According to A. J. P. Taylor, in 1934 Oxford University Press commissioned its History of England series on the basis that ‘England’ was still “an all-embracing word”. It meant “indiscriminately England and Wales; Great Britain; the United Kingdom; and even the British Empire” (A. J. P. Taylor, English History, 1914-1945, OUP 1965). Looking back from the 1960s, AJP still believed this to be the appropriate historiographical perspective to take, and in private correspondence he made this very clear. “I am obsessed with England”, he wrote to his editor G. N. Clark in 1961, “to hell with Scotland, Northern Ireland and still more the Empire!!” (A. J. P. Taylor to G. N. Clark: 20 May 1961, Clark Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford, MSS Box 30.). One wonders if he thought Ireland even worth sending to hell.
Taylor never sought to conceal his Anglocentrism. He revelled in it. But having penned the fifteenth volume of the History of England series, he was far from being alone in assuming that England – its people, economy, government and monarchy – provided the central storyline for the history of these islands. The assumptions of English dominance inherent in J. R. Seeley’s famous lectures on The Expansion of England have resonated across the last century of historical writing. In fact, although a follow up series to the one begun in 1934 was commissioned by OUP – with the first volume appearing in 1992 – the editors still plumped for the title New Oxford History of England.
Professor Brian Harrison’s Finding a Role? The United Kingdom, 1970-1990 is the latest volume in that series, and – as the title implies – the story of the United Kingdom is central to the period in question, covering as it does the beginnings of the ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland, the development of Scottish and Welsh nationalism and the entry of the UK into the EEC in a supposedly post-imperial age. Harrison’s book provides an admirable synthesis of the cultural, social, economic and political history of the period, but this is not ‘four nations’ history. Although the constituent parts of the UK do feature, England remains the central reference point.
For many professional historians then, England has, and often continues to be the primary historical mover and shaker in the history of these islands, and hence by implication the history of the expansion and contraction of the British Empire. This is unsurprising, for the historical profession in some sense owes a great debt to the national dimension of history writing. Leopold von Ranke, the ‘founder of the science of history’, often took the history of nations as his reference point. In the nineteenth century and beyond, the musings and memoirs of national elites and the politics of the nation-state constituted the historical archive, and in an important sense constituted the historical discipline as unified field of inquiry.
Much has changed since then. There are possible narratives about the history of these islands which go beyond national frameworks of analysis towards a new transnational history: narratives of exchange, of contact, of interaction, of ‘gains’ and ‘losses’ to be measured not on a balance sheet, but by the traces they have left behind, the legacies they have left for our present. A great deal of work has already been done, and yet arguably we still have only a very limited understanding of the ways in which the history of empire has shaped our politics, culture, economy and society. But this raises the question, do we still need ‘national history’?
If the nation is a fundamentally modern repository for collective identity, then are we living in a post-modern, post-national world, in which national history might lose its resonance? The evidence here is mixed, but it may be that our sense of selfhood today is more complex and multi-layered than it has been in the recent past. If so, then the place of national history seems to be an increasingly pressing question connecting professional historians with teachers of history in schools and with policy-makers in government concerned with the nature of citizenship and belonging.
Perhaps a starting point is a better understanding of the function that history – and especially the teaching of history – has performed in sustaining collective identities over time. It is precisely this that the timely History in Education project, currently underway at London’s Institute of Historical Research (IHR) under the guidance of David Cannadine, seeks to explore. But this kind of research still leaves open the question of whether national history is English or British, and this points toward the possibility of a looming paradox.
Debates about the English question, English votes for English laws and the problem of English identity can be seen as symptomatic of a crisis of confidence about the place of England within an increasingly disunited kingdom. And, for all the centrality of England to the history of Britain, if the break up of Britain should actually occur, it may be the English who are left as the ‘people without history’, for the history of England is a hostage to the fortunes of the United Kingdom.
Why should this be the case? As Krishan Kumar has perceptively and persuasively argued, the appropriate frame for understanding English national identity is not the distinction between ethnic or civic bases for nationhood, but England’s ‘missionary imperialism’: the expansionist fervour of the English people. Crucially, Kumar claims, this moves the emphasis of an English national identity from the ‘creators to their creations’ (K. Kumar, The Making of English National Identity (CUP, 2003), p. x.). If Kumar’s thesis concerning the source of England’s national identity is correct, then, as Kumar points out, the implications of the loss of those ‘creations’ – let us suppose Alex Salmond were successful in persuading the Scottish people to turn A. J. P. Taylor on his head and say “to hell with England” – are quite disturbing.
It is my view that complete severance is less plausible than a reconfiguration. But whether we are looking ahead to ‘Scotland the brave’, ‘England alone’ or some reinvention of the Union, what is certain is that the empire is gone for good, industrial supremacy is a thing of the very distant past and the Westminster model of politics has been found increasingly wanting. In addition, the monarchy under a future Charles III looks not just unpalatable but positively unconstitutional.
