Rebranding Little England
By: Bertie Coyle
Tags: UK Politics, Thinkpiece, Nationalism, Essay, Politics

Who benefits from liberal nationalism?

Emily Thornberry vs Rochester

On the 20th of November, 2014, Emily Thornberry, made a tactical error. A throwaway tweet led to her resignation, at the same crystallising the discussion around English patriotism.

On the campaign trail for a by-election in Rochester, Kent, the Labour MP for Islington South shared a photo of a house she had found. The suburban newbuild was emblazoned with three large England flags and had a white van parked outside. She simply captioned the image ‘#rochester’, suggesting the image spoke to the wider nature of Rochester itself.

This image was subjected to much hand-wringing, so let’s break it down quickly. A white van is a visual shorthand for the working-class — driven by the “white van man”, a salt of the earth geezer, forthright in opinion and mannerism. This cultural stereotype is often linked to nationalist politics, represented by the St. George’s Cross. Another linked cultural stereotype is the middle-class liberal. They don’t have quite as strong a symbol as the white van, or St. George’s Cross — maybe The Guardian newspaper, or latte coffee. This group considers English nationalism rather gauche: one of the many reasons these two groups are at odds with each other.

Nationalism in England is a complex and confrontational topic. That’s why these figures (white-van-man vs latte-liberal) are used, to reduce it to class friction. This is something that English people understand well. But they don’t stand up to scrutiny and are not useful when discussing the future of England. That’s why any attempts to flag-wash Labour without bothering to examine the world we’re living in and seriously plan for the future, will fail. For one, everyone drinks lattes these days.

The infamous snap

When Thornberry, scion of the Islington Elite, posted that image, most read it to have a scornful subtext. ‘Look at this’, it seemed to say, ‘state of the nation! These symbols, and those who tout them, are beneath me’.

One of her colleagues described it as an ‘own goal’, and this might be the gentlest criticism she received. It was a PR disaster for Labour, leaving them to be hammered as snobs. For her part, Thornberry was apologetic but mystified. Having grown up in a working-class community herself, she claimed to have been genuinely astounded that someone would cover their own windows with flags — ‘It was a house covered in British flags. I’ve never seen anything like it before’.

The whole debacle fitted neatly into the class friction we discussed earlier. Nationalism was a battle between the white (in ethnicity as well as preferred van colour) working class, and their middle-class counterparts in Islington. Excoriated by her opponents and allies, Emily Thornberry had revealed a sore spot in the psyche of a small and furious island nation.

English nationalism isn’t going anywhere. Its supporters care deeply for what it means to them, whereas critics deride it as a symptom of prejudice and bigotry, the antithesis of a progressive “multicultural Britain”.

Liberals might have been hoping it would dissolve after being robustly beaten in the marketplace of ideas, following disgraced BNP politician Nick Griffin who slunk off the scene in the early ’10s. But the reason for Griffin’s departure wasn’t the drubbing he got on Question Time. In fact, the airtime he was provided gave exposure to his racist take on nationalism and exerted considerable rightward pressure on the mainstream political discourse.

Conservatives haven’t been nearly so blinkered to nationalism. They’ve cleverly courted it to bring its supporters on-side. And only now are Labour (having lost both their memberships to the EU in 2016 and the once-immutable ‘red wall’ of Labour voters in the crushing 2019 elections) are waking up to the fact that they need to take English nationalism seriously. But the question is, who is even asking for a red and white handshake from the centre-left?

Progressive Patriotism

Reckoning with an English identity that they’ve held for years at arm’s length with noses wrinkled, the centrist machinery in the Labour party and liberal media will be chewing over the issue of a left-wing nationalism. The danger is that they will settle on an unconvincing mirror of the Conservatives (more on which later), or repackaged New Labour — this time with more flags!. There will certainly be space to throw a few elbows at Jeremy Corbyn.

Julian Coman puts forward an argument for ‘progressive patriotism’ which lays out a directive for a left-wing national identity. Some of his arguments are valuable, and can thread into a strong Leftist movement for a new form of “Englishness”. But it’s important to question these liberal approaches to an English national identity by asking — who is it for, and what will make it worth their while?

