Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

You could be forgiven for missing the poll on Britishness contained in this month’s Prospect Magazine .  It’s buried in a series of articles about the UK’s involvement in the European Union.  Yougov found that people in England who identify primarily as British are less likely to want to leave the EU, while people who describe themselves first as English are much more likely to want immediate withdrawal.  It’s hardly a startling revelation that nationalism often coincides with euroscepticism.  More eye-catching is the break-down in the number of people who identify first as British / English.  This survey suggests that over 60% of people in England view themselves primarily as English rather than British.  That compares to just over 40%, as recently as 2008. Again, you might say it’s hardly surprising in a post-devolution UK, with nationalist politics influential in Cardiff and dominating governments in Edinburgh and Belfast, that Britishness...

Another football post which touches upon politics.  The head of the British Olympic Association, Lord Moynihan, is determined to raise the spectre of legal action, in an attempt to pressurise the Irish, Scottish and Welsh FA’s into accepting a genuine UK team for the London 2012 games. During December O’Neill highlighted his shenanigans .  At that point he envisaged players from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, suing the BOA for non-selection.  He’s refined his legal analysis over the past month.  The players should now sue their home associations in order to establish eligibility for a UK side. Back in 2008 FIFA declared itself happy to endorse a single team for the Olympics, without prejudice to the four existing home nations which currently compete in international football tournaments. However, the four associations made an agreement between themselves that only English players will participate .  The authorities in Northern Ireland, Scotland an...

Later this month Belfast Salon hosts a debate at the Belfast Exposed Gallery asking whether devolution offers a peaceful future in Northern Ireland, or whether it fosters 'peace at any price'. I will be contributing alongside Forth editor, Jason Walsh. A series of taster articles will appear at Forth Magazine before the event. I kick off with a piece about Irish unionism, the nature of British citizenship and the conditions Alex Salmond is attempting to put on Scottishness. FOR NATIONALISTS it is often a working assumption that Irish unionism is defined and limited by reaction. Its genesis was simply a retort to Ireland’s burgeoning consciousness as a nation, from the 1790s on. And today, in the third century of its existence, unionism is understood to remain primarily a response to, and a denial of, legitimate national aspirations. John Bew has written a fascinating little book, the Glory Of Being Britons, challenging these foundational myths about unionism. He describ...

From teargas , sorry ‘léargas’, the virtual tree from which the wise old owl of Sinn Féin dispenses pellets of ‘insight’, “This blog travels to Wales on Tuesday – to Swansea – to speak to the British Irish Parliamentary Assembly. I will tell that forum that while Irish republicans want our rights, we do not seek to deny the rights of anyone else. We want justice for all and privilege for none.” A paragraph which teaches us, not only that the Provos’ president is scheduled to address BIPA’s latest plenary session this morning, but that Gerry Adams has taken to describing himself, in the third person, as a ‘blog’. ‘The blog’ has, in recent months, been on a veritable world tour promoting ‘Irish unity’. Slugger O’Toole has a preview of what he (it?) will say on the latest leg, other than, presumably, “HELLO SWANSEA!”. Two passages in particular jump out from amongst the leaden, Orwellian Shinnerspeak which ‘the blog’ intends to deliver. In deference to the ‘east-west’ sensibili...

I read, with a great deal of interest, O’Neill’s post on English nationalism , which examines a speech by David Wildgoose, from the Campaign for an English Parliament, delivered to the Liberal Democrat conference. He begins by quoting Arthur Aughey, who has observed that English nationalism is ‘a mood, not yet a movement’. It is a useful distinction. There exists, fairly commonly in England, an amorphous sense that the country has been disadvantaged by its exclusion from the devolution experiment, but it has not yet been harnessed to a popular or coherent campaign. In his book ‘The New British Constitution’ , Vernon Bogdanor contends that the United Kingdom requires a certain degree of English forbearance, in order to function smoothly. By this reading the identity, ‘English’, has to be suppressed in order that ‘Britishness’ can operate unfettered. Certainly the United Kingdom is dependent on the acquiescence of its largest ‘national’ unit, but I would argue that the English iden...