If the foundations of ‘Great Britain’ have either ceased to exist or are crumbling around us, it might be said that all histories working on the assumption – explicit or implicit – that the history of England equates to the history of England’s expansion and impact on the world – that is histories of England’s ‘creative work’ – are ultimately histories of decline and loss. This is why Niall Ferguson’s efforts to re-narrate a comforting island story about ‘how Britain made the modern world’ amount to little more than nostalgia. From the perspective of our twenty-first century present, there seems to be an absence of meaning at the heart of England’s history, and we need a great conversation about what to put it is place.
Comments
Who says the monarchy is looking unpalatable? HRH the Prince of Wales seems to have a lot to offer in the sense of decent, traditionalist ideas.
I hardly think the "Westminister model" is perfect but its seems to have done pretty well and its opposition seems only to be Jacobin and far-left idiocy, so it is hard to think it is more wanting than the alternatives you are likely to offer.
Ultimately anyone who can cast England's history as you do must bring a suspicion of historical ignorance upon them. It is extremely silly to cast our history in this way, most of us are sensible enough to see the idiocy of post-modernism, post-structuralism and other leftist nonsense and see they haved little to add to real history.
Btw no doubt the Cornish will love you talking of the '4 nations' of the UK.
I cannot understand how there can be a crisis of English identity with people like AJP Taylor who has rammed Englishness down everyone's throat. The whole demand for Home Rule for Scotland and Wales was to break free from this Anglo-centric 'cultural imperialism.' Thus it seems very laughable to me, for the English to complain in only ten years that they are being ignored or dismembered when it has happened in Wales and Scotland for more than a thousand years. And it is seems laughable that many English nationalists and the far-right complain when the English are portrayed as imperialists or racists when for the last four hundred years they have been the prime and nearly the only movers in the destruction of Celticism and imperialist expansion throughout the world. Who are the English claiming independence from - themselves? The hypocrisy of the English nationalists is amazing! Only when England fully acknowledges the existence of other nations in the British Isles and no longer uses the Celts as whipping boys and scapegoats can there be a newer and better England.
I have always admired Britology's blog but I think a massive blog spanning a thousand years could be made on Anglology or the suppression of Celtic identity in favour of Greater England. This might lead to the danger of England becoming a new Serbia, who can only express itself when it is suppressing other countries. Unable to do it to India and other countries, it is now looking closer to home. The racism of the EDL and the EDP and the BNP is frightening.. We must move away from this if we want the England we want! It is time to breakup the Anglo-centric, anti-European, anti-Celtic, anti-immigrant xenophobia created by English imperialism and replace it with something far better!
Is it? Really?
This English nationalist isn't responsible for the sins of the past. I've never voted for or supported Unionism, Colonialism, Imperialism; nor have I played any part in supressing 'Celtic identity', and I am not and have never been a supporter of the far-right. I didn't vote for Thatcher or New Labour's New Britain. Get a grip of yourself and find some perspective, for [Edited. Your eloquent prose is not enhanced by expletives Toque - BC] sake, and you might then find some common ground, and even common cause, with English nationalists.
Cornish nationalism is not my cause, and it never will be. Deal with it.
I don't slag off Cornish nationalists and write negative things about them. If you want independence (or some degree of autonomy) then you can have it as far as I am concerned, if you can get it. I'm not standing in your way.
My problem with New England is in his (or her) sterotyping of English nationalists. Some English nationalists may have an anglo-centric view of Britain, may be imperialist, colonialist, far-right, hypocritical, etc...But it's about as accurate a sterotype as me calling the Labour Party a bunch of authoritarian fascists (which I did on a previous occasion and was censured by the our Kingdom editorial team).
No, as Scottish independence, Breton regionalism or the rights of the Tibetan people are not my causes, it's simply that they are good causes Toque, and my horizons rise above my own nation.
As an English nationalist you are in a particular position with regards the Cornish national identity, something you can't really deny, so think of it as a chance for you to do the right thing.
Gold star for you. My position, as I told Anthony last week when he asked me to write something on Cornish nationalism, is that it is my policy to ignore the Cornish question, mainly because to highlight it would be to give into your incessent nagging and pestering, which is something that I will never do out of a personal dislike of you.
Ah so integrity gives way to petty mindedness.
1) Your fair play civic English nationalism seems to have its limits and is applied in a rather cynical way. This leads me to believe that your claims of being a civic nationalist are a sham and merely there to attract lost progressives and democrats to your cause.
2) You let personal prejudices cloud your judgement as to what is right and fair.
Bravo to you. I hope you back slapping buddy, Anthony, appreciated your response.
To be honest you both seem to do number two a hell of a lot. English nationalists need to realise the Cornish are separate from England, that the size and power of England is not really what is important as much as its freedom, culture and healthy society and that keeping the Cornish under our thumb, if they truly don't want it, is not a good idea or a positive for England.