Coman reminds us that the ‘Progressive Patriotism’ gestured to by Rebecca Long-Bailey in her 2019 Labour leadership campaign was widely panned, derided by the Leftist groups that were her natural allies. He calls it ‘somewhat sketchy’ — noting the vague thrust of her argument. Ruth Kinna for Novara Media was more explicit, all but calling it ahistorical. She states that ‘positioning the left in a politics dominated by mavericks preoccupied with symbolic politics — like crowdfunding £500,000 for Big Ben to chime to mark Brexit — is surely a dangerous game’.

Brexit party

Kinna is right — right-wing groups are expert puppet masters, using emotive symbols to muddle discourse and shift goalposts. There’s an idiom that states you shouldn’t argue with an idiot, because they’ll drag you down to their level and beat you. Not to say that right-wing ideologues are fools — but challenging them in the field of cynical symbolism is a fool’s errand.

However, maybe Long-Bailey’s outline was more prescient than she was given credit for. She centres the Green Industrial Revolution as a rallying point for a renewed national unity.

‘I have been proud to champion our party’s plans for a green industrial revolution to tackle the climate crisis through investment in good, unionised jobs and the reindustrialisation of our regions and nations. It will spark the growth of new industries as well as guarantee that the renewable technologies of the future’ — Rebecca Long-Bailey, 2019

This was refreshingly non-rhetorical. Long-Bailey backed up her concept of patriotism with a plan of action to sustainably invigorate the economy across the nation, whilst protecting it from climate change. This would be a much greater driver of unity than any length of column inches wrestling with the right-or-wrongness of patriotism. A left-wing conception of patriotism requires such a concrete basis of forward action to be not just popular, but rightful. All across the left in the United Kingdom you can see examples of bold, public-minded thinking, and most importantly, action. This is the key way to frame patriotism, by looking (and moving) forward. Creating a brighter, more bountiful future for everyone, rather than defending the scraps of what is left.

Coman’s article intelligently positions the concept of Englishness and nationhood, perhaps trying to nestle it comfortably within liberal minds (latte gang) so that they may go forth and win support from those who already hold nationhood dear (white van gang). However, this could lead to the trap warned of by Kinna — simply by claiming patriotism, the left will fail to convince, or be easily outmanoeuvred. By showing what patriotism means through action, through top-down policy pressure and grassroots community activism, then Labour and the left can create their own idiot’s argument that will be hard to deny.

‘The land has been here longer than anyone else…’

‘This England’ is a quarterly magazine, published since 1968. Each issue depicts picturesque scenes, from stunning seaside views to cosy winter villages. The contents are predictable — more beautiful imagery, along with proudly nostalgic articles about the great people and accomplishments of England and Britain. While not a magazine read for its hard-hitting journalism, it is extremely conservative, with an editorial voice that’s not just euro-sceptic but metric-sceptic.

It’s the ideal candidate as flagship publication for the “Little Englander”, a popular cultural stereotype that’s been bubbling in our national consciousness since the late 18th century. The term first described members of the Liberal Party that were advocating to draw back the borders of the British Empire. It’s with this definition that Coman begins his article, leading off with an excerpt from JB Priestley’s ‘English Journey’:

‘That little sounds the right note of affection. It is little England I love. And I considered how much I disliked Big Englanders, whom I saw as red-faced, staring loud fellows, wanting to go and boss everybody about all over the world. Patriots to a man. I wish their patriotism would begin at home.’

Over time, this term evolved to cover those wishing to cease involvement in international affairs beyond what benefitted England, now describing a band of the population known for their insular, xenophobic outlook (see also: gammon). “Little Englanders” are often evoked as a socially conservative image in the urban vs rural political divide in Britain, where multicultural cosmopolitan centres tend to vote left and less diverse agricultural regions vote right.

However, for the “Little Englanders” of today to be spiritual owners of England’s natural beauty (like what you’ll find on the cover of ‘This England’ magazine) is a barrier to a progressive conception of English nationalism.

This is a worry for Coman too, as he remarks: ‘in parts of the left, there is an unattractive blind spot that misses the importance of collective attachment to an inherited landscape, both physical and emotional’. I’m not so sure. It sounds obvious to me, but it bears stating: England’s natural beauty is revered and appreciated by all ages and segments of the political spectrum. A new generation of nature lovers embody this — from the arcane ramblers at Weird Walk, to outdoors/ urban hybrid fashion influencers l.holl and onenorff and projects like The Art of Mushrooms - rarely has the fabric of England been more visible to the Instagram generation.