Keith Gilmour has emailed a thought provoking list which should stimulate some debate. It consists of 65 means by which, its author contends, 'broken Britain' can be mended. Some are controversial, some are incontrovertible common sense, some are easier said than done. See what you think. 65 Ways to Fix Broken Britain By Keith Gilmour Recruit (and reward) whistleblowers to expose waste and inefficiency in public services Curtail the out-of-control 'I trip, therefore I sue' compensation culture Ditto the offence industry Encourage everyone to spring clean their possessions and give to charity shops anything they don't want or need Do more government advertising on the cheap via competitions (as when members of the public submitted to the BBC homemade 'London 2012' Olympics logos far superior to the one that cost us £400,000) Cut the bureaucratic overkill that puts many people off volunteering Scrap extraneous new database schemes Scrap quangos that duplica...

On Unionist Lite O’Neill has published a thoughtful post which invokes the idea of the United Kingdom as a ‘fifth nation’, embodied by the parliament at Westminster. It is an interesting notion through which to explain the interlocking set of identities and allegiances which define a pluricultural and multinational state. O’Neill contends that the political framework which draws Britain together could be more accurately described as a ‘collection’ of fifth nations. I understand what he means, although I wonder whether, in a devolutionary age in which the ‘four nations’ of the UK have assumed a very definite and meaningful political form, the need for a ‘fifth nation’ allegiance and the relevance of the image is not greater than ever. In maintaining an overarching construct of political identity to which the peoples of the United Kingdom can continue to adhere, unionists might be thought to face a tricky conundrum. It is commonly asserted that ‘Britishness’, in so far as it is exh...

I am not, as regular readers will have ascertained, an enthusiast for the political skills of the Foreign Secretary. But even by David Miliband’s standards, his latest controversial remarks are incredibly ill advised and spectacularly badly timed. As Britain’s troops return in body bags, with stomach churning regularity, from Helmand province, victims of a vicious Islamist insurgency, the minister in charge of foreign policy has chosen to express the opinion that “there are circumstances in which (terrorism) is justifiable, and yes, there are circumstances in which it is effective”. No doubt Miliband believes that he engaged in a subtle exposition of moral philosophy, when Matthew Parris questioned him about his attitudes to terrorism perpetrated by the group ‘Sizwe’, which claimed the lives of civilians in South Africa. His contention that the racist regime was ‘blown away’ will no doubt enrage those who believe that it was politics which eventually dismantled apartheid and acts o...

I mentioned in a previous piece Tim Montgomerie’s open letter to David Cameron, in which he urged the Conservative leader to place Britishness at the centre of the party’s election campaign. Conservative Home today carries Cameron’s reply . In it he argues that patriotic pride is a bottom up phenomenon, inspired chiefly by providing citizens with something to be proud of. It is a sound response to Montgomerie’s missive because it rules out the option of entering a ‘flag waving’ contest with Gordon Brown, whilst showing an innate understanding of the civic nature of Britishness, whereby institutions, history and certain common cultural coordinates draw a diverse nation together, rather than race, perceived ethnicity or a narrow prescription of culture. In the previous article I contrasted the conceptual nature of Brown’s unionism with Cameron’s genuine engagement as regards matters pertaining to the Union. By seeking to secure Northern Ireland’s full participation in national poli...

In stark contrast to the sweeping hyperbole which filled opinion pages in the weekend newspapers, O’Neill has written an intelligent commentary of issues surrounding immigration to Britain from central and eastern Europe, prompted by attacks on properties housing immigrants in Belfast and a subsequent exodus of Romanian families from their homes. In particular he examines the plight of Roma, many of whom have suffered institutional prejudice, rights abuses and violence in their home countries, before being subjected to wanton thuggery by youths in South Belfast. O’Neill highlights two issues which are particularly pertinent to the case of Romanian Roma. First, countries from previously communist parts of Europe have been admitted to the EU without sufficient scrutiny of their legal treatment of minorities. Certainly this has partly been influenced by good will and good faith on the part of longer standing EU members. There was (and remains to a degree) widespread sympathy for neig...