Cornubian, you and quite a few other other Cornish nats need to recognise that by trying to keep your movement and other similars ones to a pure, socially progressive, socially democratic and europhile few, and attacking all who disagree with vitriol, you are hardly doing yourself any favours. You are alienating large amounts of possible support because of your own irrelevant political prejducices. Whether one is socially conservative or eurosceptic is hardly that important to whether you support Cornish nationalism or regionalism and by rejecting all these sorts of voters you certainly are ruling out a significant part of the Cornish population(UKIP and Tories are quite popular there.).
I think the major problem is that the teaching of the early history of 'England' is so obviously inadequate. Roman Britain is studied, in a fashion, after which general history moves straight on to 'Anglo-Saxons', leaving out almost entirely the years from the expulsion of the Roman imperial bureaucracy in 410 to the late Seventh Century. Insofar as it is even mentioned, we are to suppose that some German mercenaries somehow (gas chambers?) removed three million people from this world, unless (in taxis?) they 'drove them' to a vaguely-imagined 'West', where, just as now, naturally, the whole population of southern Britain could easily subsist on the agricultural resources of 'Wales'! Anyway, the native population of Britain has somehow been vanished, and it is time to start again, with the British as foreigners - Welsh! This sort of drivel doesn't, just perhaps, make for the best start in any understanding of the nature of England, and certainly doesn't help in discussing its relations with the allegedly 'Celtic' countries (there were no people called Celts in Britain till the early Eighteenth Century, by the way!). German mercenaries overthrew the old order, which - if it was following the old imperial pattern - was doubtless a good thing to overthrow, supported, doubtless, by a great many of the British people tied to their fathers' role in life by surviving Roman decree. The assumption is that language-change means population-change: it is, obviously, just like the West Indies, except that the English-speaking invaders there have subsequently turned black! History that begins with nonsense about ethnic cleasning and murder is not likely to move forward into light, I reckon.
The 'West' you speak of also, of course, included West Wales or Cournwallia. Equally Anglo-dominated history overlooks the Britons, Bretons, who moved to Armorica as being of no interest. Very internationalist of them.
Yes the stories of ethnic cleansing by sword and fire are certainly exaggerated. Genetic evidence shows that the British population has not changed that much.
However socio-economic systems similar to apartheid have been suggested as the reason why the Britons gave up their culture so quickly and left such little trace in the new language.
Most histories I've read make a careful note of the movement of Britons to Amorica, so where are you getting this?
Try the UK schools curriculum.
You mean they teach proper history now?!!!
How much improved from my day, where it went thus.
Stone Age
Egypt
Rome
Vikings (about one page, mainly pictures I seem to reccal)
High Middle Ages
Industrial revolution
With nothing after and as you can see a huge ammount left out. Which I have been filling in over the years ever since.
Again?
Very well then.
Germanic speakers had arrived in Britain prior to the Roman invasion and conquest, prior in fact to Caesar. The fact they where part of the Belgae confedertion of tribes is clear, as is the fact that over half of said confederation where speakers of a Germanic languages.
The Romans themselves told us this, that we all ingored it for the far more dubious attractions of genocide for centuries speaks more of the attitudes of historians of those times than it does of the facts on the ground.
German mercenaries where the catalyst in a social, politcal and cultural change. Finding a ready and willing mass of people already speaking their language.
And how convenient to start from the end of the Roman Empire....missing out how Celtic culture had expanded over most of Europe before meeting peoples who said 'no' to it.
I agree with you, there were no Celts in Britain, only Celtic languages whose common words with Gaul (France), Galatia (Turkey) and so on are very well known. Welsh names exist throughout England but are never acknowledged. I think if England abandoned its anglo-centric racialist fantasies and realized it had a lot in common with its neighbours. I don't think there was any holocaust - after all the earliest English Kings like Cerdic and Cynric had Welsh names!
Celtic languages are a development from Indo-European, carrying with it the same trends in culture found throughout the area covered by this linguisitic group.
Celtic placenames decrease in density the closer to the eastern coast you get, just as they decrease to zero the further towards the German coast you get.
'Cerdic' is a Germanic spelling of a celtic name, presumably because it was said in this Germanic way, and is not itself an indication of the recipient of that name being Celtic or Germanic as such. His parents might merely have liked the sound of the name. However he is recorded as a leader of a Germanic style warband (the Gewissae - Yewissa) and his descendents took over the West Saxons on the upper reaches of the Thames.
On the otherhand, Icel is the son of Eomer, last King in Anglen, and Aelle is rather proud of his Saxon heritage.
Putting aside your poor language, Toque, I am simply saying that if England wants a new and better identity, then it cannot continue to celebrate its anglo-centric imperialist past. You cannot have your cake and eat it, as they say. I want a civic English nationalism which isn't built on hating Europe, the Celts, immigrants, etc. I hope you want the same!
