Convention on Modern Liberty

Transcript of Gareth Young's speech to the Convention on Modern Liberty, 28 February 2009

"I think almost every question that we have to deal with about the future of Britain revolves around what we mean by Britishness, whether it is asylum or immigration, the future of the constitution, our relationship with Europe or terrorism. Who we are, what we stand for, what we are fighting for, is crucial to any nation’s future in the modern world."

Those are not my words, they are the words of Gordon Brown, speaking in 2005. But how true are they?

I certainly don’t view almost every political question through the prism of Britishness, I tend to view these questions on many levels, and one of those levels is as an Englishman. The Scottish Government, led by Alex Salmond, have their own ideas about immigration, the economy, their relationship with Europe and the constitution (which includes civil liberties). In Scotland they have thought about these issues as Scots and as they pertain to Scotland. It is perhaps because of this that Privacy International can praise Scotland for its civil liberties record whilst condemning the British Government for turning England and Wales into “endemic surveillance societies”. In England we are unlike Scotland because we allow the British state to retain the DNA profiles of innocent children, we have a national database of children and English kids are fingerprinted at school without their parents’ knowledge. This is not the England I want, these things are being done to England by a political class for whom the word England means absolutely nothing.

Gordon Brown continues:

"I want to have this debate…about whether Scotland has a different view of tolerance to England, or whether Scotland has a different view of the stiff upper lip and so on—I want to debate these things in far more detail."

What has happened to that debate? We cannot have a debate on the ideological and political differences between England and Scotland because we are denied a debate about England and what it means to be English. The Government presses ahead with its Governance of Britain project, to define our values, and in Scotland there is a National Conversation (and Calman Commission), in Wales there’s a public debate called the All Wales Convention, and in Northern Ireland a Human Rights Commission and an Assembly Road Show. For England there is nothing but denial. A point blank refusal by our politicians to mention the elephant in the room.

Gordon Brown tells us that Britain is based on a covenant that binds England, Wales and Scotland together and that there is no distinction between being proud to be British and being proud to be Scottish or Welsh because devolution acknowledges dual identity.

Well, if you’re Scottish or Welsh devolution does more than just acknowledge ‘dual identity’. Devolution is an act of national liberation, it is recognition of political and cultural difference, it’s a hiving off of political and moral authority, and it’s a division of those things that has occurred along national boundaries.

I would like to try a small experiment. I’d like everyone in the room to ask themselves three questions. Ask yourself:

1.What is my ethnic identity?
2.What is my national identity?
3.What is my state identity, my citizenship?

I’m ethnically English, my national identity is English (it’s England that has my allegiance, I feel that I belong to England and England belongs to me), and my state identity is British. My wife, on the other hand, is a Canadian citizen and her national identity is Canadian, so there is a marriage between her national identity and her citizenship - her national identity is formally recognised.

Now. This is not a test, national identity is a personal thing, and subjective, so don’t worry you’re not going to be judged on this. But can I have a show of hands to see who in the room considers their national identity to be British? (Yasmin Alibhai-Brown puts up her hand). And who considers their national identity to be Scottish? (Gerry Hassan puts up his hand)

The question that we should ask ourselves is why Yasmin and Gerry’s national identities should have constitutional recognition and political expression, but not mine?

In a speech to Guy’s IPPR in March 2008 Michael Wills went to great length to elaborate on why Britishness, and articulating our idea of Britishness, was so important, and he made great play on Britain’s tolerant and plural nature. British identity, he said, was different from English identity because it was “inherently inclusive”.

He then went on to reveal some IPSOS Mori polling (commissioned by the Ministry of Justice) that demonstrated that both whites and visible ethnic minorities have a greater sense of belonging to England than they do to Britain.

To feel a sense of belonging to England is different to feeling comfortable describing yourself as English. Asians in Scotland, for instance, are much more likely to describe themselves as Scottish than English Asians are to describe themselves as English. The thought that I would like you to take away from this session is whether, in concentrating on building up Britishness, are we ignoring to our detriment the case for building an inclusive civic English national identity.

Before I came here I looked up liberty in the dictionary. There were a few definitions but the two that seemed most apt for this session on the national question were “the positive enjoyment of various social, political, or economic rights and privileges” and “the power of choice”.

I choose England.

From The Times February 27, 2009

To mark the Convention on Modern Liberty, the children's author has written this article

Philip Pullman

Are such things done on Albion's shore?

The image of this nation that haunts me most powerfully is that of the sleeping giant Albion in William Blake's prophetic books. Sleep, profound and inveterate slumber: that is the condition of Britain today.

We do not know what is happening to us. In the world outside, great events take place, great figures move and act, great matters unfold, and this nation of Albion murmurs and stirs while malevolent voices whisper in the darkness - the voices of the new laws that are silently strangling the old freedoms the nation still dreams it enjoys.

We are so fast asleep that we don't know who we are any more. Are we English? Scottish? Welsh? British? More than one of them? One but not another? Are we a Christian nation - after all we have an Established Church - or are we something post-Christian? Are we a secular state? Are we a multifaith state? Are we anything we can all agree on and feel proud of?

