Strength through unity? Nationalism is not separatism

Gareth Young (Lewes, CEP): Imagine if David Cameron made a speech in England in which he pandered to English nationalism by proclaiming "We will not stop fighting to meet England's needs". It's very difficult to imagine him doing that, but it shouldn't be, because I only paraphrase the very pledge he made in his speech to Scotland yesterday.

What is less difficult to imagine is the Conservative Party going into an election campaign with the nationalist slogan "Putting Scotland First" or them joining a tripartite commission to look into devolving even greater powers to Scotland's national Government. Less difficult because both these things have already happened, despite the fact that they are inherently nationalist in flavour.

One might reasonably expect Cameron to flaunt his Unionist and British credentials in the weeks prior to the Democracy Task Force's recommendation that Scotland's MPs be exiled from the Union parliament on certain days, and I don't begrudge him doing so, but to crudely target English nationalists at the same time only serves to underline the paucity of his argument.

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In his Telegraph interview Cameron informed us that for good or bad the Union comes first, irrespective of all else, and that he wants 'to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom [but] not England'. The English are thus justly entitled to ask whether he will kindly devolve power over English-only affairs to an office that will put English interests first, just as the Scottish First Minister is wont to put Scotland first in the concomitant areas over which his government has responsibility. This is nationalism and there's nowt wrong with it. The English nationalist maxim should be Putting England First. But this is not the same as separatism, for the separatist argument concludes that the broader interests of England or Scotland are best served outside the political union. My nationalism is not incompatible with unionism, but it does require constitutional sovereignty and recognition of England's nationhood, thereby allowing England to make that choice.

According to Mr Cameron

being British is one of the most successful examples of inclusive civic nationalism in the world. We are a shining example of what a multi-ethnic, multi-faith and multi-national society can and should be

If Britain was indeed a shining example of a multi-national society truly at ease with itself then the Conservatives would not go into rigor mortis at every mention of English nationalism, and neither would they scramble frantically to distance themselves from the politicisation of Englishness. Unfortunately Cameron's Britain is a union in which "the shared institutions we cherish" are British institutions for which the

non-English nations have their own sub-British versions. There's not much room for England. But a little pandering to English nationalism could go a long way in this respect because it could create explicitly English institutions on a par with their currently subordinate Scottish and Welsh counterparts. This not only elevates England but also Scotland and Wales, releasing the tensions that divergence from the English-British centre

presently causes.

The Conservatives would no doubt claim that there is no intellectual dishonesty in simultaneously claiming to put 'Scotland First' and 'Britain First' because broadly speaking Scotland's interests are Britain's interests, and vice versa (even if Scotland doesn't vote Tory). But if that's the case then the corollary must be that England-First is also an acceptable face of unionism.

To make British a byword for a successful multi-ethnic and multi-faith society we must tackle the misappropriation of the English nationalists' cause by White Nationalists like the BNP. Either we forge a progressive civic England, or we leave the political expression of Englishness buried and open to ethnicisation by the far-right. To my mind the best way to create a civic and progressive England is for everybody - regardless of ethnicity, race or religion - to be a stakeholder in England through the ballot box in English elections to an English parliament. And that is an argument for inclusion, not separatism.

"Stronger Together: Weaker Apart" is a sickly sweet love duet sung by Brown and Cameron that picks up where Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes' Up Where We Belong left off. It is released in England on the 24th, and a week earlier as a double A-side featuring the duelling bagpipes of Wendy Alexander and Alex Salmond in Scotland.

Footnote: In the interest of balance I would like to point out that while the Tories used the slogans "Putting Britain First", "Putting Scotland First" and "Putting Wales First" the Labour Party used the slogans "Britain is Working", "Scotland is Working" and "Wales is Working". Neither saw fit to mention England.