In association with Winchester Universitys Centre for

English Identity and Politics and IPPRs Juncture

English Matters and Labours territorial

dilemmas
Michael Kenny
England has come to matter to Labour in a number of different ways. As
the reality of its parlous electoral position penetrates the debates
associated with Jeremy Corbyns ideological insurrection, the party is
going to have to think much more deeply about where it stands on the
various English questions that have floated to the surface of British
politics.
In purely electoral terms, as Lewis Baston shows, there is a key
imperative to improve its position in England, starting in the forthcoming
local elections, in order to build towards a better performance in 2020.
The loss of its Scottish heartland for the foreseeable future, the
Conservatives strong performance in Wales in the general election of
May 2010, and the impact of the forthcoming boundaries review, mean
that Labours performance in different parts of England will determine its
prospects of regaining power at the UK level.
But the electoral picture is only one of several interrelated respects in
which England and the shifting territorial sentiments of its people now
matter to Labour. While issues of foreign policy and security have
gripped its attention since May, there is a good chance that its current
leaders prospects, and the fate of the party in the coming decade, will be
more affected by some of the questions and conflicts about territory,
nation and place that are in play across the UK. Given that the
predominant reflex within the party is to dismiss such issues as either
irrelevant or as distractions from bread-and-butter questions about
redistribution, inequality and economic growth, this suggests that it faces
a considerable, perhaps existential, challenge.
A similar conclusion arises from a recent essay published by Professor
Vernon Bogdanor. We have, he maintains, entered an era when questions

about who we are, what values bind us together, and who belongs to the
communities we value have become much more important to most
people. And yet, for the most part, progressive politicians cling to the
belief that the normal rules apply, and that it is the economy and the
health service, rather than immigration and culture, that lie at the heart of
politics. But questions of recognition and identity, as well as distribution
and opportunity, are key themes in our political life.
England, then, should matter to Labour because it has come to matter to
many of the nations inhabitants. This diffuse and complex trend has not
simply been conjured by the Conservatives in the wake of the Scottish
referendum: it has taken shape over some considerable time and has
developed for a combination of different reasons. Albion has become a
much richer and more meaningful imagined community for a majority
of the English. And this undoubtedly represents a fundamental challenge
to a political left, which tends to see Englishness either as an irretrievably
insular kind of nationalism, or as something that is essentially indefinable
and therefore meaningless. In holding to these twin beliefs, Labour is
increasingly at odds with a growing proportion of the English electorate.
Certainly, a sense of Englishness is by no means the only territorial
attachment that has come to matter to people in recent years. It is not
experienced by most people as separate from or as a rival to a feeling
for their own area or town. Indeed, it is through experience of specific
places that a sense of nationhood is often learned and shaped. And this
means, of course, that there are many different regionally rooted ways of
being and feeling English. A recent series of annual surveys showed that a
sense of Englishness had grown at a roughly similar rate in all regions of
England from Durham to Devon, Cheltenham to Clacton.
And yet the deep suspicion of patriotic sentiments, and the accompanying
refusal to give up on the belief that Britishness is the only civic and truly
multicultural form of nationhood in the UK, has left progressive
politicians awash in the tides of change on both sides of Hadrians wall.
In policy terms, Labours ingrained but weakly expressed unionism
means that it has drifted, over the last few years, into the position of
being the unwitting defender of the creaking structures of the British
state, rather than the champion of a remodelled, more democratic and
rebalanced UK. Having so little to say on the questions of selfgovernment, devolution and political community has left the party
increasingly vulnerable to those political forces Ukip in England and
the SNP in Scotland that do harness and engage these currents of
national sentiment.

The preference of many on the left is to assert northern regionalism, or

London metropolitanism, as morally superior alternatives to Tory
Englishness. But, comforting as this may feel, such an approach locks the
party into particular cultural idioms, and reinforces the perception that it
speaks only to certain parts of England. The subnational focus that
prevailed during the Blair and Brown years offers diminishing returns at a
moment when the party needs to develop alliances and make connections
across the dividing lines of class, geography and ethnicity. Important as
the preservation of the UK is to the progressive cause, propounding a
post-national Britishness is akin to flogging a dying horse, as more and
more of the citizens who live within it find more meaningful forms of
attachment and affiliation at more personal scales.
Importantly, the nationalisms at work within the UK are far from unique.
They can be seen as local manifestations of one of the most powerful
societal trends in Europe the development of a powerful politics of
attachment to nations, regions and localities that persist below the state.
This very broad dynamic has its roots in the profound changes to family,
community and work that are associated with new technologies and
economic logics that have brought enormous transformations. The spirit
of resistance associated with the reaffirmation of places and traditions
that stand outside or against this emerging order invokes a rich stew of
sentiments, including deeply rooted anxieties about the pace and nature of
change, and resentments that are sometimes directed at various equally
powerless others. But these feelings also reflect a rising tide of political
disenchantment and a growing sense of self-government and
empowerment. These are currents in which nationalists and populists of
both left and right find it easy to swim. They present challenges and
shape agendas that politicians from the liberal mainstream generally find
difficult to engage with. Nevertheless, such engagement and political
leadership is vital for the health of democratic politics.
A starting point for a progressive rearticulation of some of these
sentiments is a deeper reflection about why the sentiments and vernacular
associated with community and nation offer people sources of meaning
and security that conventional politics does not. What are the stories of
peoplehood, national redemption and collective endeavour which
politics needs to tell if it is going to capture the sentiments that lie behind
the politics of attachment?
This rearticulation also requires Labour to take a very different approach
to its territorial politics. In Scotland this is very apparent and long
overdue. But in England too, a more nationally tailored rhetoric and