The new laws whisper:

You don't know who you are

You're mistaken about yourself

We know better than you do what you consist of, what labels apply to you, which facts about you are important and which are worthless

We do not believe you can be trusted to know these things, so we shall know them for you

And if we take against you, we shall remove from your possession the only proof we shall allow to be recognised

The sleeping nation dreams it has the freedom to speak its mind. It fantasises about making tyrants cringe with the bluff bold vigour of its ancient right to express its opinions in the street. This is what the new laws say about that:

Expressing an opinion is a dangerous activity

Whatever your opinions are, we don't want to hear them

So if you threaten us or our friends with your opinions we shall treat you like the rabble you are

And we do not want to hear you arguing about it

So hold your tongue and forget about protesting

What we want from you is acquiescence

The nation dreams it is a democratic state where the laws were made by freely elected representatives who were answerable to the people. It used to be such a nation once, it dreams, so it must be that nation still. It is a sweet dream.

You are not to be trusted with laws

So we shall put ourselves out of your reach

We shall put ourselves beyond your amendment or abolition

You do not need to argue about any changes we make, or to debate them, or to send your representatives to vote against them

You do not need to hold us to account

You think you will get what you want from an inquiry?

Who do you think you are?

What sort of fools do you think we are?

The nation's dreams are troubled, sometimes; dim rumours reach our sleeping ears, rumours that all is not well in the administration of justice; but an ancient spell murmurs through our somnolence, and we remember that the courts are bound to seek the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and we turn over and sleep soundly again.

And the new laws whisper:

We do not want to hear you talking about truth

Truth is a friend of yours, not a friend of ours

We have a better friend called hearsay, who is a witness we can always rely on

We do not want to hear you talking about innocence

Innocent means guilty of things not yet done

We do not want to hear you talking about the right to silence

You need to be told what silence means: it means guilt

We do not want to hear you talking about justice

Justice is whatever we want to do to you

And nothing else

Are we conscious of being watched, as we sleep? Are we aware of an ever-open eye at the corner of every street, of a watching presence in the very keyboards we type our messages on? The new laws don't mind if we are. They don't think we care about it.

We want to watch you day and night

We think you are abject enough to feel safe when we watch you

We can see you have lost all sense of what is proper to a free people

We can see you have abandoned modesty

Some of our friends have seen to that

They have arranged for you to find modesty contemptible

In a thousand ways they have led you to think that whoever does not want to be watched must have something shameful to hide

We want you to feel that solitude is frightening and unnatural

We want you to feel that being watched is the natural state of things

One of the pleasant fantasies that consoles us in our sleep is that we are a sovereign nation, and safe within our borders. This is what the new laws say about that:

We know who our friends are

And when our friends want to have words with one of you

We shall make it easy for them to take you away to a country where you will learn that you have more fingernails than you need

It will be no use bleating that you know of no offence you have committed under British law

It is for us to know what your offence is

Angering our friends is an offence

It is inconceivable to me that a waking nation in the full consciousness of its freedom would have allowed its government to pass such laws as the Protection from Harassment Act (1997), the Crime and Disorder Act (1998), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000), the Terrorism Act (2000), the Criminal Justice and Police Act (2001), the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (2001), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Extension Act (2002), the Criminal Justice Act (2003), the Extradition Act (2003), the Anti-Social Behaviour Act (2003), the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004), the Civil Contingencies Act (2004), the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2005), the Inquiries Act (2005), the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (2005), not to mention a host of pending legislation such as the Identity Cards Bill, the Coroners and Justice Bill, and the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill.

Inconceivable.

And those laws say:

Sleep, you stinking cowards

Sweating as you dream of rights and freedoms

Freedom is too hard for you

We shall decide what freedom is

Sleep, you vermin

Sleep, you scum.

Philip Pullman will deliver a keynote speech at the Convention on Modern Liberty at the Institute of Education in London tomorrow

www.modernliberty.net

Transcript of my speech to the Convention on Modern Liberty, 28 February 2009

"I think almost every question that we have to deal with about the future of Britain revolves around what we mean by Britishness, whether it is asylum or immigration, the future of the constitution, our relationship with Europe or terrorism. Who we are, what we stand for, what we are fighting for, is crucial to any nation’s future in the modern world."

Those are not my words, they are the words of Gordon Brown, speaking in 2005. But how true are they?

I certainly don’t view almost every political question through the prism of Britishness, I tend to view these questions on many levels, and one of those levels is as an Englishman. The Scottish Government, led by Alex Salmond, have their own ideas about immigration, the economy, their relationship with Europe and the constitution (which includes civil liberties). In Scotland they have thought about these issues as Scots and as they pertain to Scotland. It is perhaps because of this that Privacy International can praise Scotland for its civil liberties record whilst condemning the British Government for turning England and Wales into “endemic surveillance societies”. In England we are unlike Scotland because we allow the British state to retain the DNA profiles of innocent children, we have a national database of children and English kids are fingerprinted at school without their parents’ knowledge. This is not the England I want, these things are being done to England by a political class for whom the word England means absolutely nothing.

Gordon Brown continues:

"I want to have this debate…about whether Scotland has a different view of tolerance to England, or whether Scotland has a different view of the stiff upper lip and so on—I want to debate these things in far more detail."

What has happened to that debate? We cannot have a debate on the ideological and political differences between England and Scotland because we are denied a debate about England and what it means to be English. The Government presses ahead with its Governance of Britain project, to define our values, and in Scotland there is a National Conversation (and Calman Commission), in Wales there’s a public debate called the All Wales Convention, and in Northern Ireland a Human Rights Commission and an Assembly Road Show. For England there is nothing but denial. A point blank refusal by our politicians to mention the elephant in the room.

