Nationalism, Devolution and the Challenge to the United Kingdom State

221 pages

English

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221 pages

English

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With the advent of devolution, it is clear that the British Constitution is currently undergoing a period of dynamic transformation. England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales were slowly united by conquest and treaty over the last 300 years, a unity which was only broken by the 1922 agreement that split Ireland in two. The last 50 years have seen the collapse of empire, and while the pull of local nationalism within the United Kingdom continues to strengthen, integrative narratives of Britishness weaken.

In this insightful book, Arthur Aughey outlines the changing character of the United Kingdom polity, and examines the developing debate about the meaning of the Union in the context of New Labour/New Britain.

In a systematic survey of historical, theoretical and political reflection on the nature of Britishness, he questions what the Union once was, what it means now and what it might become, taking into account the challenge posed by internal divisions along with the problems posed by European integration and globalisation.
Preface

Section One: Questions

1. When Was Britain?

2. What Was Britain?

3. Why Is Britain?

Section Two: Narratives

4. The Conservative Nation

5. The Labour Nation

6. National Peoples

Section Three: Futures

7. Modes of Self-Determination

8. Missing England

9. A European Conclusion?

References

Index

Sujets

Political Science

Histoire

Theory

History

Informations

Publié par	Pluto Press
Date de parution	20 juin 2001
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781849640572
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,6250€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Nationalism, Devolution and the Challenge to the United Kingdom State

Arthur Aughey

P Pluto Press LONDON • STERLING, VIRGINIA

First published 2001 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 22883 Quicksilver Drive, Sterling, VA 20166–2012, USA

www.plutobooks.com

The right of Arthur Aughey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Aughey, Arthur. Nationalism, devolution, and the challenge to the United Kingdom state / Arthur Aughey. p. cm. ISBN 0–7453–1526–7 — ISBN 0–7453–1521–6 (pbk.) 1. Regionalism—Great Britain. 2. Decentralization in government—Great Britain. 3. Nationalism—Great Britain. 4. European Union—Great Britain. I. Title. JN297.R44 A84 2001 320.941—dc21 00–0121

ISBN 0 7453 1526 7 hardback ISBN 0 7453 1521 6 paperback

10 10

09 9

08 8

07 7

06 6

05 5

04 4

03 3

02 2

01 1

Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services, Fortescue, Sidmouth EX10 9QG Typeset by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton Printed in the European Union by TJ International, Padstow, England

Contents

Preface

Part I: Questions

When Was Britain? A Question of Nomenclature A Question of British History A Question of Amnesia Forging the Nation?

What Was Britain? The Paradox of British Politics The Genteel Tradition Contract and Solidarity

Why Is Britain? Posing the Question The Empire The Constitution Fatal Anxiety Pragmatism and Redemption Duality

Part II: Narratives

The Conservative Nation The Making of the Conservative Nation Constitutional Consequences of Margaret Thatcher After Thatcher

The Labour Nation Labour and the Nation The Social Democratic State Old Labour and Devolution New Labour’s Nation Rebranding Britain British Matters

vii

3 5 9 12 15

21 24 32 37

41 41 45 49 52 54 56

65 68 74 80

85 87 90 92 95 101 102

The Challenge to the United Kingdom State

National Peoples Hobsbawm Hobsbawm’s Critics Questions of Degree Wales Scotland

Part III: Futures

Modes of Self-Determination Northern Ireland Scotland Wales

Missing England Englishness and Britishness Simon Heffer’s England Billy Bragg’s England The Genteel Tradition of Englishness English Questions

A European Conclusion? Identity Sovereignty Legitimacy and Self-Government After Britain?

References Index

105 107 109 112 115 119

127 128 138 146

153 155 158 162 165 167

171 171 173 176 180

183 203

Preface

Virginia Woolf wrote that, in 1910, human nature changed. That was poetic licence of course. Yet it did capture a mood, a definite sense that major transformations were taking place in British life. The issue that dominated public affairs then was the Irish Question. If the Irish Question was the central question at the beginning of the twentieth century, then it is the British question that is the central question at the start of the twenty-first. Those familiar with the debates on the Irish Question may find much that is recognisable in the debates on the current British question. This time, though, the Gladstonians in the shape of the New Labour government have won the argument. A radical reform of the constitution has been undertaken which will affect radically the future of British politics. Whether the Gladstonian premise, which New Labour shares, that devolution of power to the nations of Britain is the best means to secure the unity of the state remains to be proved. Despite the relentless optimism of New Labour, there are insistent voices enough prophesying doom. These have helped to create a mood of uncer-tainty about the future of the British state. One might be forgiven for thinking – in this case with some political licence – that in 1997 the nature of Britain changed. This time the intimation is one of political mortality, a vague but insistent sense that Britain and Britishness are in terminal decline. A brief con-sideration of some recent literature would confirm that impression. The title of Tom Nairn’s bookAfter Britain(2000a) has an obvious Woolfian quality to it. The suggestion is that much of British politics may appear to go on as normal, but at a subterranean, cultural level the nature of political life has changed and changed for good. Britain has already broken up in spirit and the fact will soon follow. In that same sense, Christopher Harvie (2000) believes that one can now with some historical accuracy pinpoint the precise era of British nationalism: it was between 1939 and 1970. Today, it is dead and gone. Nationalism can no longer be British – it has returned to Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England after its brief British sabbatical. In similar vein, Andrew Marr (2000) has performed a critical pathology and suggested a number of recent dates forThe Day Britain

