anglo-centric’ aspects of our history, culture and political life, i.e. those aspects that reflect the strategic interests, values and socio-cultural characteristics of the inhabitants of England in previous centuries and today. We could, for instance, refer to the British Empire as having been really an English empire (an extension of the English dominion of Britain across a vast geographical expanse). Our democracy could be thought of as a mainly English – rather than British – creation; ‘British values’ should be viewed as synonymous with ‘English values’, where those values clearly reflect characteristics, conventions and a historical heritage that are generally accepted as rooted in England.

We could then perhaps develop a language about Britain that is differentiated to some extent from the idea of Britain, i.e. from the English-British political project that I have described. ‘Britain/British’ could be used to refer – historically – to the pre-English peoples of the land (the Celts, Picts, etc.) and – in the present – to all the ‘indigenous’ peoples of these islands: the continuing nations, cultures, ethnicities, and Christian and liberal-humanist traditions that have inhabited the geographical territories of Britain over a long historical period. Insofar as the Welsh and the Scots wish to define themselves as culturally and ethnically distinct from the English – as well as being merely geographically demarcated from England – they could define that ethnicity, perhaps, as ‘British’ in the first of those senses. Of course, they would have to work out in their own way how to resolve the problem of defining their national identity in any kind of ethnic way, with respect to integrating the minorities in their lands.

The English, on the other hand, could now turn the unworkability of defining their own identity in ethnic terms into a considerable virtue. By this, I mean that the English should now be free to appropriate to themselves the ‘British’ values they have previously sought to extend to the whole of Britain. One could therefore consider oneself to be English almost by virtue of a conscious identification with, and espousal of, English culture and civilisation seen as something that embraces and holds together the very diversity of the national and cultural influences that have shaped us over the centuries. Not an England as an island-nation Britain but as an inter-national civilisation that we took to the world in the past and to which the whole world now contributes. Is English who lives or is born in England (or considers England to be their home while dwelling abroad) and identifies both with English personal and social characteristics, and with English civic and cultural values, as the ground on which their rights and responsibilities within the nation are based. So we could now easily talk of ‘English black’ and ‘English Muslim’ (indeed, ‘English Indian’ or ‘English Irish’) people because, in fact, we now see it as being the English civilisation that has given these groups their hybrid cultural identity – their cultural home as part of England, as much as their physical one. ‘England’, in this acception, can be viewed in relation to a core ‘mission’ as a ‘bringer together’ of nations and cultures, not the byword for an ethnically homogenising, dominating civilisation.

So in a sense, we are talking about a reversal of conventional values: ‘Britain’ becomes associated more with a narrow, insular and possibly ethnically restrictive focus; while ‘England’ is articulated as the place of an international, cosmopolitan culture – open to the global culture which it arguably has done more than any other nation to create. This does not mean that we forget or disown the mistakes and misdeeds of the past by, for instance, attributing all the negative aspects of our imperialist past to a domineering and racist Britishness that is somehow opposed to Englishness (whereas, I’ve argued, it is an intrinsic and ambiguous part of the English historical heritage). By the same token, we should not pillory ourselves pruriently about our past imperialism. This is because the internationalist values and culture we wish to own as an important part of our ‘new Englishness’ – and which are expressed in the post-imperialist context in terms of freedom, democracy and cultural openness – would be unthinkable without the English and other European empires that largely created the modern world and our ‘multi-cultural’ societies.

And just as the new English identity can positively affirm its international outlook, there is an opportunity to give greater voice to the regional identities and communities of England, now that Englishness in all its guises is no longer a dirty word and need no longer hide behind the supposed inclusiveness of Britishness. This would involve, on the one hand, reaffirming traditional, rural English identities, lifestyles and economies, insofar as they actually survive in the present. These should be viewed not as the domain of socially anti-progressive, economically backward and racially exclusive communities, as some with a more urban outlook might have it. On the contrary, they must be affirmed as absolutely vital in preserving traditions reaching far back into the precious history of our land, and in maintaining a connection to that land – through labour, cultivation and mutual dependency – that is more than merely economic and industrial, but ecologically and spiritually vital. But equally, the various vibrant urban regional identities and cultures of England should be affirmed and valued. Gone for ever should be the contempt of the political, social and economic elites – concentrated around the capital and the richer regions of the south – for the diversity of other English voices and cultures they have often sought to exclude: the contempt, in other words, of the very class that has driven the British project for an English diversity it sought to suppress. And, by the same token, even the oft-dismissed middle- and upper-class culture of the wealthy home counties can surely also find a cherished place, somewhat like an Agatha Christie novel, in the newfound pride we take in Englishness.

The English language in all its diversity should of course take pride of place in the articulation of the new Englishness – a language with so many rich regional, international and class variations that encapsulate the history and contradictions of English expansiveness in Britain and throughout the world. It often seems that as the English language becomes ever more the global lingua franca – a term which, when applied to our tongue, must really irk some people in France! – it belongs less and less to us in England. But now, if we reclaim that history of passionate engagement with a new world (albeit a world which seemed to the English of our past to be ‘there to be conquered’) as English history, we can also reclaim the multiple global forms of English as our language – to be embraced, loved, understood and cultivated in all its rich variety. My word-processing package’s spell checker gives me 18 varieties of English to choose from, ranging from Australian to Zimbabwean: they are all mine, they are all English.