Gordon Brown tells us that Britain is based on a covenant that binds England, Wales and Scotland together and that there is no distinction between being proud to be British and being proud to be Scottish or Welsh because devolution acknowledges dual identity.

Well, if you’re Scottish or Welsh devolution does more than just acknowledge ‘dual identity’. Devolution is an act of national liberation, it is recognition of political and cultural difference, it’s a hiving off of political and moral authority, and it’s a division of those things that has occurred along national boundaries.

I would like to try a small experiment. I’d like everyone in the room to ask themselves three questions. Ask yourself:

1.What is my ethnic identity?
2.What is my national identity?
3.What is my state identity, my citizenship?

I’m ethnically English, my national identity is English (it’s England that has my allegiance, I feel that I belong to England and England belongs to me), and my state identity is British. My wife, on the other hand, is a Canadian citizen and her national identity is Canadian, so there is a marriage between her national identity and her citizenship - her national identity is formally recognised.

Now. This is not a test, national identity is a personal thing, and subjective, so don’t worry you’re not going to be judged on this. But can I have a show of hands to see who in the room considers their national identity to be British? (Yasmin Alibhai-Brown puts up her hand). And who considers their national identity to be Scottish? (Gerry Hassan puts up his hand)

The question that we should ask ourselves is why Yasmin and Gerry’s national identities should have constitutional recognition and political expression, but not mine?

In a speech to Guy’s IPPR in March 2008 Michael Wills went to great length to elaborate on why Britishness, and articulating our idea of Britishness, was so important, and he made great play on Britain’s tolerant and plural nature. British identity, he said, was different from English identity because it was “inherently inclusive”.

He then went on to reveal some IPSOS Mori polling (commissioned by the Ministry of Justice) that demonstrated that both whites and visible ethnic minorities have a greater sense of belonging to England than they do to Britain.

To feel a sense of belonging to England is different to feeling comfortable describing yourself as English. Asians in Scotland, for instance, are much more likely to describe themselves as Scottish than English Asians are to describe themselves as English. The thought that I would like you to take away from this session is whether, in concentrating on building up Britishness, are we ignoring to our detriment the case for building an inclusive civic English national identity.

Before I came here I looked up liberty in the dictionary. There were a few definitions but the two that seemed most apt for this session on the national question were “the positive enjoyment of various social, political, or economic rights and privileges” and “the power of choice”.

I choose England.

In discussion of the Modern Liberty Convention's question 'Where next?', Guy Herbert has replied to my suggestion that there should be a constitutional convention:

Gareth Young (and others):

“Could this Convention be a springboard to a Constitutional Convention?”

That is the last thing we need. What Charter 88 didn’t comprehend 20 years ago, and what proponents of this view (some of them very old frienmds of mine) don’t get now, is a basic matter of historical and political fact. Writing a constitution (or rewriting one) is something you do from a position of power. Constitutions are imposed to legitimate and entrench the sort of society that the victors think they want.

That is what the barons did in Magna Carta and in the Charter of the Forest AFTER they had humbled King John.

That is what Henry VIII did. Supremacy followed Star Chamber.

That is what parliament did in the Bill of Rights AFTER it had supplanted James by William.

That is what the Continental Congress did AFTER Yorktown, not before the Revolution.

That is the origin of the European Convention and the Universal Declaration that are revered as magic: they say
“We won, and this is why we are better than Hitler.”

And that is what the New Labour Project did after 1997, with an unprecedented majority and party discipline, and is still struggling to do. It was applauded for much of that time - until it was almost too late - by would-be constitional reformers, because it was astute enough to do use their buzzwords to characterise what it was doing in its slow-motion coup. If it hadn’t been for the war and the related cosying up to the US I strongly suspect many would not have woken and would still be applauding. Those more soaked in the ideas of the new corporate state sometimes called ‘civic republicanism’ still are.

Constitions are written and rewritten from power… by tight elite groups with a grasp of the meaning of power. They fail not from overreach but by failing to tailor the institutions to support and reinforce the new dispensation. Wide consultation and talking shops have no hope of creating something lasting. let alone imposing it.

If you want a new constitution, first you need a revolution in power. What *we* need to do is to foment a - peaceful, lawful, I hope - revolution in the name of liberty and the rule of law.

The first steps are resistance to halt the katabasis and provide a rallying point the forces. The accrescence of arbitrary official power hasn’t stopped because the great and good have noticed it happening. The moster no longer freezes when you look directly at it. It is already too powerful.

To be effective resistance needs to be formulated in a way that can be popular - which is not to say it must engage the lower mob, but it must engage a significant portion of significant people to turn public opinion and received wisdom sharply from a passive acceptance of whatever “They” impose on us all. Enough people must say - enough.

What Charter88 didn't comprehend is the simple fact that the political class are only interested in brokering power, not in sharing it or distributing it fairly.

A look at one 'Cameron Direct' session from East Renfrewshire demonstrates this well, I think:

On solving the West Lothian question Cameron makes it clear that there is nothing, nothing whatsoever (presumably including another Labour Government at the behest of Scottish seats) that will prevent him from putting the Union at risk.