New England, Thank you for excusing my poor language, you're so forgiving. I'm determined that one day I will match your mastery of the written word. See my articles English nationalism vs British nationalism, The BNP is the new Labour Party, A National Conversation for England, English Civic Nationalism and let me know whether you agree with me.
Perhaps you could point us in the direction of one of your articles where you have such a high minded and progressive approach to the Cornish identity and request for devolution Toque?
Your civic and English sense of 'fair-play' seems to be rather selective from this son Cornwall's POV.
I've never written an article on Cornish identity or devolution, it's not a subject I know anything about or feel qualified to discuss. Also, I'm not interested in it, as you know.
"la la la" "They'll just go away one day won't they?"
Well that's what they want, isn't it?
Don't get me wrong, Cornwall interests me, it's just Cornish nationalism that leaves me cold. It's for other people to argue that case, Cornish people - specifically, those who feel Cornish and not English (or British). It would be disingenuous of me to make their argument for them, not to mention a complete waste of my time and contrary to my beliefs. Probably wouldn't do any good either.
Sorry if you don't like that, but frankly I don't care for you or your cause.
Speaks the nationalist who expects others to support his cause.The hypocrisy is stunning.
It's not a question of making arguments for anyone, we can do that ourselves, its simply about being fair and having some degree of intellectual integrity.
If one nation has rights ALL other nations should have the same rights.
Give it a rest Phillip. We'll be down in Cornwall soon, I hope, buying a house. Email me your address and I'll pop round and give you the opportunity to call me a hypocrite to my face.
I'm not asking anyone who is not English to support my cause, you'll notice that I've never asked you. I'm not Cornish, I don't support your cause, I will not support it. End of.
So you're not bothered about the gaping holes in your politics. Okay then.
My address is on its way.
wessexman1: I can assure you I am not a 'post-modernist' or a 'post-structuralist'. 'Other leftist nonsense', however, may well be a category I fall into, depending on where you are coming from!
New England: you say you want a 'civic English nationalism'. What exactly would that look like? And what kind of history would need to be written to support it?
It's not history that needs to support civic English nationalism, it's the present. Unfortunately the intellectual left currently finds English identity abhorent, and the right is mired in a Tory idea of anglo-Britishness (Greater England/Empire Nation as described by Ben Wellings - whose ideas are very simillar to yours, Michael). We're back on David Marquand's turf here - the idea that England needs to find a narrative in order to justify democracy and self-determination for England, and until such time that it does English nationalism is deplorable.
Is anyone in agreement or disagreement with Krishan Kumar's thesis? The debate seems to be very polarised, with 'English nationalists' staunchly defending their nation, its right to exist indepedently of the United Kingdom etc.. But one of the implications of Kumar's thesis is that new themes may be required for an English identity, and unlike Toque I do believe (I would wouldn't I?) that "history matters"...England's history of 'liberty', 'democracy', 'anti-slavery', 'anti-fascism' ... or 'inequality', 'imperialism', 'racism', 'anti-Europeanism'? How about England simply as a 'global crossing'?
I would say disagreement, its a highly biased construct and aimed at support of the concept of 'new Britain'.
England is a 'sith', a journey, an adventure. England sith, English yesith.
Michael, I'll try and be more constructive. I don't say that history doesn't matter, of course it does in a broader sense. It's just that I don't think that repackaging history in a less anglo-centric manner (moving from A. J. P. Taylor to Norman Davies) is what is required. It's repackaging the constitutional present that we need to focus on, and in doing so recalim our history. The reason why I brought Wellings into the argument is because he takes Kumar's thesis to the extreme, his basic argument being: English nationalism is the legitimization of Parliamentary sovereignty based on a version of the past which emphasizes victory, but has since tended to see that recent past as one of “decline”.
Parliamentary sovereignty, insofar as it relates to our debate on English nationalism, is shorthand for Imperialism. It's the idea that the Crown is sovereign, that all authority flows from that nebulous idea, rather than from a territory or people (state/nation). That is England's problem. England has not been a nation-state since anglo-saxon times, it's always incorporated other nations or parts of what are now other nations under the English Crown - Greater England.
'Greater Englanders' - 'Anglo-Brits' as Bryant calls them, and as I prefer to call them - are completely wedded to the idea of the Crown/Parliamentary sovereignty and England's place at the centre of Empire, even though Empire is now contracted down to the United Kingdom and a few small islands. They cannot separate out English interests and history from that of the Imperium, which is why they now talk of 'Britain' when what they are really talking about is England (see Simon Lee's Best for Britain?: The Politics and Legacy of Gordon Brown). Previously they talked of England when they meant Britain because to do so in the age of Empire did not upset Scottish and Welsh sensibilities to the extent that it might endanger Britain, now they talk of Britain when they mean England to reinforce the idea of Britain and so as not to draw attention to their lack of a British mandate.
