open Democracy News Analysis - Imagined Nation: England After Britain, Arthur Aughey - Comments

The Cornish Democrat on "Imagined Nation: England After Britain"

The Cornish Democrat — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:41:00 +0000

Just to point out again that I attacked no one and simple responded to Toques initial post on this thread.

Thank you for your support it is appreciated however it is not something widely spread through English nationalist circles, you are the exception rather than the rule.

Too often the English nationalism which lead to the British project (pre-devolution) and modern separatist English nationalism seem to be cut from very much the same right wing English cloth that considers itself the centre of the universe and has little respect for its neighbours.

http://thecornishdemocrat.blogspot.com/

Paul Kingsnorth_1 on "Imagined Nation: England After Britain"

Paul Kingsnorth_1 — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 09:21:16 +0000

Were you responding to me there, Cornish, or to Toque?

If to me, you'll have seen that I do support the right to self-determination of all peoples. That's why I spelled it out in black white. Really very simple.

My other point was that you should stop having a pop at people who don't actually oppose you! Both Toque and I have said we have no objection to the Cornish having more self-determination. In my book - I repeat - I have called for it. Good idea. And have independence too, if you can persaude enough other Cornish people to agree with you. Good luck with that.

Now how about you stop attacking us and start attacking the people who are actually preventing that from happening - the government.

The Cornish Democrat on "Imagined Nation: England After Britain"

The Cornish Democrat — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:03:11 +0000

So let me get this right. I leave a comment on this article asking if the Cornish question had been asked in the book being plugged to which Toque responds with a point he is only too willing to level at the Cornish but which he does not accept levelled at the English.

Yet it is I that is privileged with the following comments:

"What more you expect from me I have no idea"

and

"Your fire is misdirected"

Can I just suggest that 1) your fire against Cornish nationalism is misdirected and 2) If you had some integrity you would respect and support ALL nations in their right to greater self determination.

I certainly support Englands right if that is what you democratically decide. The added bonus with Cornish nationalism however is that it promises to devolve power to a much smaller number of people and therefore empower them to a much greater extent. The English nationalist 60 million UK parliament to 50 million English parliament deal doesn't seem to be that beneficial for the English and certainly not for those in outlying regions.

As to the strength of support for Cornish nationalism.

Mebyon Kernow has more Parish, Town and district councillors in the Duchy than all the English nationalist parties have put together for the whole of England.

Many Liberal Democrats support Cornish devolution (two speak Cornish). The LDs control the 'county council' and have all 5 MPs.

50,000 people signed a petition calling for a Cornish Assembly.

37,000 people denied being British so that they could write in Cornish for their national identity on the 2001 census.

The PLASC ethnic data from the 2007 Cornish schools survey showed that 27% of children consider themselves to be Cornish rather than British or English. When English nationalism has achived the same perhaps we can talk.

http://thecornishdemocrat.blogspot.com/

Paul Kingsnorth_1 on "Imagined Nation: England After Britain"

Paul Kingsnorth_1 — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 09:31:34 +0000

Just to weigh in on this one ... I think Cornish nationalists regularly shoot themselves in the foot with this kind of thing. I have been accosted several times by them, and have been accused, simply by dint of making the case for England, of being 'hostile to Cornwall.' I'm not and I wasn't. But I have to admit that being shouted at by Cornish nationalists makes me considerably more hostile!

I find it particualrly irritating, as in my recent book - entitled, you will note, 'Real ENGLAND', I wrote a considerable amount about Cornwall andthe case for giving it more self-government. And look at the thanks I get.

My personal view is that the case for more Cornish self-government is strong (as evidenced by Cornish support for it.) The case is strong elsewhere in England too. The case for its 'nationhood' is pretty weak though; it has never been an independent nation and, since it has no economic base, would have a lot of trouble surviving as one now. The extremely poor showing of Mebyon Kernow at elections (the 2005 general election saw their four parliamentary candidates garner 3500 votes between them) suggests a lack of interest amongst the Cornish in the independence case too.

Having said that, I am, like Toque, quite happy with the idea of Cornish asserting thesmlves as a 'nation' if that's what they want to do. My overarching principle, in Cornwall as in England as in, come to that, West Papua, is self-determination. If the Cornish want independence, let them have it. I would suggest, though, that attacking fellow campaigners for self-determination just because they're a bit English is a little self-defeating. If anyone's suppressing the case for Cornish self-rule it's the British nationalists in the Labour government, not people like me or Toque. Your fire is misdirected.

Toque on "Imagined Nation: England After Britain"

Toque — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 19:05:47 +0000

I think you are confusing hostility with lack of interest. There's a reason I don't comment on your articles on this site, or on your blog - I'm not interested!