I don't think there is a perfect solution [to the West Lothian Question]....I am a Unionist, I believe in the United Kingdom. I don't want us to fall out over money. I don't want us to fall out over how we change the rules and get everything absolutely perfect. I'd rather have an imperfect union than a perfect divorce. So I'll never put anything - like the West lothian Question or the Barnett Formula - above keeping the Union together. It's very important you know that about me, it's in my DNA.

On the value of small parties to our political process and the political life of the nation, he concludes that the preservation of an elective dictatorship is more important than a representative diversity of political opinion in the chamber.

I think one of the strengths of our system is that you can throw a government out. I don't believe in proportional representation which would help the smaller parties, because I think that even though you can argue that there may be some fairness in saying the share of votes you get should be automatically reflected in the number of seats you get...I think that although there may be a fairness in that I think what you gain in the fairness you loose in the decisiveness. I think one of the great things about our system is that under the first past the post that we have under the Westminster elections you can really kick a government out...I think it's good that we can be decisive and make a change. So the minor parties, do they have a role? Well, they have a role in Parliament; they have opportunities to make their voice heard; sometimes they come up with ideas that others then take on. I'm not a fan in any sense of UKIP, I think they're pretty barking. And I think the BNP are beyond barking, I think they're pretty evil and I think they're just peddling the politics of division, and trying to turn people each other against each other on the basis of race, and I don't think they have any part in a sensible democracy like ours. The Greens I think have added to the debate about the environment but I think their views are quite unrealistic about what is achievable and I'd rather have practical green conservatism rather than impractical Green greenery.

On the transfer of power away from Westminster (in this case to the EU) Cameron is steadfast in his opposition to the transfer of power.

My constituents send me to Parliament to go and make the law, to ask the Government questions, to have a bit of a punch up on a Wednesday. They send me to Parliament to stand up for them in West Oxfordshire, but they don't send me there to give power away that aren't mine to give away. And we shouldn't do it without asking their permission in the first place. A very simple principle, but one I think we should apply on all future occasions.

No one asked the English whether they minded power being transferred away from Westminster to the devolved administrations. That's not Cameron's fault, of course, but if it is principled to ask the public whether they approve of the transfer of powers, then doesn't the same principle apply to asking the public to approve of what powers are retained or created?

What powers should Westminster and the Cabinet have; should they be absolute?

I would say no. Guy Herbert and the Conservatives would say, in theory at least, yes. It's a zero-sum equation for them. For them what is important is the absolute sovereignty of the Crown in Parliament, and that is why they are against a constitutional convention - the answers that they got would be unacceptable to the political class.

"Mr Blair acknowledged that if people in England were asked if they wanted a Parliament like Scotland's they would overwhelmingly agree." - Yorkshire Post, 28 November 2006

The above quote illustrates the danger of a constitutional convention to Labour and the Conservatives.

The cynic in me concludes that a constitutional convention is a risk that the Lib Dems are prepared to take in order to acheive proportional representation.

A renowned England-hater, Jack Straw, has launched a broadside at the Convention on Modern Liberty from a little known Blackburn blog.

Is big brother watching you? Are you – innocent and law-abiding – kept awake at night for fear that your door will be kicked in by agents of the state?

Are your children being “groomed for life in the database state”?

If some of those attending a conference last weekend – the Convention on Modern Liberty – are to be believed, the answer to those questions, and many similar, is “yes.”

I mention this because in the same week that national newspaper stories warned that the government is deliberately trampling on individual liberties and undermining public safety, a story in the Lancashire Telegraph told us that crime is going down.

So, let me get this right, crime is going down thanks to the database state and because we have become an endemic surveillance society? So it follows that in order that we can all live in safety it is permissible for the State to spy on the Individual to make society a better place? For whom?

"under Socialism crime is not a form of protest against the existing conditions of life [i.e. as it is in the West] but above all the result of moral deformation of the personality, intellectual retardedness and low culture" - Nikolay Shchelokov, Soviet Minister for Internal Affairs, Pravda, 17 March 1973.

Nothing to fear, nothing to hide. We're all retards to Jack Straw.

On February 28th individuals from across the United Kingdom will converge upon London to participate in The Convention on Modern Liberty. At stake are our freedoms, many of them long established English liberties, threatened, and encroached upon, by an authoritarian British state.

Joining organisations like Liberty, No2ID and Amnesty will be the Campaign for an English Parliament, who are proud to co-sponsor a session entitled Liberty and the National Question with the Institute of Public Policy Research.

What does this have to do with the Campaign for an English Parliament and English nationalism?

Yesterday, writing the Guardian, George Monbiot informed us that you don't have to be a nationalist to support an English parliament, you just have to be a democrat.

I understand what George is getting at, for it's certainly true that the campaign for an English parliament is a democratic cause. But is that all it is? If ours is only a democratic cause then we might just as reasonably argue for devolution to regions or counties, bypassing completely an English national level of government.

No, the CEP are nationalists, nationalists and democrats.

Nationalism is something of a dirty word, in certain circles, but for me nationalism implies nothing more than a belief in the nation (in our case England) as a fundamental building block of democracy (or whatever other political ideology you want to follow, which is why nationalism has a bad rap sheet).

To fear nationalism as only ever a bad thing is to misunderstand the relationship between nationalism and democracy and liberty, and to leave unrealised patriotism's potential to galvanise the people in common cause. The Fraternity in “Liberté, égalité, fraternité” stresses community in an otherwise individualistic French motto. And when Abraham Lincoln declared "government of the people, by the people, for the people" he wasn't addressing Monbiot's global citizens, he was addressing a national people. That is civic nationalism. That is what the CEP stands for.