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Died. Conservatives have been equally pessimistic. Peter Hitchens has written of New Labour being responsible for a cultural revolution which will end inThe Abolition of Britain(1999). Even the former Conservative Cabinet Minister, John Redwood, has written ofThe Death of Britain?(1999) – the question mark representing the possi-bility of the Conservative Party resuscitating the country. However, the evidence is that even some traditional Conservatives no longer believe that Britain can be saved or, indeed, that it is worth saving (Heffer 1999). What informs this dismal vision of the end of Britain? The answer is a number of interrelated assumptions. The first is a theory of history which proposes that those conditions of Britain’s world-historical significance that contributed to its integration as a state – its empire, its military reach, its industrial power – have now gone. By contrast, the world-historical tendencies of the modern age – globalisation, interdependence and national resurgence – now contribute to Britain’s disintegration as a state. Historians can paint this picture of decay, the grey on grey of decrepitude, because the owl of Minerva has spread its wings at the dusk of Britishness. That Hegelianism is clichéd and overused. Never-theless, it sums up well the historicism of the argument. This reading of history informs, in turn, a view that the political ideal once embodied by Britain – in its constitution, its culture, its civility – and that gave self-confidence to national identity is now exhausted. It can no longer inspire respect or interest abroad; it can no longer secure and sustain popular legitimacy at home. The Westminster model has crumbled and Britishness has all the appeal of the living dead. Historical and ideological judgement together issue in a political claim that the utility of Britain and Britishness has therefore ceased. The contract between the separate nations which once shaped them into a United Kingdom no longer satisfies the respective partners. It must now be laid to rest. This is, one might say, the four nations and a funeral conception of modern Britain. The four nations wholly or partly contained by the British state – England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland – must resume responsibility for their own futures. This can best be done within a new Union of world-historical significance, a Union that embodies an inspiring ideal, a Union whose contract is functional to real national interests. That Union is the European Union. Alternatively, as some Conserv-ative English nationalists suggest, it can best be done by independent states living freely on their native abilities in the global market. But

Preface

the conclusion is the same. There is no future in Britishness. Its narrative has ended. It is time to bury the United Kingdom. These are the postulates that can be found in the literature suggesting the imminent or actual death of Britain. The purpose of this book is to examine these postulates and to consider their validity. The way in which the distinctive levels of the argument, historical, ideological and political, are deployed in this literature has guided the way in which this book itself has been organised. It is divided into three parts. The first,Questions, addresses the broad historical and conceptual issues of the British question. Chapter 1, ‘When Was Britain?’, considers the question of British history and the formation of its discreet identity. It examines the nature of historical thinking about Britain and how changes in historical thinking have affected the identity of Britain. An understanding of the meanings of Britishness in history is essential to understanding the debate about its meaning today. Chapter 2, ‘What Was Britain?’, considers the political ideal of Britishness, the ideology of what is here termed ‘the genteel tradition’. It reflects on what was thought (positively) to distinguish the British constitution from its continental European rivals and what were taken to be the instructive values it embodied. Under-standing that ideal is a way of grasping a whole tradition of political behaviour, a tradition of behaviour which, its critics on both the Left and the Right argue, is no longer relevant to present needs and is the cause of the decline of Britain. Chapter 3, ‘Why Is Britain?’, brings together historical and ideo-logical reflection and considers the contemporary relevance of the ideal of Britishness in the light of recent political changes. These changes have challenged Britain’s sense of itself historically and ide-ologically. In doing so they have brought forth the subversively nationalist question why? – subversive because the stability and security of Britain assumes that the why? of the state is a question which has already been answered. That it has become an open question today is a measure of Britain’s political uncertainty. Part II,Narratives, explores the two major ideological forms of inte-grative Britishness since the nineteenth century. It also considers the newly confident narrative of nationalism which aims to disintegrate Britishness. Chapter 4 looks at the components of the Conservative nation, that political community of interest which was astonishingly successful for most of the twentieth century. So successful was it that it was easy to confuse the particular attributes of the Conservative