Some of the most vociferous Anglo-Brits are Scots, it's not just an English problem. Gordon Brown and Michael Gove spring immediately to mind. In fact, despite appeals to popular sovereignty devolution to Scotland was a very British solution, preserving as it did Parliamentary sovereignty - the Crown represented in the Scottish Parliament by a silver mace. Michael Gove cannot talk about 'English schools' or 'English history', he talks instead of teaching more 'British history' in 'British schools' by changing the national curriculum (which is, of course, a national curriculum for England). It is not England's history that is the problem, it is the fact that England is not allowed its own history separate from that of Crown/Empire/Britain.
At school I learned very little about English history or the story of the English people. We covered the mistreatment and eventual emancipation of foreigners under the British Crown (aboriginal Australians, Black slaves and Native Americans), and we studied the suffaragettes (which was a British, rather than English, movement), but we never covered Anglo-Saxon England (apart from its Conquest), we never learned about the Magna Carta, Bill of Rights, Habeas Corpus, the Civil War, etc. In short we never learned about the history and stuggle of the English people, although we did learn a lot about Roman Britain, Royalty (Princess in the Tower) and various British wars. Monarchy and Empire are important and interesting but if there is one major change I would make to the teaching of history it would be to move it towards a Peoples' history rather than a Crown history, which, incidently, is also the change that I would make to our democracy.
This is where Marquand comes in, or more constructively Andrew O'Hagan:
The history of the English people is a history of moving towards negative liberty without defining an English future. To say that "debates about the English question, English votes for English laws and the problem of English identity can be seen as symptomatic of a crisis of confidence about the place of England within an increasingly disunited kingdom" is a fundamental misreading of the situation, at least in the way that I see it. If there is a crisis of confidence it affects Britishness and British identity rather than English identity. The English will be absolutely fine if Britain breaks up, we won't be struggling for an identity or set hopelessly adrift. England's problem arises from remaining a part of the Union. The problem is how British identity incorporates the various national identities of the United Kingdom. Can Britain reinvent itself as an umbrella identity rather than the all encompassing anglo-british political and cultural identity that it was previously regarded as (in England for longer than Scotland and Wales, but in faster decline in England than in Ulster)? Can we reconfigure Britain to accomodate a more assertive English identity; can we find legitimate democratic focus and outlet for English identity, and allow England her own history and narrative, without destroying or making redundant British identity?
Or do we sit back and allow the Anglo-Brits to appropriate everything English for Britain? Do we really have to put up with Gordon Brown claiming that there is “a golden thread which runs through British history – that runs from that long ago day in Runnymede in 1215; on to the Bill of Rights in 1689 where Britain became the first country to successfully assert the power of Parliament over the King”, and that “Voltaire said that Britain gave to the world the idea of liberty”, or that an appeal to fairness “runs through British history, from early opposition to the first poll tax in 1381 to the second; fairness the theme from the civil war debates”?
I say no. But I also say that this is a problem for Britain rather than England.
The Campaign for an English Parliament is, for me, part of an English narrative of a battle for liberty against the Crown/State, with the added benefit that given our own national parliament we can define our future and build a popular idea of modern England. English votes on English laws is an Anglo-British response to a British Question, it is not an answer to the English Question. It is an answer to the British Question because it concerns the voting privileges of British MPs in the British Parliament, in an attempt to mitigate grievances that spring from asymmetric democracy and England's constitutional non-existence. English Votes on English Laws is a negative liberty response, in that it partially frees the English from outside interference, without any attempt at positive liberty - no English nationalism, no definition, no popular sovereignty: England indistinct.
That's an interesting, thoughtful comment, in contrast to much of this discussion! One thing this debate demonstrates is that history very much matters in terms of definining national identity and direction - whether as a retrospective narrative (or re-writing of history), or as a history that we ourselves write - going forward - through the definition and creation of a new, distinct English-national politics and culture.
I think that one thing that any new English-national mythos will need to express is a set of inspirational ideas and beliefs. The most successful, cohesive nations all seem to draw inspiration from some sort of deeply meaningful foundational moment, illustrating how the nation arose and what it 'means', e.g. a struggle for liberty (the USA or France); a basic fight for survival amid shared suffering (Russia); or common and ancient ethnicity and history (China or Japan).
New Labour's Britologists, as I call them, have tried to write such a grand narrative centred on 'Britain': Gordon Brown's "golden thread which runs through British history", as Toque refers to it above. Essentially, however, this has involved the re-writing of English history as British history, but one which - unlike classic Anglo-Britishness - actually denies any place or identity for Englishness at the heart of that Britishness, or indeed anywhere. In short, it's a writing of England out of history.
The starting point for the writing of a stand-alone English history must therefore be the rejection of any Britain-centric history for England or, indeed, the UK as a whole. But this new historiography is indissociably bound up with the political struggle against the British centre: unaccountable, undemocratic rule of England and, to a lesser extent, of the other UK nations from the Westminster centre.