We know what the CEP stands for, but does ‘England’ still count for anything; is there a ‘we the people’ of England that can be mobilised in defence of English liberty?

England, a nation with a history, but no destiny

You may remember that in a couple of posts on Our Kingdom (here & here) David Marquand accused the campaign for an English parliament of being ‘entirely reactive: negative, sour, mean-minded‘ and of displaying ‘me-too’ responses to the ‘wonderful growth of national feeling in Scotland and Wales‘:

as I know, no one has yet put forward a positive case for devolution to England, based on a moral vision of what England and the English stand for or might come to stand for. Sadly, this is not surprising. There is no English national Myth comparable to the Scottish Myth of popular sovereignty or the Welsh Myth of Celtic socialism.

Marquand argued that campaigners for an English parliament are ‘barbarous reactionaries‘ and that England will ‘not be fit for self government‘ until they show that they belong to the tradition of ‘the Levellers, of Milton, of Tom Paine, of the Chartists, of John Bright, of the pre-1914 syndicalists, of George Orwell and R.H. Tawney‘.

And just a few weeks ago Andrew O’Hagan described the near sociopathic tendency of the English to “to lie down in the face of exploitation”, our apathy and our aversion to organised or personal resistance:

Events in America show the extent to which democracy there is fuelled by populism - Barack Obama’s victory is a manifestation not of Washington’s need for change, but of America’s. That is not how democracy works in England. A good nationalism has to depend on a principle of the common people, on myths of a struggling commonality. It is strange that Scottish nationalism and Irish nationalism and Welsh nationalism - for all their faults - are still seen by a great many as healthy, colourful movements, while English nationalism continues to make people think of football hooligans, Enoch Powell, Oswald Mosley and the BNP.

…in general the English live in a miasma of what Isaiah Berlin called “negative liberty”: their collective aim is to be free of interference, not to define the future. “Negative liberty” has become the currency of the dispossessed - “whatever”, say the English today when they’re told something they don’t like, and “whatever” is exactly what they get and what they are ready to accept, so long as everyday life lies undisturbed.

There is the idea, certainly amongst the Left, that English nationalists are chauvinistic, belligerent and xenophobic; that England does not stand for anything; that the English are bereft of a national myth and a spirit of fraternity, and as such incapable of articulating a positive national identity based upon common understanding and national solidarity.

Yet somewhat contrary to that idea there is a concerted effort by the UK Labour Government and Progressive Left to articulate a national identity for Britain, the vast bulk of which is England, based on the common values, bonds of belonging and shared beliefs of a fuzzy and, as yet, undefined “Britishness“.

There is a political conversation about what it means to be British, but what it means to be English is largely, or completely, ignored. What does England mean to you? Is there an idea of England, and can English nationalists be mobilised to fight not only for English governance but also for the very idea of England itself?

British nationalism

It’s commonly observed that the ‘war on terror’ and flight into fear has resulted in policies that have led to the progressive erosion of civil liberties. But it's not just terrorism that is the threat. The British state, The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is wobbling; challenged from within by a weakening of British identity and the growth of nationalism in England, Scotland and Wales.

The Government’s response to these threats has been a head-long flight into a bizarre chimera of prescriptive British nationalism and state authoritarianism. Curbs on immigration. British citizenship exams and ceremonies. British jobs for British workers. ID cards. Restrictions on free speech. Data mining and data sharing. A British national football team. Databases. Surveillance. Powers to stop and search. Detention. Britishness Day. Rendition. Communication monitoring. British oaths of allegiance. A British statement of values. Citizenship initiatives. Extraordinary powers. A flag in every garden. Curtailing the right to assembly and protest. Control orders. A British Bill of Rights.

In attempting to link the debate on civil liberties and citizenship (rights and responsibilities) with the debate on national identity (Britishness) the Government is guilty of confusing citizenship with national identity, State with Nation. This begs the question: Does that make those of us opposed to Brown's British nationalism, those of us who do not share his idea of British national identity, enemies of the state? News that MI5 and special branch infiltrated the SNP would suggest that it might.

In reaction to David Davis's principled stand, Anthony Barnett, Co-Director of the Convention on Modern Liberty, argues just this case.

“This is why we should have the confidence to celebrate the fact that a leading politician is taking issues of principle and government to the people, irrespective of his party politics.
“Especially in Britain (or should I say England, as arguably Alex Salmond has already done this in Scotland).”

Naturally, I see this caveat - “or should I say England” - as key. You won’t see Scottish or Welsh nationalists mounting your barricades, as they’re not interested in building open, representative and constitutional democracy.

The way I’m interested in framing the issue is as follows: is the British state and parliament losing its democratic legitimacy as a of measures such as 42 days and identity management; or is its recourse to such measures a consequence of the fact that it is losing its legitimacy? One of the truths that the database society manifests is that government no longer trusts the people; and it no longer trusts the people because it has lost the trust of the people.

But it’s not just about government but about the state: the British state, in particular. You’re right to link the ‘transformational government’ programme to the break down of the unitary state that the Labour government itself initiated through devolution. The whole British establishment knows that it is engaged in a battle for its very survival and that its legitimacy to represent and speak for the different of Britain has been fundamentally and fatally undermined.