As I suggested above, it would almost certainly be necessary to modify the constitutional relationships between England and the rest of the UK in order to give full expression to this new sense of England and the English as a distinct nation. This would not necessarily entail the break up of the UK but it might involve finally differentiating the UK from Britain: the UK would become a political alliance of distinct nations and not a merging of them into a nebulous synthesis – a ‘Britain’ that has never been a true nation as such in the people’s hearts, other than when it was effectively another name for England. The implications of a change such as this are potentially vast; but moving towards a legally and politically distinct England might at last bring some clarity into the constitutional titivations and partial devolutions of the past decade. And it could potentially revitalise English civic and political life in some unexpected ways because it would be a process of restoring the nation to the people: giving the English a sense of ownership over their nation, political institutions and democracy that appears for the present to be in ever greater decline – and arguably has been since the sense that the destiny of English people was inseparable from a Britain that was Great began to be eroded.

I am no constitutional or legislative expert. But let’s take a moment to imagine what forms the new English constitutional settlement could take.

· Separate parliaments or assemblies could be instituted, complementary to the current bodies in Scotland and Wales, for a number of English regions grouping together counties with shared historical links and economic interests, e.g. the North-East, the North-West, the Midlands, East Anglia (including Essex, Herts and possibly additional counties), London, the ‘Home Counties’ and the South, and the South-West. These could be essentially federal assemblies with responsibilities for managing the public-sector purse, social policy, and law and order in those regions (while the Scottish Parliament would preserve its legislative role). The UK parliament would retain its responsibility for economic, security, and (excluding Scotland) fiscal and legislative issues affecting the UK as a whole. The upper house of the UK parliament (perhaps a new proportionally elected body) could exercise oversight over the actions and decisions of the regional parliaments, examining their implications for the whole of the UK.

· An alternative arrangement would be to allow the House of Commons to act as a second house in relation to decisions from the regional/national parliaments affecting the UK as a whole; while the regional/national parliaments could exercise second-house-type scrutiny of the national parliament’s legislation. Indeed, a new second house could be drawn from the regional/national assemblies, with members elected by those assemblies or voted for by the electorate using a proportional system as part of the elections for the regional/national assemblies

· Alternatively again, if the people of England did not wish to have separate regional parliamentary bodies, arrangements similar to the ones above could be put in place with just a single national English parliament, rather than multiple regional parliaments. This would probably do better justice to a revitalised sense of England as a distinct nation. In this case, full legislative – as well as merely administrative – powers could possibly be transferred to each of the three (or four, if Northern Ireland were added) national parliaments. The Union would then be preserved and protected by a proportionally elected ‘upper’ house with responsibility for safeguarding the economy, integrity, legal rights and responsibilities, international relations, and security of the UK as a whole. This body would be something half-way between the current House of Commons and House of Lords, with the difference that, together with the national parliaments, it would more accurately reflect public opinion. It would have to have real power to refer or veto legislation and decisions from the national parliaments in order to truly function as a guarantee of the Union.

The role of the prime minister would become more akin to that of an elected president: heading up the Executive, and driving forward policy and legislation through the national bodies – but with more limited direct power to dictate policy and legislation, which would be dependent on greater democratic consensus, and checks and balances. The prime minister could be chosen on a slightly modified basis from the present arrangements: (s)he would be the leader of the party with the greatest representation across all the national parliaments or, alternatively, the leader of the party best able to form a coalition of support across the parliaments. The Cabinet would become more like a company Board of Directors, while executive management of ‘UK plc’ would be delegated to the individual national administrations.

These are just a few bare outlines intended to suggest how our political and cultural life could be radically transformed and reinvigorated by allowing the peoples of the UK – English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh – to take renewed pride in their nations and retrieve a sense of ownership over the institutions and political processes that are supposed to give voice to their wishes and fears, their values and ambitions.

Given its ineluctably ‘multi-cultural’, multi-ethnic and multi-faith character, England in particular has an enormous opportunity – one could even consider it a duty – to redefine and revalorise its identity: to affirm what is distinctively English, including the very openness to cultural, ethnic and national diversity within its territory and beyond. This is particularly essential in the light of some of the major challenges facing us today: the need to absorb large waves of new immigrants, and the need to present a strong alternative set of national and civic values with which alienated minorities (particularly, Muslim youth) can identify. This new English identity would be one that seeks at once to accept and understand Muslims’ faith background, but which sets that inclusion within a broader context of common English values, both traditional and modern. ‘Britain’ and Britishness are now too abstract and disputed to provide a set of shared values and aspirations, and too tainted in the eyes of many minorities with associations with our imperial past. Indeed, one could go further and say that encouraging minorities to define their identity in relation to supposedly common British values actually offers them a ‘cop out’: it allows them to limit their commitment to this country to the level of formal legal nationality (to consider themselves legally British but, in their hearts, Asian, Muslim, Polish, etc.) – rather than to a strong tradition and civilisation that is concretely grounded in the places where they live, i.e. in England. But while ‘England’ remains too timid to assert itself as a nation freed from the shackles of an idea of Britain that is no longer relevant or meaningful to possibly the majority of the inhabitants of these islands, it also cannot serve as a sufficiently attractive focus for people’s identity, ambition, pride and respect.

England has indeed much to reproach herself for, in the past and the present. But the country has in many ways been as much of a victim of the attempt to impose the domination of ‘Britain’ as have the other nations of our islands and former empire. It is time for the flawed but also vibrant and diverse civilisation and identities of England to find their voice and become a nation.