Good Citizen V: Royal oath furore obscures wider need for ceremony

Rick Muir (London, ippr): A huge furore has greeted the publication today of Lord Goldsmith's review of citizenship. This is largely due to the idea (floated as an option rather than a recommendation) that young people should be asked to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen. Like most people on the liberal-left such a proposal fills me with horror: the idea of repeating those awful occasions at Scouts when you had to salute the flag and affirm your loyalty to the monarch makes me cringe. As a life-long republican, this would mean asking me to say something that I didn't mean.

But let's put the question of this oath to one side: is there value in a ceremony for young people to mark a rite of passage once they have completed their citizenship education and turned 18? The proposal has of course been condemned out of hand as a gimmick - but so too were ceremonies for foreign-born residents taking on citizenship when they were introduced in 2004. However, observers have since been struck by how meaningful and even moving these ceremonies are as a way of welcoming new citizens and helping them feel part of a wider community.

What purpose would such ceremonies for young people serve? We know that we need to do more to foster active citizenship among young people - just 37 % of 18-24 year olds voted in the last election, compared to 75% of the over-65s. This is not just a lifecycle effect: we know that as each generation has passed, the subsequent generation of citizens have voted less throughout their lives than their predecessor. We may be on the brink of losing a whole generation of (particularly disadvantaged) young people from democratic participation.

Now, of course, no one is asserting that a single ceremony is going to reverse these trends. There is no magic bullet - and clearly reform of our political institutions and wider social policy are crucial. Citizenship education, if done well, should also play a role in equipping young people with the knowledge of how to get involved in civic life, how to organise in the workplace to defend their rights and how to take action politically when they are angered by something our leaders are doing.

Yet whereas there are many occasions during our lives which are marked by ceremony so to emphasise their significance (getting married, having children, graduating from school or university), we currently do little to mark the act of becoming a citizen. If we believe citizenship is valuable then I think it makes sense to do more to mark its acquisition and to spread understanding of what it means - as opposed to the rather random and impersonal event of receiving a form through the post when it comes to election day.

Governments should, of course, tread carefully here. We do not want stuffy, top-down ceremonies with flags and oaths. This is not the United States - nor is it 1950s Britain. Rather we should leave it up to young people to design the ceremonies themselves (within some broad national guidelines) including presentations on what citizenship means to them, talking about and reflecting on their experiences. This could actually be a rather attractive and liberal process, rather than some vain effort to shore up an understanding of national identity that has passed. It should not require people to sign up to substantive pledges regarding the monarchy or national identity which would be divisive - rather it should be about saying in a democracy, within the rule of law, we agree to disagree - and we don't require much more than that. We could also build it onto existing school leaving days and graduation ceremonies rather than introducing something entirely new (the effective raising of the education leaving age to 18 will help).

So, no to monarchical oaths and saluting flags - but yes to making more of what, in a democracy, should be a significant event.