In short, it seems to me that both these dimensions - English history and UK-political reform - are held together in the ideal of democracy. I think it is more particularly democracy, rather than liberty, that can be seen as the distinct English contribution to the global civilisation of the modern world. If the Anglo-British empire spread anything of enduring value throughout the world, it is the ideals of representative democracy. That's not to say that there aren't many bad things that were associated with the empire, including the very undemocratic nature of imperial rule itself. But it's as an indirect result of that rule, including in reaction to it, that the English ideals of democracy have taken root in civilisations as diverse as the USA and India, among many others.
I think England can recover a sense of its own self-worth and reinvigorating purpose by espousing democracy as its most fundamental ideal and historical legacy. Indeed, England could become a worldwide champion of democracy, not by re-creating the imperial errors of democracy imposed by the barrel of a shotgun a la Iraq, but through moral leadership, and by driving an exemplary process of modern and fundamental democratic reform for the global community to be inspired by.
It could be argued that by making democracy, more even than liberty, the heart of the new English-national myth, one risks enshrining the principles of negative liberty discussed by Toque above: democracy being seen as associated with the English wish to just be free to do what you want without outside interference. Well, I think that, too, is an important freedom; and the 'English castle' philosophy is one that I can relate to and should be defended while, at the same time, any negative aspects to it (such as insularity, and hostility to other nations and cultures) should also be open to democratic criticism and argument.
But these issues form part of a cultural debate - what kind of England do we want to be? - a debate that can only really be had until we have a democratic England that can decide what it is to become in the modern world.
For England and St. George, maybe; but for England and democracy first!
There's a bit of "what should come first, the chicken or the egg", about this conversation. We're in danger of concluding that English history needs to be rewritten or reimagined before England can have democracy, which is essentially David Marquand's belief. Or that England needs to be more English, less British, before it can have, or can legitimately demand, self-governance.
IPPR and Mark Perryman, with whom I had a discussion on Our Kingdom, are of the belief that a greater sense of Englishness is required. Perryman believes that an English parliament is inevitable as Britishness declines and the UK breaks up, and that this process can be hastened by a greater English self-awareness. The IPPR believe that England is not yet ready for an English parliament and calls for a greater English cultural nationalism as a prerequisite to political nationalism (a position that is likely to be reiterated in their forthcoming paper).
My position is that irrespective of whether English identity is regarded as good or bad, national government and democratic renewal are the tools that England requires to foster a more inclusive and plural English national identity. Part of this is reclaiming from Britain (or the Britologists) our own national narrative, but I don't think it's essential for England to lose its sense of Britishness or its anglo-centric idea of Britishness. It would help English nationalists if the English did lose it, but it's not essential to English democracy. As I said the anglo-centrism is more a problem for Britain because it puts English identity and British identity in competition (rather than British identity being an umbrella identity that can encompass English identity), and if British identity is essentally English it doesn't permit the Scots and Welsh equal ownership of 'Britishness' - the same applies to British institutions like Parliament, supposedly British, but essentially English.
Bryant sums up the British and English questions like so:
Increasingly the answer to both is "No". The identity and interests of the English nation are not sufficiently met by a British state that fails to differentiate between Britain and England, and the loyalty of Scotland and Wales is tested by the anglo-centrism of the British state. British problems, rather than English problems, even if resolution of the problems within the Union can only come from the English (the Scots could resolve the problem only by breaking the Union).
More particularly, English history - England's story - can be viewed as the history of Parliament (parliamentary democracy). I wonder if the final chapter will be to kick out the non-English politicians and contract Crown and Parliamentary sovereignty to England, a contraction of Greater England to Little England.
Interesting question as to whether what I would term 'ontological' disengagement from Britishness (the English increasingly seeing Englishness and Britishness as distinct) or the creation of separate political institutions should come first and determine the other. I suppose I'm more inclined to the view that there needs to be a greater degree of the former before the English perceive there to be a sufficient need for the latter.
You quote Bryant: "Are the identity and interests of the English nation still sufficiently protected by the British state? (the English question). And can the British state still secure sufficient loyalty from all its citizens? (the Britishness question)."
In my view, the window of opportunity for change will come for England only when the British state ceases to command sufficient loyalty from its English citizens. And that will be the case when English people realise the British state is not adequately looking after either their interests (political question) or identity (ontological question). But in order to gain that perception, the English and British identity will already need to have begun separating: the disengagement between England and Britain thereby serving as a precondition for the political analysis to make any sense.
But that's a nice distinction, and I think in reality progress on either front - political or cultural-ontological - is likely to nudge forward progress on the other front: keep pushing at the edifice (political) while undermining its foundations (ontological). The end result is the same. I certainly don't think, a la Marquand, that we need to have a fully defined English narrative in place before we can start doing the political job: the democratic injustices that already exist are a sufficient target to attack now and achieve changes that move in the right longer-term direction. As you know, I take quite a long-term, pragmatic and evolutionary view of things.