In fact the only time I ever comment on Cornish nationalism is when prompted to by you. You, on the other hand, are obsessed by English nationalism and English nationalists. You will remember that you emaied me - completely out of the blue - a year ago and then subsequently published the transcript of our discussion on a Cornish forum.

I have nothing more to add to my views on Cornish nationalism than I told you then. I don't regard Cornwall as a nation. But that doesn't mean that I am 'hostile' to Cornish nationalism - in fact it is massively preferable to regionalism which is not based on any meaninful identity, unlike the case for Cornwall. If you think your nationality is Cornish then Cornish nationalism is a perfectly legitimate position and, possibly, a laudable one. But I'm not Cornish and it has nothing to do with me. I'm English, in case you hadn't noticed.

English nationalism is not a vehicle for Cornish nationalism, although it could conceivably lead to greater autonomy for Cornwall. My advice to you, if you want Cornish idependence, is to focus on making your own case outside English claims.

As I said to you when you first made contact "I do think that power should be devolved to the Stannary because there
is demand for it and because of the historical precedence for doing so." What more you expect from me I have no idea!

The Cornish Democrat on "Imagined Nation: England After Britain"

The Cornish Democrat — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:26:54 +0000

britologywatch,

Of course there are overlapping identities in Cornwall and I'm truly surprised every time Toque or other English nationalists suggest I have claimed otherwise. However this phenomena does not invalidate the existence of a Cornish national identity anymore than it would invalidate the English or Scottish national identity. Nor should it be used to deny said nation greater autonomy something Cornwall has shown a demand for (England has yet to).

But tell me who do you think the Cornish would support if we where allowed a national team in any sport?

Having said that it is still for Toque to explain why he is so hostile to Cornish nationalism and why he uses the 'overlapping identities' argument on Cornwall but not on England.

Yes many do identify with England and the UK in the same way many English identify with England, the UK and perhaps Europe, but is this in anyway an argument to deny the existence of a sense of Cornish or English nationality or right to greater home rule? Most English people feel very British, identify with the UK, so NO to an English parliament, is that it?

One of Toques preferred arguments is that England is a nation and so should have a parliament. What makes England a nation if it is not its sense of national identity. This same sense of national identity that exists in Cornwall surely has the same rights.

Yes, thanks Toque for your oh so convenient example of your neighbour ( I could give you plenty more) which goes to show that the Cornish identity is civic. In fact Cornish nationalism is far more civic than English nationalism and has been for a long time, need I remind you of the list of far right English nationalist parties? Yet again it is strange that an English nationalist (a movement truly rotten with the far right) should point the finger at the Cornish.

http://thecornishdemocrat.blogspot.com/

Guy Aitchison on "Imagined Nation: England After Britain"

Guy Aitchison — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 12:43:54 +0000

Thanks Toque, we're having some technical issues with commenting which are being looked in to. I have added that one to the list.

Toque on "Imagined Nation: England After Britain"

Toque — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:59:04 +0000

Does anyone else suffer the problem of a big dark brown band across the comment text box that obscures what you are typing? The messed up formatting in the comment above is because I've taken to composing the comment elsewhere and pasting it to comments.

Toque on "Imagined Nation: England After Britain"

Toque — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:24:10 +0000

Obviously Cornish, English and British overlap.

But as an "English supremicist" who dislikes Cornish people I would say that, wouldn't I? It's all part of my attempt to "undermine Cornish nationalism", a tactic that only works because I realise that Cornish nationalism is an exclusive ethnic nationalism. Only by promoting a civic English nationalism can I subjugate the incompatible Cornish into my "English empire".

Credit to Cornish Democrat for figuring out my strategy. There's no escaping his razor sharp intellect, you underestimate these Cornish at your peril.

On a serious note, my parents live in Devon, and I go to Cornwall a lot. It's circumstantial evidence but as far as I can see there are loads of English people in Cornwall, loads of Cornish people in England, and most people in Cornwall do identify with both England and the UK.

Be that as it may, I'm not particularly interested in Cornish nationalism, if at all. I don't regard Cornwall as a nation, but that's not for me to say, I'm not Cornish and as such my opinion is irrelevant. But if they want independence from the evil English empire, and vote that way in a referendum, then fine by me. I'll be sad to see them go, but hey, good luck to them, I doubt it will change my relationship with Cornwall.

No doubt CD will continue to use every article on England that appears on this blog to introduce the topic of Cornish nationalism and leave links to his blog ad nauseum. Fair enough, but I don't have any influence over what happens in Cornwall, I don't write about Cornwall, I'm not Cornish, and I'm not interested. Can I make it any clearer?

