Play to Little England

England is an ‘imagined community’ left unimagined by Labour. Labour must articlulate a vision of England’s future or stop complaining when others put forward a vision with which they disagree. It’s time to play to Little England.

Scottish historian David McCrone made an important observation about Scottish politics, it is an observation that should inform Labour's approach to winning back England:

In an important sense, Scotland’s politicians are all nationalists - David McCrone, Understanding Scotland: The Sociology of a Nation; 2001.

This is not to say that all Scotland's politicians are separatists, they clearly are not. But all Scottish politicians, from Michael Forsyth to Alex Salmond, make appeals to the nation of Scotland, the Scottish people, and, whenever possible, they parade their Scottish credentials with natural pride. They are nationalists. The Scottish Labour Party itself is proudly Scottish and never shies away from displaying the Saltaire and liberally peppering its literature with the words 'Scottish' and 'Scotland'. All Scottish politicians and parties compete to out Scottish the rest.

Ten years after McCrone made his observation on Scottish politics he would be hard pushed to observe that "England’s politicians are all nationalists". Quite the reverse in fact, English politicians would rather be caught fiddling their expense accounts than put England's Cross of St George on their election literature, yet ironically that doesn't stop them engaging in the annual round of hand-wrining about the far-right's ownership of English national symbols that occurs every St George's Day. It's not just England’s national symbols that our politicians leave to the far-right, it's appeals to English nationhood and the very language of politics itself, rarely are the words 'England' or 'English' used when another word will do.

David Cameron recently delivered a speech on public service reform and the Big Society. It was a speech that contained 18 instances of the phrase “our public services”, four instances of “our country” and two mentions of “our schools” (not to mention “our schools and hospitals”, “our universities”, “our teaching hospitals and universities”, “our children”, “our health outcomes”, “our society”, “public services in our country” and “our Foundation hospitals”). Britain was mentioned four times and Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Austria, Poland, Germany, France, New York and Shanghai were all mentioned once. Yet there was no mention of England, the country directly affected by Cameron’s Big Society and his reforms to public services.

Labour's faltering response to Cameron's Big Society is Maurice Glasman's 'Blue Labour'. Glasman is on the right track but 'Blue Labour' is an unfortunate phrase. A far better phrase would be 'Little England', the Little England of lollypop-men, community bobbies, playing fields, libraries, local hospitals, primary schools, publicly-owned forests and arts and cultural bodies - the very things threatened by the Coalition's cuts.

I thought about patriotism. I wished I had been born early enough to have been called a Little Englander. It was a term of sneering abuse, but I should be delighted to accept it as a description of myself. That little sounds the right note of affection. It is little England I love. - J.B. Priestley

People will fight to preserve what is local to them, but to successfully oppose the Coalition Government it is to the national community that Labour needs to appeal - and mobilise. And post-devolution that nation is England, not Britain. For a brief moment Labour suddenly seemed to understand the new territorial dimension when they joined the fight to save England's forests; for a brief moment Labour appealled to English nationalism and harnessed English patriotic feeling. England will warm to Labour when Labour politicians speak of England's schools and teachers, England's hospitals and nurses, with the same English passion and English emphasis with which Ed Miliband wrote about England's forests in the Sunday Times:

This is not the big society, it is just a big sale. It is the sale of the physical heart of England, of irreplaceable national assets, enjoyed by communities for generations….The sign of a good society – big or small – is what it is prepared to protect, be that universal benefits, health or ancient woodland; public goods for the benefit of the whole nation and future generations. Unrestrained free market ideology has no place running rampant through ancient English woodlands. Jerusalem is a song we all sing. The next time that David Cameron stands up to sing it, I hope he spares a thought for what his government is doing to England’s green and pleasant land. - Ed Miliband, Sunday Times, 30th January 2011

It is time for Labour to start speaking of, to and for England with the same sense of patriotism that would be natural for Scottish Labour and Welsh Labour to use in Scotland and Wales. Some people on the left will be uncomfortable with that, but there is no need to be, because, as the late Bernard Crick advised Gordon Brown, invoking a strong national consciousness is not the same as being a separatist or Nationalistic (with a capital N):

Over many years I have fought a losing battle to impress on subeditors the use of an upper case for separatist `Nationalism' and lower case for cultural `nationalism', for strong national consciousness that is not necessarily separatist. Gordon Brown in the 2001 general election attacked fiercely, as he said, `nationalists' in the name of the advantages of the Union. I was pompously moved to write to him to suggest that he either gave the SNP its real name or firmly polemicised against `separatist nationalists'. For I humbly pointed out that, to my old English and new Scottish immigrant eyes, nearly all Scots were nationalists, in the sense of having a strong feeling of national identity: the majority were not separatists. - Bernard Crick, The Four Nations: Interrelations, The Political Quarterly, Vol. 79, No. 1, January-March 2008

Yes, of course England should have its own parliament and government; yes, there should be an English Labour Party with a manifesto for England; yes, English sports fans should sing Jerusalem instead of God Save the Queen, and; yes, St George's Day should be a national day of celebration for all England's people. But baby steps first. We need to start speaking of England first, imagining a vision of England’s future, appealing to that Little England whose patriotism begins at home.

First published on Progress.