And this is why, in more than a merely metaphorical or rhetorical sense, every citizen becomes a potential terrorist: someone whom the government suspects of wishing the British state as presently constituted to fall apart - which growing ranks of its citizenry do in fact wish. 42 days and systematic identity management across all government departments are of a piece, in that they are about - as you put it, quoting from ‘Who do they think we are?’ - discovering the “deep truth about the citizen (or business) based on their behaviour, experiences, beliefs, needs or desires”.

In other words, it’s about finding out who is an enemy of the state: the enemy within. For most of us, ID cards and CCTV surveillance are ’sufficient’ for the state apparatus to reassure itself that we are not a serious threat. For the rest of us, there’s 42 days. But the danger is in the blurring, in the eyes and state machinery of paranoid control, between legitimate, democratic antagonism towards the state, and illegitimate, physically violent hostility: terrorism.

I’m an enemy of the British state, in that I’d like to see it replaced by a federal state or abolished altogether (i.e. through Scottish and English independence). And if we had a federal state, this should have much less central power, with most of the national-level decisions taken by an English parliament a much stronger local-government sector. Does this make me ’suspect’ in the eyes of the database state? Probably, yes: and therein lies its true danger.

But we need to be clear that the fight is not just with ‘the state’ in some universal sense; but with the state. And this is because it’s primarily an English struggle, as the Scots and Welsh are pursuing their own paths towards constitutional democracy. And what will emerge, if the libertarians are successful in the present fight, will almost certainly not be a new written constitution, bill of rights and representative democracy for but for England. Indeed, it’s fundamentally because the people of England have lost their faith in the legitimacy of the British state to govern them that the government is so concerned to manage and orchestrate their identity in the first place.

And it is to popular English national sentiment, and to the sense of our traditional liberties, that the libertarian cause will have to appeal if it is to touch the hearts and minds of the Sun-reading class.

If the English have lost their faith in the British state and demand a new form of governance, then will the British state be able to justify its existence? If the British State loses competence over health, education, planning, policing, transport and housing in England, then is a British Bill of Rights superfluous to the EU's Human Rights Act and simply a way of reinforcing British national identity and conferring upon the State certain rights to intervene in devolved areas? Is a British Bill of Rights as much about protecting the state from internal pressures (nationalism, terrorism, policy divergence) as it is about trying to protect the individual from the British state?

Is Britain to be Big Brother to England?

Gordon Brown demurely refers to himself as a unionist, and he is. But he's much more than just a unionist, he is a British nationalist, and it's his British nationalism rather than his unionism that is damaging to England, and which I think the Campaign for an English Parliament should oppose. His Britishness rhetoric is not just about a fight for a political union, it is a fight for British national identity, because he believes that without that linchpin of identity there can be no meaningful political and constitutional reform; and no almighty authoritarian British State.

National identity is an historical relationship, not a set of values.

National identities are often cemented in adversity. As Linda Colley has described a reactionary British national identity was forged by war with France and Protestant fear of Roman Catholicism. This British identity (I personally prefer not to refer to it using the ludicrous neologism "Britishness") was later cemented on the idea of English liberty at home and pride in Empire abroad. We are no longer a British nation bonded by war with France, a Protestant faith or pride in Empire. What's left?

English liberty is what's left. Gordon Brown's Britishness agenda is more properly called British nationalism. He's engaged himself in the creation a national "Britishness" myth to reinforce British national identity, and the myth that he's chosen is (along with tolerance) one of liberty.

Brown claims that there is “a golden thread which runs through British history – that runs from that long ago day in Runnymede in 1215; on to the Bill of Rights in 1689 where Britain became the first country to successfully assert the power of Parliament over the King”, and that “Voltaire said that Britain gave to the world the idea of liberty”. He also maintains that an appeal to fairness “runs through British history, from early opposition to the first poll tax in 1381 to the second; fairness the theme from the civil war debates”.

But that golden thread is English, Voltaire spoke of England, and it is the English sense of fairness that asymmetric devolution (and asymmetric democracy) has upset. Gordon Brown borrows from England and gives nothing back, misappropriating an English narrative to suit his statist and authoritarian "Britishness".

It would be churlish and pointless to object to Britain as the inheritor of England's tradition of liberty and struggle for emancipation. And I'm not going to. But Gordon Brown's British nationalism, the Britain of his mind's eye, is not in keeping with the England of my mind's eye. It is an anathema to England's tradition of liberty. It's all very un-English, and even though an English narrative is invoked his vision is in total contrast to any notion of what England stands for.

This misappropriation of the English narrative is made worse by Brown's denial of England, a forbidding that prevents any mention of the nation that is the bedrock on which his British Tower of Babel is built. Devolution allowed the Scots and Welsh to not only think as Scotsmen and Welshmen, but also to behave as Scotsmen and Welshmen. Devolution was an act of national liberation. But we English are denied the liberty of a forum to discuss and express English national identity, to decide what it is we want England to be, to choose the manner of governance to best reflect ourselves as Englishmen and women. Brown's British nationalism negates England in a way that a pragmatic unionism does not.

For Brown "Britishness" is all.