My next door neighbour - who is black, and his wife Chinese - has a St
Piran on his car because he was born in Cornwall and regards himself as
Cornish. Do I dislike him? Well yes, but only because he is
tee-total, doesn't smoke, is a veggie, goes jogging everyday, has a successful business, and a beautiful
wife and children....Is Mr Perfect. Only kidding, actually we get on fine, despite our differences, and often watch England matches together.

britologywatch on "Imagined Nation: England After Britain"

britologywatch — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 08:11:59 +0000

If I may hazard some sort of mediation here, at the risk of putting thoughts into others' minds, so to speak, maybe what Toque was suggesting is that Cornishness, Englishness and Britishness are overlapping terms - and not just in a 'hierarchical' way, i.e. Cornishness as a subset of Englishness, which in turn would be a subset of Britishness. E.g. you could say Cornishness is aligned with Britishness as much as / more than with Englishness (the 'Celtic' paradigm for Britishness), or that it is part of a more inclusive Britishness of which England is also a part (the Anglo-Celtic paradigm for Britishness, or the civic-Britishness paradigm). You could also maintain that many Cornish people / people living in Cornwall feel at least a little English as well as Cornish, or some undoubtedly more English than Cornish in a similar way that some English people claim to feel more British than English. The football test (or probably, in Cornwall, the rugby test): in an international match between England and a Celtic British nation, which country do Cornish people support? Or, in the (unlikely?) event that England qualify for the 2010 World Cup, will (m)any Cornish people start wearing England football shirts and hanging the English flag from their bedroom windows, as they do throughout the 'rest' of England. And I'm talking about people who might otherwise call themselves 'mainly' Cornish, not 'English' people who've come to live in Cornwall.

Or on another view, even when the UK dissolves into its component parts, there'll still be a cultural Britishness that people in England will continue to identify with. So, on that analogy, can you say that Cornish people haven't incorporated some elements of cultural Englishness (and cultural Britishness) into their distinctive Cornish identities? In other words, just as Britishness and Englishness are not mutually exclusive terms, neither are Cornishness and Englishness. But that doesn't mean that those terms, or some of them, are invalidated in themselves; nor that any of them need to be subordinated to any other.

Toque on "Imagined Nation: England After Britain"

Toque — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:59:06 +0000

It's hard for me to respond to this, you've really out-manouvered me. It would be like hot butter picking a fight with a knife.

The Cornish Democrat on "Imagined Nation: England After Britain"

The Cornish Democrat — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:30:30 +0000

Perhaps in the way you overplay peoples sense of Englishness and desire for an English parliament as opposed to any other form of devolution?

But yes you find English people In Wales and Scotland too so are they also parts of your empire?

It's funny you use the dual or multiple identities argument to try and undermine Cornish nationalism (as an English supremacist is there any surprise?), but this same argument is not relevant when used to criticise English nationalism ie people are happy being English, British, European so why have an English parliament?

Did you notice your own double standards and just arrogantly thought to hell with Cornwall (as English supremacists do?) or had you just not noticed.

I realise you don't like the Cornish, after all people having the choice and not wanting to be English, but try not to let prejudice cloud your judgment

http://thecornishdemocrat.blogspot.com/

Toque on "Imagined Nation: England After Britain"

Toque — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:01:42 +0000

The level to which Cornish is a 'competing identity' is something that you overplay. Hence, Englishness doesn't stop at the Cornish border.

Best heed your own advice.

The Cornish Democrat on "Imagined Nation: England After Britain"

The Cornish Democrat — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:19:50 +0000

Oh I'm sorry Toque I forgot about Cornwall claiming England as part of the Cornish nation and the English as simply being regional Cornish.

You know when you don't have anything intelligent to add best not add anything at all.

http://thecornishdemocrat.blogspot.com/

Toque on "Imagined Nation: England After Britain"

Toque — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:46:28 +0000

Where does Englishness stop? Not where Cornishness begins, but then that's the great thing about dual identities.

Imagined Nation: England After Britain, Arthur Aughey

Arthur Aughey — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 08:33:43 +0000

Arthur Aughey reviews Imagined Nation: England After Britain by Mark Perryman.

(Perryman, Lawrence & Wishart, April 2008, 248pp)

This book, inspired by Billy Bragg’s The Progressive Patriot, is another contribution to the contemporary Condition of England Question. The editor has assembled a good company of contributors, some familiar, some celebrated, and some less well-known, whose essays, individually and collectively, are worthy of serious reflection. This review will concentrate mainly on the collective spirit albeit with reference to individual authors. Those who have been following the debate will be familiar with not only the arguments but with the tone. Nor will they be surprised that the energy comes from those on the left rather than the right.

