Sunny Hundal (London, Pickled Politics): Last week Phillip Blond and Adrian Pabst did the blogging equivalent of carpet bombing - letting loose a hail of shells at a multitude of culprits and problems. New Labour and the Conservatives alike were guilty of bad managerialism, destroying the family, aborting British values, perpetuating civic disintegration through multiculturalism, economic insecurity and more. Michael Keith has already suggested that their's is a "melancholic narrative bordering on bigotry". Listing a whole litany of problems is easy: it's more difficult to argue they are all related and a simple solution is readily available.
I'll pick up on the concept of 'British values' and their apparent collapse. I have no problems with a debate around modern Britishness, but it is surely a straw-man argument to complain about "the collapse" of British values without identifying what they were in the first place. Blond and Pabst also say: "The uncritical promotion of multiculturalism has perpetuated this civic disintegration by eschewing the issue of an organic common culture in favour of liberal diversity." Again, while I remain critical of some of multiculturalism's failures, to trot out the line that celebrating the cultures of immigrants somehow destroys a British "organic common culture" is disingenuous. This country has never had a homogeneous common culture across all strata of society, except that bit of popular culture driven by the mass media. But the sight of brown girls listening to Justin Timberlake along with white friends isn't going to save Britain.
There are two separate issues here: a common sense of national identity and emotional attachment to this land; and a common sense of civic duty. We need both and while I agree with Blond and Pabst that neither Labour nor the Conservatives have done enough to foster them, blaming multiculturalism is not the answer - because the evidence does not support it. In parts of Britain with large proportions of ethnic minoritites, and in parts where they live in minuscule percentages, the same problems apply.
So what is the answer? I would argue that a strong, new constitution is the answer. The problem with the 'British values' debate is that while Blond and Pabst seem to be talking about tangible cultural habits (drinking tea? playing cricket?), these can never be uniformly practiced or even be prevented from dying out as cultures evolve. This is the main reason why the Gordon Brown inspired debate on British values is not going anywhere - no one is sure what values are being talked about.
A British constitution offers us codified and easily accessible political values, which we can build a shared civic culture around. Political values such as strong democratic institutions, a commitment to freedom of speech, clearly laid out civil rights and more, which can be adopted by all citizens without them having to be forced to support Andy Murray or watch re-runs of Only Fools and Horses. This process of developing a constitution has done wonders for national identity in other countries – for example when adopted fairly recently in Canada and New Zealand.
Thus, a debate about Britishness should be about fostering political values, through a constitution, and developing a sense of civic and social duty. Both initiatives would also need to involve all Britons, not just ethnic minorities, which is what most people mean when they blame multiculturalism for the death of British identity.