“I think almost every question that we have to deal with about the future of Britain revolves around what we mean by Britishness, whether it is asylum or immigration, the future of the constitution, our relationship with Europe or terrorism. Who we are, what we stand for, what we are fighting for, is crucial to any nation's future in the modern world. Unless you have a strong sense of shared purpose, a strong sense of who you are, you will not succeed in the global economy and global society…I want to have this debate…about whether Scotland has a different view of tolerance to England, or whether Scotland has a different view of the stiff upper lip and so on—I want to debate these things in far more detail.” – Gordon Brown, Britain Rediscovered, Prospect Magazine, April 2005

This is a very monotheistic view. For me the future of Britain rests just as much upon what we mean by Englishness, Scottishness and Welshness as it does upon what we mean by Britishness. The key question is whether the British state can adapt to accommodate the multiplicity of identities on these islands, perhaps reducing Britishness to Vernon Bogdanor‘s definition: "a wish to be represented in the House of Commons".

The problem for Brown, in trying to forge a British nationalism and a strong British national identity, is that nationalism is territorial. Britain has no territory to call its own, which brings it into obvious conflict with English, Scottish and Welsh nationalism. Similarly it has no national narrative and history that is uniquely its own, so Brown relies on a very Anglo-centric idea of Britain, which suits just fine his vision of an Anglo-British state with devolved peripheries and centrally micro-managed English regions. Paradoxically the same plight that affects Brown's Britishness effects English nationalism and English national identity, it is the plight of conflation - of Britain and England. We are stuck on the problem of trying to define a British national identity which is in reality a multinational State identity. Compounding this problem is the fact that the English have traditionally merged their national [English] and state [British] identities, in a way that the Scots and Welsh have not, to create a hybridised Anglo-British identity.

We see Westminster politicians blow until they're red in the face about the attractions of Britishness; its tolerance, its liberty, its pluralism, its shared values, its common purpose. Yet those same politicians, when they are in Scotland, applaud devolution (itself a political demonstration against an all-encompassing Britishness) and pay tribute to Scotland's distinctiveness, its difference and its national identity. In an important sense, all politicians, when they are in Scotland, are Scottish Nationalists. They all pay homage to Scotland at each and every opportunity, in a way that English MPs never do about England (but perversely do about Britain).

For all the merits of David Davis’s freedom campaign it was depressing that he could not (or would not) define his opposition to New Labour’s authoritarianism as a freeborn Englishman, to tap into that rich English tradition and appeal to his constituents’ Englishness. Would it really be too much to ask for an English MP to appeal to England in opposition to Brown’s dystopian Britishness, just as Scottish politicians have used Scotland as a bulwark against Westminster statism? To have invoked England against an authoritarian Scot would have pulled the rug from under Brown’s feet.

We must ask ourselves who is at fault for this tactical error: David Davis or ourselves?

And we should ask why the Scots debate civil liberties in their Parliament at Holyrood while the English debate theirs on the doorsteps of Haltemprice and Howden.

Discussion

As it says at the top of the page this is intended as a discussion piece. I want to hear from CEP members, but also from other English nationalists (FEP and EDP), and anyone else for that matter, about the civil liberties debate.

• What does England stand for?
• Is there such a thing as 'English liberty'?
• Should the right to self-determination, national sovereignty, be considered a right?
• Should Scottish politicians be able to vote to abolish smoking in English pubs, but not in their own country?
• Why is it that English school children are fingerprinted and placed on a database?
• Why are civil liberties better protected in Scotland than in the rest of the UK?
• Is the most important civil liberty that a democratic people can hold the right to choose and remove their own government; and does the presence of non-English MPs in the parliament compromise England's right to pick the government of its choosing, and lessen our chances of kicking out a government that we don’t want?
• Is the political establishment conspiring to prevent a discussion on the English question, denying us the right to express ourseves as Englishmen and women?
• Should Speaker Martin be able to ban Justice for England from marching outside Parliament on May Day?
• Should (or can) English nationalists be mobilised in defence of civil liberties, or are we entirely reactive, negative, sour and mean-minded?

Many of the Convention's attendant organisations and their members do not associate themselves with English patriotism, and so this may seem – to some of you - an odd convention for the CEP to join. Yet, in defence of British freedoms, speakers will summon up the Peasants’ Revolt, the Magna Carta, Common law, Habeas Corpus, the Jury System, the Bill of Rights, the Levellers and the Diggers, Peterloo, the Chartists, Tolpuddle, the Match Girls Strike, Poll Tax rebels and demonstrators, the protests at Kingsnorth and Heathrow, and anti-NF/BNP demonstrations.

I believe that this is a debate for England. I hope that you do too.

Please give me your thoughts and comments over at the CEP blog.

Announcing the launch of the Convention on Modern Liberty.

"Political institutions are formed upon the consideration of what will most frequently tend to the good of the whole, although now and then exceptions may occur. Thus it is better in general that a nation should have a supreme legislative power, although it may at times be abused. And then, Sir, there is this consideration, that if the abuse be enormous, Nature will rise up, and claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system." - Samuel Johnson

Back in January David Marquand informed us that there "is no English national Myth comparable to the Scottish Myth of popular sovereignty or the Welsh Myth of Celtic socialism", and until we found one he would regard campaigners for an English parliament as "barbarous reactionaries". The English myth, and historical narrative too, is one of liberty and the fight for freedom from oppression and tyranny. It's currently playing on a screen near you in Channel Four's 'The Devil's Whore' and the BBC's 'Robin Hood'. It's in the nursery rhymes "Humpty Dumpty", "As I was Going by Charing Cross" and "The Lion and the Unicorn". It's in the story of Lady Godiva, Beowulf and the Legend of St George. And evident too in the social commentary of Dickens and in the satire of Shakespeare. Not to mention contemporary literature from Lord of the Rings to Lord of the Flies, Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984, and onward to V for Vendetta.