It can be frustrating, attempting to interpret a newspaper’s report of a speech, without access to the original text. It is difficult, for instance, to judge whether an address given by Dr David Hume, the Orange Order’s ‘Director of Services’, offers a plausible elucidation of modern Britishness, albeit one that is concerned to defend a particular tradition within that identity (and its right to self-expression); or whether it represents, as the News Letter’s account suggests , a rather contradictory demand for Protestantism to be reinstated unapologetically at the centre of British identity, at the expense of pluralism. Examining only excerpts of Hume’s speech, and skipping the silly Donaldsonesque stuff insinuating that Catholics cannot possibly be conscientious British citizens, each quotation is fairly defensible if we suppose that it is placed within a reasonable context. Indeed the speaker includes in his remarks a reading of Britishness which unionists of a civic bent will im...

This article first appeared in the March edition of 'Fortnight' magazine. Clearly some of the material about names and so on has been overtaken by events. The title was added by the magazine. A Conservative and Ulster Unionist joint committee was formed in January, its purpose to “bring forward proposals on manifesto commitments, branding of joint candidates and candidate selection procedures”. After David Cameron imparted an almost euphoric sense of optimism upon the UUP conference, the committee’s first meeting represented a start to the hard, practical work required to forge a political alliance which will engage in national politics, but also reflect in its policies the regional peculiarities of Northern Ireland. The new force’s first electoral outing will be May’s European poll, when MEP Jim Nicholson seeks re-election. Marion Little, Conservative ‘Senior Battleground Director’, a woman whose expertise helped Boris Johnson to the London mayoralty, was in attendance a...

Recently, prompted by a speech delivered by Dominic Grieve, I posted on the subject of multiculturalism and suggested that successive Labour governments had adopted damaging policies in this area, to the detriment of British society. Ruth Dudley Edwards has penned an article pondering these very failures, provoked by protesting Islamic extremists who hurled abuse at troops returning from Iraq, at their homecoming parade. It is worth considering her piece, if only to develop a little further some of the themes which I had already touched upon in the first blogpost . The kernel of Dudley Edwards’ argument is that radical Islamists have been singled out by the government for special treatment and are handled with kid gloves in order to dissuade them from committing violent acts. The result is that moderate Muslims are sidelined and extremists are accorded prominence, within and without their communities, which they do not deserve. “(W)hy else would the Government throw £90 million a...

The shadow Justice Secretary, Dominic Grieve, is to deliver remarks about multiculturalism today which will suggest Labour’s wrongheaded approach to the issue has had a damaging effect on Britishness as a cohesive concept and the United Kingdom as a functioning society. He strikes a particularly pertinent chord by attacking the tendency to treat people simply as members of distinct interest groups, defined by race, religion or ethnicity, rather than as individual citizens who interact with society and communities on their own terms. “A decade of ranking people as members of neatly categorised ethnic, religious or social groups, rather than treating everyone as an individual in their own right; a decade of courting self-appointed heads of minority groups and pandering to special interest lobbies, ignoring the range of opinions and depth of diversity in modern Britain.” This is, of course, a tricky area, and a delicate balance must be struck between celebrating our diversity as a natio...

‘Ulster’s Doomed’ is a nasty little weblog devoted to collating evidence which it purports proves that one tribe in Northern Ireland is out-breeding the other. Actually all it really demonstrates is the incorrigibility of a certain type of nationalist mindset. The ‘echo chamber effect’ which Sunny Hundal highlights in the Today programme article dictates that the comments zone houses still more unpleasantness. Take this anonymous offering, posted below a piece which states (on the basis of newspaper sales) that Northern Ireland contains more nationalists and fewer unionists today than it did one year ago. “Part of the problem for the Protestant community is that they have been told endlessly that they are British - and that in a way that excludes any element of Irishness. I think that this leads to a disengagement from life here in Ireland. No wonder that so many go to University in Britain and stay there. No wonder that so many buy 'national' British newspapers instead of p...