And as for the emotional connection to the landscape — it’s not so simple as to be a given.

Zakia Sewell’s challenging and enlightening documentary series ‘My Albion’ investigated the intersections of Britain’s natural fabric with ethnic, national and generational identities, producing essential results. She went some way to mine out how Englishness can be a sinister phantasm in the English countryside, a barrier to the second part of Coman’s equation for an ‘inherited landscape, both physical and emotional’.

She starts the episode ‘Four Hundred Years’ by ruminating how she and her mother ‘stick out’ in their family home of Wales, compared to London. She goes on to speak to other British POC to discover their experiences of both being othered and finding solace in the English countryside.

Rapper and playwright Testament lays bare his experiences walking in the countryside:

‘The landscape is a refuge to me, a bit of a sanctuary to me, but I definitely have gone on walks and you get a side-eye from another walker, or you turn the corner and you come out the woods and an approaching party sees you and sees a person of colour, and — bless them — sometimes they look a bit scared, seeing a dark skin guy with a hoodie. Yep, there is a preconception…’

Horticulturalist Sam Siva speaks with clarity, discussing how she’s made to feel in the countryside, versus how the countryside itself makes her feel:

‘I think for me, the only times that I’ve really felt able to love this country has been when I’m in nature. Even when someone looks at me funny in the countryside, I just know that the land has been here longer than anyone else. If anyone tries to tell me that I am not welcome here, I’m not listening to them — I’m listening to, rather, what are the trees saying, what are the plants saying, what are the animals saying. They’re not looking at me or discriminating against me based on the colour of my skin or the way I speak, so I don’t feel like I need to listen to humans when I’m connecting to the environment.’

Siva considers how English landscapes reconcile with the wilder nature of her childhood in Montego Bay, Jamaica. She notes how cultivated, enclosed and subdivided England’s landscape is:

‘England is this really cultivated place, I think it fits within a Christian ethos, Adam and Eve, with their dominion of all the animals they’re supposed to rule over. That everything is something to take from rather than having this integrated relationship with nature, and that Christian ethos is what has been exported through empire.’

Here Siva has hit on a key indicator of how love and advocacy for England’s nature can find a much more natural home in a Leftist-Socialist political base, rather than with Conservative-Neoliberalism. Priti Patel’s urging through of new trespass laws is, on the face of it, a cruel campaign to criminalise Irish and Romani travellers. But it will severely impact walkers rights to enjoy our ‘inherited landscape’. No doubt this side effect is welcome to the Conservative party — it further cements the aloof, capitalist individualism they’ve stoked since the day of Thatcher, dissolving the glue of communities in Britain.

Moreover, the uncomfortable experiences of Zakia Sewell’s guests reveal how important it is to centre the experiences of minority groups in England if talk about patriotism is to come without a taste of bitterness. Championing individuals like Marcus Rashford and Stormzy is popular with the liberal media, and it’s clear to see why — they are towering figures of art, sports, and humanity. But it rings hollow without investigating the animosity that they and other Black and Asian people are facing at the same time. It’s an animosity driven by a conservative establishment aching to stir dissent, and a liberal establishment that’s indifferent to the deeper causes of Black Briton’s exclusion from Englishness.

The Unpatriotic Left

It’s not for me to dictate how POC members of English society self-identify — but I can raid archived statistical reports. In 2004, the Office for National Statistics shone a light on the implicit racial coding of Englishness:

‘People from the white British group were more likely to describe their national identity as English, rather than British. However, the opposite was true of the non-white groups, who were far more likely to identify themselves as British. For example, two-thirds (67%) of Bangladeshis said they were British, while only 6% said they were English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish.’

This was 17 years ago, so the data may not still be as representative. But if it does still resemble the truth, then it should give pause to any generalised notions of “Englishness”. Clearly, these are labels that won’t stick by themselves. It’s worth noting that this data was published just four years after the Runnymede Trust’s report ‘The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain’, a document that contained startling findings that were bitterly refuted by then-Home Secretary, Jack Straw of the Labour Party.

‘Britishness, as much as Englishness, has systematic, largely unspoken, racial connotations. Whiteness nowhere features as an explicit condition of being British, but it is widely understood that Englishness, and therefore by extension Britishness, is racially coded. Race is deeply entwined with the idea of nation’ (Runnymede, 2000: 38).