The Challenge to the United Kingdom State

nation with the entire character of Britishness. The crisis of con-temporary Conservatism, therefore, may equally be taken as a metaphor for a distinctively acute crisis of Britishness. Chapter 5 assesses the changing profile of Conservatism’s major competitor for ideological hegemony, the Labour nation. Labour’s patriotism was, and remains, just as fervent as the Conservative version and both have much in common. Labour’s notion of the people, however, has been quite distinct. Its stress on solidarity rather than nationality as the basis of political community may be taken as a distinction without real substance. This book argues that it has had and continues to have practical significance. Indeed, it can be argued that the fate of modern Britain is now indistinguish-able from the fate of New Labour. That is a thought which may inspire either confidence or the deepest despair. Chapter 6 examines how the idea of nationalism, especially in Scotland, challenges the British perspective of the former two narratives. That challenge has changed. Hitherto, nationalism presented itself as a movement of cultural or political defence against Englishness or, as Eric Hobsbawm once put it, the exclusive vector of historical development in a world made up exclusively of nation-states. Or it presented itself as both these things. Today the appeal of nationalism is less cultural defence than cultural chic. It talks not of separatism but of reconnection with the wider community of Europe. Nationalism, in other words, claims that it can give democratic political shape to forces encouraged by the impact of globalisation in a way the British state cannot possibly do. Part III,Futures, essays an appraisal of the consequences of recent constitutional changes on the nations and regions of Britain. Chapter 7 is devoted to New Labour’s asymmetrical devolution and what that now reveals about politics in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The major intellectual divide in modern British politics is taken to be between an expectation that the disintegrative potential of nationalism can be contained within a reformed British constitution; and an expectation that these are two truths which cannot be contained. This, of course, repeats the divide at the time of the Irish Home Rule debate, but does so in very different historical circumstances. Chapter 8 looks at the peculiarity of England within the new asymmetrical arrangements. It examines the spectral presence of both Conservative and radical forms of English nationalism. Though as yet without organised political articulation, these are considered

Preface

possibly the greatest, and self-fulfilling, threats to the integrity of the British state. Finally, Chapter 9 investigates the manner in which the European Union has transformed and has become integral to the British question. This chapter reviews debates about the British question in the light of contemporary European influences and ends with a brief and tentative assessment of what the future may hold for Britain and Britishness. The book does not claim to be a comprehensive study of these complex matters; no book can ever honestly make that claim. Though it draws substantially upon it, this book is not a substitute for the important research currently being done on constitutional change and on the nations of Britain. One thinks in particular of the scholars associated with the journalScottish Affairs, the Institute of Welsh Affairs and the Constitution Unit. What it tries to do is complement that research by integrating it into a systematic survey of the identity of modern Britain. It is not intended to answer the British question. Rather it is intended as a contribution towards clar-ification of that question. The book is, in short, a meditation on British identity: what it once was, what it now is and what may become of it. The book began its life as a short paper read to the joint British-Irish Association/Encounter conference for Young Politicians in Oxford in the spring of 1998. Some of the participants at the conference suggested that the ideas sketchily outlined there could be profitably extended into a book-length study. In particular, Professor Paul Bew was very supportive, as was Dr Peter Shirlow, the series editor of Pluto Press’s Contemporary Irish Studies catalogue. The argument was given a more public outing as a brief contribu-tion to the bookCool Britannia: What Britishness Means To Me, which was published in 1999 by The Ulster Society. I would like to thank the editors, Gordon Lucy and Elaine McClure, for encouraging a wide-ranging debate on the subject. Conversations with Professor Henry Patterson later helped to sharpen some of those ideas. In the spring of 2000, another joint British-Irish Association/Encounter conference for Young Politicians held at Stranmillis College, Belfast enabled me to present a more considered paper which tested some of the arguments presented in this book. I appreciated the kind responses of the delegates. In particular, I am much obliged for con-versations about aspects of contemporary Scotland with the Scottish National Party participants, especially Shona Robison MSP. The

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insights provided by George Lyon MSP of the Liberal Democrats were very enlightening. Dr Jennifer Welsh’s paper to the same conference encouraged a reassessment of the politics of European integration. I appreciate the opportunity both these conferences provided for the development of this book. In this case thanks go to Mary Keen, Sir Nicholas Fenn, Sir David Goodall, Professor Terence Brown and also to Peter Lyner and Phyllis Shaw of the British Council Office in Belfast. Part of the argument in Chapter 7 appeared first in an article published in theBrown Journal of World Affairs, Vol. VII, Issue 1, Winter/Spring 2000. I would like to thank the editor in chief, Jennifer Schwartzman, for her permission to reproduce parts of that article. I would also like to thank Roger van Zwanenberg of Pluto Press and Peter Shirlow for their comments on the original typescript, which significantly improved the final text. All the faults, of course, are entirely my own. No book would ever be written if there was not enough time in which to write it. Most of this book was written during a sabbatical in the second semester of the academic year 1999–2000. I would like to express my thanks to the University of Ulster for granting me that sabbatical and to the former Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Professor Terry O’Keeffe, for supporting my application. In particular Professor Alan Sharp, Head of the School of History, Philosophy and Politics, has been consistently supportive. A period of academic leave increases the pressure on one’s colleagues. I am grateful for their will-ingness to shoulder the extra demands caused by my absence, especially at a time when everyone was in the midst of preparing our Self-Assessment Document for the Teaching Quality Assessment. Equally, no book would ever get written to deadline without supportive family. Kathleen and Sky have had to endure the process, and they did so with good grace and understanding. In the school summer holidays Sky even sacrificed her mornings to help me track down obscure references in even obscurer journals. Kola was a constant guard and companion. Kathleen, as ever, has been my inspiration.