distinctive policy proposition may be required. A starting point here is the

appreciation that, for a growing number of its citizens, England represents
an embryonic form of political community a place with distinctive,
collective interests and a living tradition that might sustain a different
kind of common life to that on offer from mainstream politicians.
Aspects of that common life are, for most of the English, naturally
expressed through close interrelations and dependencies with other
national peoples, and have historically been developed through union
with others. There is a strong liberal as well as (small-c) conservative
lineage running through the modern self-image of the English, and this
has yet to be fully tapped by politicians. The perception, for example, that
Englishness and Europe are alternative choices rather than natural
bedfellows is quite a recent invention, and would have made little sense
to some of the intellectual giants, like Ernest Barker or Leonard
Hobhouse, who shaped the political thinking of progressive parties a
century or more ago. A progressive expression of Englishness that
reminds us of these deep connections, and challenges the Euroscepticism
with which English nationalism is associated, should be a vital ingredient
in the forthcoming EU referendum campaign.
It is undoubtedly true that the symbolism of Englishness has, recently,
been claimed by those advocating chauvinist forms of nationalism. But to
assume that this is the only kind of political meaning that an attachment
to England sustains is mistaken. The English are among the most diverse
of national peoples, and have long developed images of themselves that
reflect and celebrate that diversity. There is evidence to suggest that the
reluctance of many ethnic minority citizens to identify as English is
starting to change. In key respects, our national identity is still
characterised by a fuzziness which has fascinated and disappointed
commentators for centuries. This, however, gives it an imaginative range,
adaptability, and a lived, rather than stipulated, quality. And it also means
that there is plenty of room for different visions, ideas and experiences of
Englishness to be promoted and celebrated in the public culture.
These qualities need to be borne in mind when Labour figures turn, as
they increasingly will, to the question of how to speak for England. The
left, as Jon Cruddas and others have reminded us, can call upon an
inspiring radical story. This harks back to the myth of Magna Carta and
the free-born Englishman, runs through the work of romantic socialists,
like William Morris, and was continued in the last century by figures like
George Orwell, EP Thompson and Tony Benn.

Such a lineage is undoubtedly important but it is not sufficient to produce

the kinds of narrative and idiom that Labour politicians will need to
employ. Instead, this means developing resonant stories of the English as
a nation with a strong sense of tradition, one which has long viewed itself
as among the most dynamic and outward-looking peoples in the world.
Both of these elements the lineage and the stories are needed to shape
a culturally inclusive and robust form of nationality amid the exigencies
of the present. On the political right there is a much greater receptivity to
the disparate values and ideas around which political Englishness has
coalesced. Stanley Baldwin in the 1930s, for instance, harnessed patriotic,
nostalgic and modernist themes as he sought to broaden his partys appeal
to the new middle-class voters of the expanding suburbs.
Equally, while the focus in debates about patriotism and Englishness
often comes to fall upon the cultural symbolism associated with flags,
anthems, football teams and national holidays, it is important to see that
this is only one aspect of the challenge posed by English national identity.
What does Labour have to say to the emerging idea of the English as a
people who possess a collective interest and potentially a sovereign
will? Hoping that such questions will fade and that normal politics will
return looks like an increasingly unpromising response. Most urgently,
the party needs to muster a coherent answer to the question posed by the
Conservatives in the immediate aftermath of the Scottish referendum:
does it accept the case for English devolution, or not? And if not, what is
its preferred alternative?
The Conservatives have moved further and faster in response to these
currents of opinion. But they too are unsure on this terrain, and face their
own internal divisions not just on Europe, but between those who are
keen to give England greater powers within a remodelled union, and
those worried about the latters future. Political Englishness may actually
represent an opportunity for a party that is willing and able to develop a
robust policy proposition tailored to England and the major challenges
of inequality, regional disparity and public service provision that it
faces.
There is no easy road ahead. Developing an English proposition while
conveying a commitment to the continuing merits and importance of
union will be difficult in a context where the SNP is pre-eminent in
Scotland. But it is worth remembering that Labour has been wiped out
north of the border while saying virtually nothing about Englishness or
the English question. The union may well be at risk from developments in
Scotland, but it is time that progressives realised that there is an

increasingly tangible risk that the bonds of union may well be fraying
because of developments in England too.
Michael Kenny is director of the Mile End Institute,
Queen Mary University of London.
First published by Juncture online
[http://www.ippr.org/juncture/english-matters-and-labour-sterritorial-dilemmas]
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