Disliking the critical, realist findings of the report, Straw attacked the ‘unpatriotic Left’ for undermining ‘traditional concepts of Britishness’. It’s great to know that 20 years on, the discourse has progressed so much 🙃.

The question is — why would Black Britons want to embrace Englishness when they have much to offer but little to gain?

Does Matt Hancock Even Know Who Danny Weed is?

Matt Hancock may go down in history as the Health Secretary who passed out profitable contracts to incompetent cronies during the Coronavirus pandemic. But in 2017 he was a humble Minister of State for Digital and Culture in Theresa May’s government. In this role, he published an article in The Times, advocating for the dominance of British music worldwide. It was caught by some eagle-eyed observers such as Dan Hancox in his book ‘Inner City Pressure: The Story Of Grime’ (a must-read for anybody interested in Grime and contemporary cultural identity in the UK).

Anyway, Hancock’s article ‘As a grime fan, I know the power of the UK’s urban music scene’ went viral in 2020 and spawned a host of mocking takes, spinning Hancock for being inauthentic and out of touch. It is a funny image, the stuffy conservative politician promoting a genre that was once the height of anti-establishment youth culture. And it’s true, he did fail his on-the-spot Skepta trivia quiz. However, the discourse surrounding Hancock’s unprompted admission missed some important facts.

For one, Grime has been around for nearly 20 years. If it’s your marker for edgy youth culture, please recalibrate. Furthermore, Matt Hancock doesn’t need to know who Danny Weed (pioneering Grime artist) is to advocate for the genre, as one pundit asked of him.

Lastly — he might have been dead right.

Grime and other iterations of UK Rap such as Drill are exemplary cultural exports. Hancock is bang on the money to recognise that. And highlighting the counterproductive racism of the infamous Form 696 is precisely the sort of work a digital culture minister should be doing.

How exactly is this Hancock love-in relevant to the matter at hand — defining a progressive national identity? The arts and culture fermented in England and Britain are hugely powerful and influential. We’re in a golden age of musical creativity, with digital tools democratising the processes of making music, video, and other types of creative communication. In this sense, “English’’ culture is being exported 24/7. Artists like Ilford’s 808Melo work with US star Pop Smoke (now sadly deceased) helped to popularise UK Drill, a style that’s now echoing across the charts internationally as global artists scrabble to keep up.

You don’t have to look far to find a wealth of valuable cultural talent to hang your hat on, if you’re looking to articulate a national identity that’s truthful and relevant. And it won’t rely on the hazening memories of a generation that have convinced themselves they lived through The Blitz, despite being born in the 1960s.

Grime and Drill music are arbitrary examples of the pioneering arts produced on this rainy island. However, they do exemplify how some of the most forward-thinking, vital art is being produced at the intersections of the diverse cultural communities that inhabit Britain — Carribean, African, Asian, and more. It’s impossible to forget England’s shameful colonial past, but this legacy has created a multicultural catalyst for the art forms like Grime music.

Again, this reinforces the point that making space to invite POC communities into any kind of national identity cuts two ways — who says they would even want to be part of a club, one that has reviled them so much, when they’re doing perfectly well in forging a bold cultural identity?

England for the English

In ‘My Albion’, Sewell spends some time talking to Alex Niven, an academic and poet. He’s spent years mining the causes and conclusions of different strains of British nationalism. He makes an interesting point: you can have power, or you can have soul — but you can’t have both.

I interpret this to describe how the experience of a people under the mantle of an oppressive force creates an elusive bond, a self-image that is expressed in art and culture. The phrase is rooted in the African-American experience; a notably oppressed community who have been stereotyped in popular culture as ‘soulful’, supposedly demonstrated through dialect, music, and an innate charisma.

But clearly, Niven isn’t talking about the soul of Motown — he’s referring to the soul of the Welsh, Scottish, and Irish. These nations, under the yoke of English dominance for centuries, have fairly soulful national stereotypes, which we won’t go into here.

Discussing the nationalism of these British Isles nations, Alex Niven remarks to Sewell:

‘They’ve developed a more modern sense of self, in opposition to the imperialism of Anglo-Britishness, those forms of nationalism tend to be more a bit coherent, and they tend to have more potential for progressive politics at some point.’