Canon Kenyon Wright wrote that the 'revolutionary' moment was Westminster conceding popular sovereignty. It's probably safe to say, going back to England's prediliction for negative liberty, that the English aren't going to rise up and demand popular sovereignty, and I find it rather unlikely that the rabble at Westminster will offer it to us on a plate. So you may be correct in thinking that the revolutionary moment for England will be when the majority realise that they're disenfranchised - more of a "loss of faith" moment.
Prof Robert Hazell said that the English Question was not an exam question that the English had to answer (he may have been talking about the West Lothian Question, but the same applies). The English might decide that they can put up with asymmetry and unfairness for the sake of the Union, which in the long run would probably end up undermining the very Union that they hold dear. When push comes to shove I think most English people have a loyalty to England but an allegiance to the Union, or more particularly Westminster. By allegiance I mean to say that they recognise its legitimacy and authority. Despite Westminster's recent problems it will be hard to shake off what is a legitimacy largely based on history and continuity. In respect of the English Question, Westminster should do all it can not to be an affront to our loyalty to England, because it is only that which will test our allegiance to Westminster.
Canny Scottish and Welsh nationalists realise this. The common cause that all nationalists have, and I include our Cornish friend, is in undermining the legitimacy of Westminster and Parliamentary sovereignty. Alex Salmond in particular recognises that I think, and you may have noticed over the past few years that the SNP have moved away from attacks on Britain and Britishness (which alienates a lot of his potential supporters), with the emphasis now much more on questioning the legitimacy of Westminster, a question that is aimed as much at England as Scotland. Salmond recognises that England is key, so we perhaps shouldn't discount the effect that Scotland will have on shaping English opinion.
Cultural factors are important, but you can have allegiance without loyalty (very few people around Europe are loyal to the EU, but many have a allegiance to the EU based upon political (or economic) pragmatism), so I wouldn't take it for granted that an increase in English self-awareness combined with a decrease in Britishness will necessarily affect our allegiance to Westminster. Sadly I think it's most likely that our allegiance to Westminster will remain but our loyalty to England will demand that it becomes increasingly English in function, which I guess is why some people regard 'English Votes on English Laws' as a stepping stone.
Given the English nation's sentimental attachment to Westminster I've always been of the opinion that the fastest route to an English parliament is to fatally undermine the status quo. Proper English Votes on English Laws might just have done that, but I don't think the Tories new version will. Perhaps our best hope is a constitutional crisis like the one envisaged on Conservative Home - that could do for England what Thatcher and the poll tax did for Scotland.
UPDATE:
Looks like the SNP might be revising their strategy.
Indeed I would agree with what you have written, however what maybe you and so many of the confidently articulate people have written, is that a vital point is being overlooked. No matter what is written on the subject of England, its past or present position in the World, its future is and will continue to be controlled absolutely by Commissioners of the United States of the European Union. For over 30 years the gradual integration of EU’s controls and regulations on all the lives of the peoples of Europe and when the sixth treaty was signed by Gordon Brown on January 1st 2009, England became just another minor state of the EU and gave the EU powers to close our Westminster Parliament as Westminster will have no powers and no function inside Europe . No matter what the outcome might be from the forthcoming farcical General Election, Westminster will be controlled by the EU.
It might be worth noting that under article 8A-4 of the Lisbon Treaty. ‘Political parties at European level contribute to forming European political awareness and to expressing the will of citizens of the Union’.
What does that mean? I hear you ask. It means that parties at the European level are defined as parties with voters in more than 10 countries. The Labour, Lib Dem and Conserative parties have voters in only one country, Britain.
Under this clause, British parties do not contribute and do not express the will of the EU’s citizens. That empowers the EU to abolish our Lab/Lib/Con, the very parties whose leadership have worked so hard to illegally (one could say) force us into the European Union. Understand that behind all this lies massive wealth and power, and it is they that will and do control our World. God save England indeed.
There's a lot that's been written about that "Political parties at European level contribute to forming European political awareness and to expressing the will of citizens of the Union" article.
It does look as though it's an incitement to national parties to form cross-border alliances with a view to permanent merger. The political groups in the European Parliament are the forerunner. I'm not opposed to a European Union in principle but their constant undermining of nation states (subsidiarity/regionalism) and national sovereignty makes me opposed to it in practice. Not that I'll cry any tears for the Tories, Labour or LibDems.
A Charles III may be willing to contemplate lifting the bar on Catholics but is he really prepared to lose the 15 or so ‘overseas’ crowns his mother currently holds? Trips for Charlie and Camilla to the West Indies and Canada and for William to New Zealand and Australia (the latter paid for personally by the Queen interestingly enough) suggest that the ‘firm’ very much wants to remain in business – and business as usual. The empire may have gone but the British Crown is clinging on for grim death to its ‘creative work’ in the form of the Commonwealth. Can a new narrative be forged while the British Crown is reluctant to make an orderly retreat from the rest of the world?