Devolution allowed the Scots and Welsh to not only think as Scotsmen and Welshmen, but also to behave as Scotsmen and Welshmen. The process of devolution is an act, even if yet only a partial act, of national liberation. But what of the English? Well, at present we English are denied the liberty of a forum to discuss and express English national identity, to decide what it is we want England to be, to choose the manner of governance to best reflect, and affect, ourselves as Englishmen and women. For England there will be no 'national conversation', there will only be denial. Gordon Brown uses an English narrative to create a British myth; to bolster Britishness, by which he means British national identity; to turn "British" from a multi-national state identity into a national identity unto itself, at the expense of "English" as a national identity.

He claims that there is “a golden thread which runs through British history – that runs from that long ago day in Runnymede in 1215; on to the Bill of Rights in 1689 where Britain became the first country to successfully assert the power of Parliament over the King”, and that “Voltaire said that Britain gave to the world the idea of liberty”. He also maintains that an appeal to fairness “runs through British history, from early opposition to the first poll tax in 1381 to the second; fairness the theme from the civil war debates”.

But that golden thread is English, Voltaire spoke of England, and it is the English sense of fair play that asymmetric devolution (asymmetric democracy and representation) has upset.

Gordon Brown’s authoritarian Britishness agenda is all about forging a British national identity – whether it’s indoctrinating English school kids and immigrants through Britishness lessons and citizenship classes; coercing England's youth into community service in order to have their tuition fees waived; binding us into a British bio-metric ID card database, or a British Bill of Rights, or; flying the flag, celebrating a Britishness Day, and supporting a British national football team. He flatters himself by demurely referring to himself as a unionist, but the reality is that he's a British nationalist with the aim of forging and cementing a British national identity.

Why does he do this?

He is frit. There is, of course, the small matter of the West Lothian Question, but it goes deeper than that for Brown. For Gordon Brown the Acts of Union were not the coming together of two nations under one parliament, they were an act of incorporation, of Scotland into England; the forging of a greater England, the British nation. Devolution was part disincorporation. Job done. Or so he thought.

Nationalism is all about territory and ownership, and Britain has no territory that is not occupied by another older nation, and no history that is uniquely its own. For Anglo-Brits like Brown, inheritors of England, but British not English, there needs to be an English rump to Britain in order to sustain the British myth; a large body of Anglo-Brits, like him but English, or Scottish if he's lucky, to underwrite the whole enterprise through acquiescence. And there needs to be a British myth because Britain is a nation in its own right. Right? And to keep it as a nation in its own right it must be dominant over the older elemental national identity that threatens to undermine it, and from whose legacy Britain sprang.

If he viewed "Britishness" as a multi-national state identity instead of a national identity, a rival to England, then a lot of this bad feeling could be avoided. But Brown inhabits a world where England is the centre and all else the periphery; where Scotland has distinctiveness from Britain, and England only sameness; where English interests and British interests are indivisible, even where Scottish self-interest is blatent.

Now is not the time for English indifference, now is the time for English difference in the face of Brown's British authoritarianism. England needs a national liberation of the mind, it's time to ask ourselves some questions. Are we English first, or British first? What is left of Britishness if you separate out English identity to the degree that the equivalent extrication has occurred in Scotland; and is that Britishness an essential part of being English, are we diminished? Do we want the authoritarian union of Brown, reliant on statecraft and the politics of fear to forge a national identity, or should Britishness be an umbrella identity that allows the national identities of its constituent nations to flourish? Alternatively, to phrase it another way; should we be a union state of nations, or a unitary imperial nation state (offer only available in England, while Scots last)? And if Brown's way is the British way, how should the English way be different?

Is the Convention on Modern Liberty the beginnings of Nature rising up and overturning a corrupt political system? No. The English have been doing that since time immemorial. But hopefully this represents the opening lines of a new chapter.

“Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel”, observed Samuel Johnson. It’s a quote commonly understood to be an attack on patriotism. But it’s not. It’s an observation on scoundrels and their false patriotsm. As Johnson rightly said, "He that wishes to see his country robbed of its rights cannot be a patriot", a sentiment that was echoed some hundred years later by American civil libertarian Clarence Darrow: "True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else".

Gordon Brown is robbing my country - England - of its rights and its history, and creating a sense of injustice by doing so. The notion of the freeborn Englishman is being replaced by a prescriptive, hollow, British national identity of rights earned - bestowed by the state. In the langauge of the tin-pot fascist it is a collective identity of 'shared purpose' and 'common values', and his a government of 'national unity' - because 'we're stronger together, weaker apart'. It is not the collected national identity that England has, the rich treasure trove into which we all, as individuals, dip into to inform our sense of self and belonging. Brown's Britishness is a collective nothingness - the brainfart of a statist control freak - unless, of course, he robs from England.

For too long the English have unthinkingly subsumed their national identity in Britain. But there is a danger in doing that, Britain has become a project, a project in which the notion of England, the very idea of England itself, is under threat.

And that's something that we need to discuss.