First, there is the call for the English to re-imagine a strong national consciousness (to recover one would be too conservative). This left/liberal vision celebrates a civic, liberal, multi-ethnic, hybrid, mongrel, idea of Englishness (choose the appropriate label) but it is an idea that, in the past, it has struggled to reconcile with native populism. There has always been the suspicion, best expressed in the past by Paul Gilroy, of the ‘two World Wars and one World Cup’ beer-fuelled nativism lurking beneath the traditionally conceived civilities of Englishness. This is a suspicion which often makes the liberal-left vision more elitist and therapeutic in its approach to the nation than its conservative counterpart which, in its turn, is more ill at ease with England’s cultural diversity. The vision in Imagined Nation provides an alternative understanding of English patriotic sentiment: that putting out more flags of St George represents what may be called the ‘autonomy of populism’, an expression of patriotic attachment that falls outside the boundaries of party political debate. Its autonomy challenges the normal discourse of British politics and its populism presents an opportunity. Many of the contributors, Andy Newman and Stephen Brasher for example, try to identify the opportunity for the left.

Second, there is a related call to end the English cultural cringe that demeans its own patriotism. This is a reversal of the anxieties that were familiar in the non-English parts of the United Kingdom where the hegemony of England promoted two anxieties: the anxiety of parochialism, in which acknowledgement by England (the centre) was thought necessary to validate the local, and the corresponding anxiety of influence, in which such validation ran the risk of appropriation by English hegemony. The experience of devolution, however, has provoked a corresponding set of English anxieties about the Union which inverts those familiar ‘Celtic’ grievances. In short, the English have discovered the rest of us in the Union not as appendages to England but as assertive political communities. That has disordered the senses and some have come to believe that Britishness – certainly the Brown version - has appropriated Englishness rather than vice versa. The time has come, as Billy Bragg and Richard Weight have long argued, to assert a confident Englishness and to distinguish it from the old Britain.

Third, and in tune with the radicalism of this re-imagining, acknowledging national identity is now a good thing because in England's case the future will not be one of chauvinistic flag waving. English nationalism will not be a dangerous nationalism (it will be exceptional) and it might become the model for others to copy (it will be exemplary). It will be civic, liberal, multi-ethnic, hybrid, mongrel (continue and repeat). This is a noble aspiration and certainly the authors in this volume are concerned to articulate it as an alternative to less noble (that is, BNP) versions of Englishness. Those who find these values compelling will appreciate the arguments. Those who do not will have intelligent arguments to challenge and to debate. There are two general observations I would make because I think they go right to the heart of the ‘imagined nation’ and both of them have to do with the state we are in.

It is now conventional to think of the United Kingdom as a ‘project’ linked to some external objective and designed to serve a particular purpose or purposes. Think here of the work of David Marquand, Linda Colley and Krishan Kumar (to select just three eloquent examples). In his chapter, Andrew Gamble writes that ‘Britain was always a political project’ and that the end of Empire ‘meant the disappearance of the project’. Moreover, its substitute, the grand project of the American Special Relationship, now threatens to undermine support for the United Kingdom. Much of this may be true, but to understand the United Kingdom exclusively as a project, that is a polity united by a common purpose externally defined, is not only to exclude its civic character but also to subscribe to the lure of separatist logic - that the United Kingdom, like the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, is simply a machine for ill-considered external military adventures. But to hold this view is, I would argue, one-eyed and it does less than justice to the civic character of Britishness, found in those procedures and relationships which specify the conditions of belonging, ones which continue to secure the allegiance of the majority in all parts of the United Kingdom.

It has also become common to speak, as the subtitle of this book does, of contemporary politics already being ‘after Britain’. The usage may be traced to that inventive melodist of the United Kingdom’s break-up, Tom Nairn, whose After Britain (2000) appeals to a similar constituency as his original The Break-up of Britain (1977). The spirit of Nairn is explicit (he has a short contribution) and implicit (most of the authors have been influenced by the Chronicles of Nairnia) and it is obvious in the interesting chapter by Gerry Hassan and in contributions by the editor himself. ‘After Britain’ is an invitation to emancipate England from old identity-constraints and with some urgency because the old order, of course, is rapidly disintegrating. To argue that we are already ‘after Britain’, as these writers claim, suggests that the fate of Britishness has already been decided, if not yet at the polls, then at the bar of history. Despite these certainties, the United Kingdom is not fated to break up. It is certainly fated to change but that is an entirely different matter. Of course, the existence of the Union has always been contingent but it is probably wise for those interested in a new England to stop trying to jump over Rhodes.

Of course, I may be wrong on both counts. In which case, this book provides a decent intimation of things to come.