His colleague Robert Peston might have scooped all the accolades in the past year (pun intended), but it is Nick Robinson who inspires me to fandom. I was therefore delighted to learn that the BBC’s political editor is to present a series examining, “the history of those who've lived and worked behind the most famous front door in the world”. That is British Prime Ministers, for those of you a little sluggish of mind on a Monday morning. By way of introduction Robinson’s blog contains a fascinating little article drawings parallels between Gordon Brown and a famous predecessor, Sir Robert Walpole. The first Prime Minister presided over an economic crisis prompted by a bursting bubble of investment in the South Seas. He also faced media criticism every bit as robust as anything Gordon Brown has had to contend with. It should be an interesting programme and I’d imagine it will become available on I Player.

With a new deal on the table aimed at resolving the Lindsey oil refinery strike, 'Mark Mardell’s Euroblog' has teased out the more interesting ramifications of a possible solution to the dispute. Although 100 jobs for local workers, offered by the Italian company at the centre of the controversy, might do most to address the immediate concerns of picketing strikers marching around with Union Flags, it is an undertaking to ensure Italian employees are retained under conditions negotiated by British Trades Unions, which establishes a more prescient precedent. Under the terms of the renewed offer, it would not be possible for Italian workers at the site to undercut British employees (as European law permits). They would instead be earning Union rates commensurate with those earned by their UK colleagues. Significantly, the government has played a role in steering both sides towards this outcome. Mardell speculates as to whether Labour might now push for greater standardisati...

It is to good purpose that we speak of civil liberties being ‘eroded’. Frequently this corpus of law, which protects freedoms, rights and entitlements inherent in our British citizenship, is diluted almost imperceptibly. The Labour government’s systematic diminishment of our liberties has been a monotonous drip, frequently camouflaged by the rhetoric of security. The overall effect is that often we do not realise that a freedom is under attack until is already gone. We remember that it was once enjoyed, but not the exact circumstances or timing of its removal. To this end Comment is Free is developing an aide-mémoire detailing legislation through which Labour has deprived Britons of liberties since its election victory in 1997. Subsequent to that date the government has created 3,600 new criminal offences which Lord Phillips, until recently Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, has described as a ‘ceaseless torrent of legislation’. Afua Hirsch introduces the guide with a br...

I appreciate this piece will make me sound cranky, old and curmudgeonly, but an article about litter , from today’s Daily Telegraph, struck a particular chord. It reports that the amount of rubbish dropped on Britain’s streets has increased five fold since the 1960s. I neither know whether these statistics apply to Northern Ireland as well as to mainland Britain, nor was I around in the sixties to appreciate what five times less litter might have looked like. But I definitely do live in part of Belfast which is knee deep in the stuff. My only quibble with the Telegraph’s opinion piece, which begins with the reporter demanding a teenager pick-up a flyer which he has just deposited on the ground, is that it does not cover litter’s twin evil in the world of dirty streets, dog shit. It seems to me that willingness to allow one’s dog to stool at will on the public thoroughfare is a mentality intimately linked to indifference many people show towards living in an locality piled high wit...

‘Nicholas Crane’s Britannia’ is being broadcast on BBC 2 on Tuesday evenings at the moment. Crane follows in the footsteps of historian and antiquarian, William Camden, whose topographical study of the British Isles presaged the Union of the Crowns and contributed to the geographical treatment of these islands as a single entity. Crane is a geographer, and historically his portrayal of Camden as a kind of proto-unionist, carefully laying foundations for the United Kingdom, might be viewed as a trifle anachronistic. At one stage in last night’s programme, as he retraces the Elizabethan traveller’s route through Scotland, Crane claims that Camden envisaged the various parts of Britain would be ‘stronger together than they would be apart’. That assertion, made on behalf of a sixteenth century topographer concerned with describing strange foreign lands, is perhaps more than a little over-egged. ‘Britannia’ is, nevertheless, a compelling tale, and the argument that Camden’s study, th...