When you picture the “Englishman”, does this image evoke soul? Probably not, if you’re going by the image England’s been exporting for much of its modern history. Eton and Oxford-educated, sporting a bow tie and speaking in clipped RP. Or maybe the boys-own-adventure dress-up version, in fatigues or safari hat. Some of the more rogue elements among you might consider a slick James Bond character or some kind of shedman tinkering with marrow growth formulas.

Whichever Cecil you came up with, none of them are very “soulful”. They might be commanding, or impressive, or even ‘cool’ (extremely debatable), but they don’t have the resilient swagger of the underdog, the proud rebel. These faces of the English upper class have power (military, financial, institutional) but they don’t have soul. This is certainly enough to keep a national identity ticking over, when said power is in use. But as England’s power recedes from the corners of the globe it previously infiltrated, trickling back downstream, what does it leave?

This menace has absolutely zero soul

But of course, there is soul in England. Regional communities of England have always had their own soul, or “authenticity”, you might put it. But again, these are groups that don’t wield large social power; their unique and characterful selfhoods are constructed from a position of social disadvantage. Here, in the character and strength of regional Englishness there is soul and identity.

Identity is best formed in opposition — even the confusing landscape of England pulled itself together in opposition to the EU. And in Scotland, nationalism is an extremely broad church when wielded against the English centres of power. Look no further than the Northern Independence Party, seeking to capitalise on the rising currents of independence by securing freedom for proud Northumbria.

Fighting Over Crumbs

In a pitched battle over the essence of Englishness, the priority of the rightwing establishment is to flog the second hand, well-worn image of “English power” — leaning on the strong-arm accomplishments of the past, but hiding the fading, cracked paintwork with copious flags and decorating the dashboard in Churchill-shaped trinkets. They know what they had, and they know it’s on the way out — although they would never admit this. So they’re pulling a final sleight of hand to consolidate a dwindling power, and offering the working classes part-ownership on an “English power” that they were never offered when it was still ripe.

A group that continues to benefit from England’s historical strength, the liberal middle class, are only just easing back into the fight to define English nationalism. In an insightful article that preemptively rejoins Coman’s, Nivens points out that ‘England simply does not have a strong enough cultural imaginary to meaningfully define itself in the globalised, precarious 21st century’. When liberals search for a cohesive English identity to oppose the right-wing stage show of flags and playground bullying, they will flounder.

Therefore, leftists need to press on and break new ground, creating new territory for modern Englishness to inhabit. It needs to be making something new, a proposition that’s valuable to working-class white and POC communities, one that understands that these groups aren’t discrete abstractions. The Englishness worth creating is one not based on “power” or “soul”, as both of these catalysts for identity are based on inequality.

It is possible to embrace the strength and pride of regional English identities, while also reforming the concept of an English identity through action, creating a valuable offer to the communities that are at the sharp edge of English society — economically precarious workers, migrants, and minority communities. The best way to cherish the landscape is to protect it from unscrupulous private interests and make it the joy of everybody. Facilitating the intensely creative arts and music scenes rather than pulling them apart at a grassroots level and leaving the industries out in the cold is an extremely simple way to create a powerful union of creative heritage.

Moreover, there is a path to bring measures of strength and prosperity back to pinched “red wall” regions that feel alienated by metropolitan political classes. Deep investment into the green economy, infrastrcture and job-creation, rather than frittering away money on tax cuts for flighty billionaires and deregulating parasitical private actors such as property speculators. Conservatives will continue to get away with murder for as long as they frame Labour for it. Labour can’t stand up for itself for as long as party advisors keep dreaming of the 90s, whilst sabotaging progressive movements.

It seems that to perform nationalism, the best place to start isn’t chucking a thumbs up in the presence of a St. George’s Cross. That’s not serious. It’s half-hearted and equally insulting to those that hold nationalism dearly and to those that are made to feel intimidated by it. It’s time to do the real work of reform and united action, to make an England worth shouting about. If not, then the image of Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner draped in a flag (whether English or British), will be their ‘EdStone’, a centrist folly left to dissolve in the rain.

After all, as Niven points out Sewell in ‘My Albion’ — England ceded its identity to the empire long ago, first in Britain then globally. The establishment only cares about what England means now that the last vestiges of this empire are crumbling. The imperative isn’t to rethink or reposition, but to rebuild it anew.