Normal Mouth (Rhondda, blogger): Gordon Brown's determination to define his Premiership through a full-throated defence of Britishness seems like a baffling political strategy that can only be doomed to failure.On the one hand, those of us who take an interest in constitutional politics see a direction of travel that is firmly against Britishness, no matter how modernised or restated. Brown's defiant assertion at this week's Liaison Committee that the bonds between the home nations are stronger is hard to reconcile with Scotland's emerging independence debate, the Welsh government's pledge to acquire more powers and the inexorable development of an all-Ireland policy. In England, meanwhile, it has surely never been so permissible to whinge about supposed Scottish subsidies, or to fly the St George's flag. If these are stronger bonds of kinship the Union's familial role model must be the Gallaghers.
On the other hand, Brown's seems to be a campaign with almost no popular traction. As OK's Jon Bright points out, for every two constitutional activists there are 98 who'd rather their government did something less boring instead. Messing around with the "hidden wiring" gets the pulses racing of a very few, but puts off very many more.
What then lies behind Brown's devo-defying Bill of Rights and the surely comical Institute of Britishness (an idea that almost begs John Cleese to emerge kicking legs wildly)? Let us dispense with the obvious. The notion that the Prime Minister is merely soothing the brow of those middle Englanders frightened by his Scottishness can be safely dismissed. That may be a happy by-product, but we have gone far too far for that to be an end in itself. There seems little doubt that Gordon Brown believes in Britain and Britishness. That is not to suggest, however, that Brown's stance is without calculation. It is his very conviction that commends the strategy as electorally resonant. Voters admire conviction, even if they do not necessarily share the objective.
And it is also a mistake to regard Brown's project as constitutional. It is at its core patriotic. Fellow Welsh blogger Ceredig suggested a while back that Brown's use of the word "British" would be received interchangeably with "English" among his target audience, namely swing voters in key English marginals. This is certainly true. But it also underestimates the fact that many people in all the home nations regard Britain as embodying something transcendently stronger than its constituent parts. It may seem unspeakably naff to us, but to overlook the lingering and deeply ingrained appeal of Britain blinds us to a key part of Brown's approach.
Secondly, as Ceredig also points out, Britishness is a pitchfork, warding off the spectre of a society swamped by migrants. The last time the UK experienced anything like this level of immigration, Britishness was at its apogee and there was no anxiety about devolutionary or European erosion of the unitary state. Brown has to work hard to mollify this twin angst - the weakening of British culture and British statehood - or risk looking like he is drowning not waving. That means incurring the sort of liberal wrath that declaring "British Jobs for British workers" unleashed. He can live with that, and he knows that the Tories look supine and contradictory when they bleat about BJFBW being contrary to EU law - as if Conservatives have ever set any store by directives handed down from Brussels.
Europe stalks Brown's Britishness at least as malevolently as immigration and devolution in the eyes of many voters. But while the popular bogeymen images detain much of the discussion, the gut instinct must be right. As Europe integrates and deepens, the idea that the nations of these islands need their own union within a union will surely begin to appear surplus to requirements. But while Brown's Britishness is a rage against the dying of the light, it is not a futile one. Neither Europe from above nor devolution from below are ready to extinguish Britain any time soon. When that does happen, Gordon Brown will have long departed the scene. In the meantime, he can make this campaign his own and gain more than he loses from it. Brown's Britishness will not endure, but it will outlive his Premiership but some margin. That is the kind of low risk calculation this Prime Minister likes.