"From the perspective of our twenty-first century present, there seems to be an absence of meaning at the heart of England’s history, and we need a great conversation about what to put in its place".
Whose 21st century present are we talking about, and who is the we who need to embark on a conversation about the meaning of England's history, or of its present?
I agree with you that the British establishment has been reluctant to engage with, or even acknowledge, the English question in its broader, ontological, acception: 'what does it mean to be English today?'. Indeed, the establishment's unwillingness to stare into the abyss of being English-not-British (a perceived void that is a by-product of its own determined hollowing out of any meaning for English identity and history) is what has driven its own steadfast attempt to craft a great narrative of Britishness that stands opposed to any efforts to find meaning in Englishness in and of itself: not in the expansion beyond itself into 'Britain' and all that 'Britain' means. And, ironically, this has led to a reinvention of Britain as a 'great', imperial power, whose global reach is the material extension and corollary of its universal values.
But it is that Britishness that is the void, not the Englishness that it has evacuated from its heart. And the 'we' that tell the new story of an England other than Britain cannot be a British nation that has moved somehow beyond nationhood, because the nation beyond which it believes itself to have moved will always be the England that it at heart remains. We, the English British, need to re-articulate an Englishness for and of the English; but in so doing - and only by so doing - will we discover solidarity and common cause (indeed, common Britishness) with our so-called Celtic cousins - including the Cornish.
Michael:
Debates about the English question, English votes for English laws and the problem of English identity can be seen as symptomatic of a crisis of confidence about the place of England within an increasingly disunited kingdom. And, for all the centrality of England to the history of Britain, if the break up of Britain should actually occur, it may be the English who are left as the ‘people without history’, for the history of England is a hostage to the fortunes of the United Kingdom.
In the present political and constitutional set up England and Englishness are not promoted in case it damages the idea of Britain as a unitary nation. The recognition of England as a nation would result in the recognition of both Scotland and Wales as nations not regions and the downgrading of Britain from a nation to a political union.
However I can't really see major problems for English identity if Scotland leaves, in fact it will be good for it.
Most English people won't notice anyway. Westminster, Whitehall and all it's pomp and arcane procedures will not change and neither will the Monarchy. The currency won't change. The TV won't change. The English education system won't change. The English legal system won't change. The composition of the new English Olympic team will vary only minimally from the old British one, England will still have a football team, rugby team and cricket team and the new English Navy, Army and Air force will also remain essentially unchanged from the old British one.
Despite the basis of the union being a union of equals if Scotland leaves all the upheaval will be in Scotland.
The only impact on their culture and identity for most English people will be a change of name on their passport and the initial debate about the new name of the country when Scotland leaves and even then most will still call it Britain. I can't see why the issue of how England will cope if Scotland leaves the UK is a matter of such concern.
Since there has been little change in the DNA of the English over the centuries, and a language similar to 'Welsh' was once common throughout the land, how about proposing the introduction of Welsh into the school curriculum in England as a compulsory subject to age 16, with the aim being of encouraging bilingualism, with its acompanying benefits?
I'd be happy to have it taught in those areas of Cymru - Croesoswallt/Oswestry and South Herefordshire for instance - not yet represented in the Assembly, and put on offer at least to the very large populations pushed out in search of work into areas of England.
However, you'll be glad to know I heard recently of enthusiasts (some) working for the revival of Cumbric in Cumbria. Now there a challenge for you: join at once!
You read articles like this and one question springs to mind - Why do they hate England so much ?
The language was Brythonic an d its descendents are Welsh, Breton and Cornish among others (like Cumbric in Cumbria). I don't think, if the proposal is serious, that many people in England will take up the idea of learning Brythonic/ Welsh. Spanish, French, German, Arabic, Mandarin are all more likely. But a greater acknowledgement and interest in Anglo-Welsh rather than Anglo-Saxon origins of England would certainly be welcome. It would break England free from the Anglo-centric superiority of AJP Taylor and his ilk, encourage better relations with Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall, etc and free England from Anglo-Saxon Germanism which should have died with the Holocaust
Owly, who hates England? The same might be said about why do the English hate other countries so much? A sense of misplaced superiority, an ignorance of other peoples? It is very strange that only the English complain about the Scots, Irish, Welsh - I never hear the French, the Germans, the Spanish, the Americans complaining about them - yet England has a complaint about every country - perhaps there is an issue here for England to address to improve her self-image from the binge-drinking, racist football hooligans which is unfortunately the image that most Europeans and Americans have of the English.
Is Cornish Democrat a Nu Labour Troll trying to conflate the English position with Cornwall, thus attempting to deflect/diffuse it ? A British Government of Occupation stooge i think - ignore him.
That's funny. I even merit anonymous insults and lies now. Must be scratching the right scab.
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