Anthony Barnett (London, OK): The BBC's Robin Lustig hosted a tremendously interesting World Tonight debate last night in St Mary's Putney, host of the historic Putney debates of 1647 when the Levellers (recently described by Tom Griffin as the world's first modern political party) set out their claims of equality and rights. It was between the Minister of State at Justice Michael Wills and David Willetts, Joan Smith, Salma Yacoub and Neal Ascherson. You can read the full transcript here or listen to it here. It covers a lot of ground about Britishness, the role of a statement of values, peoples' hopes and fears. The most serious disagreement was between novelist Joan Smith author of What Will Survive, and Birmingham Stop the War Coalition's Salma Yacoub. But did Wills really tell Willetts that if he does not like whatever the values that are decided he could always leave the country?
Robin Lustig: Neal Ascherson conjured up the spectre when he was talking earlier on of one day British citizens being required to take an oath of loyalty to a set of values. The Green Paper does say that one of the crucial things that there is, there should be a set of values which have to be not only shared, but also accepted. What happens if somebody doesn’t accept the values that are one day drawn up as a result of this process?
Michael Wills: Well, what we’re trying to do is find values that everybody wants to accept; that’s the whole purpose. I mean, people choose to be British; they choose to live in this country. It’s not forced on anybody, and they choose to do so because they like it.
RL: But accepting those values would be a condition...
MW: And they’re proud...
RL: ...of citizenship, would it, in your view?
MW: Well, hold on. Hold on. No, but if you don’t like it, you can leave. There’s nothing stopping you leaving, David. You choose to stay. You choose to stay here. You choose to be British.
David Willetts: You’re missing the point, though....That we’ve chosen it. I mean, a lot of these things – a lot of the most important things in our lives are things that we haven’t chosen. Obligations and ties are not all chosen.
MW: No, no, it’s not. The fact is people want to be here. That is why they’re here. I mean, it’s so obvious it hardly needs stating, but because people want to be here they are, most people who live here, are proud of being British. We know that, and so what is it that we can celebrate together?
You say, David, that there is a hunger to belong, and I agree with that, and we see it in all kinds of ways around us. We’re living through profound changes, as I said, profound dislocations, people want to belong. They want to feel they belong. What is it that can make everybody feel that they belong together? That’s what we’re looking for, not something that divides us. Not something that people, you know, have to accept or else. On the contrary, that they want to accept for precisely the reason that David says, because we all do want to belong somewhere and feel we belong together.
and Wills when he concluded said:
MW: Well, I think it’s really interesting, and actually I think there’s far more common ground than you might think, for all the fact that most – I think all – of the table don’t agree with the fact that there should be this discussion. They’ve all discussed it extremely articulately and cogently, but maybe that’s one of the powers of the British Broadcasting Corporation, another great national institution.
And look, at the end of the day it’s not the people round this table who are really going to drive this process. It’s the people you interviewed out there. It’s the British people themselves. And as I said, right at the beginning, if they share the views of most of the people round this table, then there won’t be such a statement. You know, it is for them decide.
