Billy Bragg:
Looking for a new England

(NSS 17.03.1995)

(On p3 Contents)
14 Looking for a new England
Why should the left be scared of patriotism? Billy Bragg believes that we shouldn't allow Englishness to become the preserve of the far right.

(On p14)
Looking for a new England

(intro)
Why should the left be scared of patriotism? Billy Bragg believes that we shouldn't allow Englishness to become the preserve of the far right.
(photo capture)
Are we in England unable to join the struggle for devolution because we are squeamish about hoisting the flag of St George?

    I was delighted to read in last week's NS diary a call for the reinstatement of the annual England—Scotland football match, although I fear that—because it came from north of the border—it may have offered comfort to those Englishmen who believe the Scots need us in order to give true meaning to their Scottishness. Any casual observer of our recent encounter on the football pitch will have noticed that, paradoxically, we need them, too. You might consider the new-found atmosphere of self-respect among the English to be purely down to the efforts of Shearer, Seaman, Venables and co, but I would argue they were merely the people who benefited most from the magnanimity that the Scots showed us by returning once again to Wembley.
    A month or so before Euro 96 began I was reading Brian Gardner's moving anthology of second world war poets, The Terrible Rain, when I came across a poem simply called England. It was written in 1938 by A S J Tessimond and describes a nation still very recognisable today. It closes with the lines:
        England, the snail that's shod with lightening
        shall we laugh or shall we weep?
    A chill ran down my spine as I contemplated those damning lines. I thought of the goal San Marino scored against us and the 2—0 defeat at the hands of the US. I recalled the dull, goalless friendly against Croatia that I had sat through in an almost empty Wembley Stadium a few months before. The imagery of those lines hung like a grey cloud over that spurious warm-up game against the Eleven Men of Hong Kong, or whatever bogus name they went under, and it finally came home to haunt me when we were unable to finish off Switzerland in the opening match of the tournament itself. The England team looked set to continue performing like Nike-sponsored molluscs, when who should come walking proud out of the Wembley tunnel in the nick of time but the Old Enemy themselves. By Christ, did we need them.
    First, they deserve our thanks for not gloating over the tabloids' criticism of the English team before the match. In television interviews the Scottish players were the epitome of professionalism, commenting only on the pressures and the pettiness of the English press. Second, they were well up for it. No way were they coming to play for a boring draw. Sure, they wanted desperately to qualify for the knockout stage of the competition, but no Scottish team had yet managed that feat. If fate decreed that they had to go home without the cup, then stuffing the English at Wembley would take the sting out of their disappointment.
    Also they have a better national anthem than us. What is the problem with the English FA? If its Scottish counterpart recognises that "God Save The Queen" is the national anthem of Britain, not Scotland, then why can't we be provided with a suitable song for the English to sing? It's not as if anyone actually enjoys singing "God Save The Queen". The only things that could be said in its favour are that it has only the one verse and everybody knows the tune, but then you could say the same about most of the dance music you hear on Top of the Pops every Friday night. Maybe I wouldn't mind it so much if she could be bothered to turn up to here us all singing about her, but it never fails to make me feel like a vassal rather than a citizen. I envy the Scots their "Flower of Scotland". It tells us something about them and their aspirations, rather than their rulers.
    And don't they sing that song of theirs with pride? The English tabloids reached back to the 1940s in a massively misjudged attempt to whip up some anti-German feeling, but the Scots have much longer memories than that. I saw a banner at the England—Scotland game bearing the numbers 13 and 14. Was this some prediction of the game's outcome, or the score of some 19th-century encounter between these ancient rivals? No, it was the date of the battle of Bannockburn. Who do you think you are kidding Mr Plantagenet? Don't mention the middle ages.
    The singing of "Flower of Scotland" in Wembley Stadium, broadcast live around the world, was a wonderful slap in the face of the Union. I was almost moved to join in. I admit to feeling some frustration, though, when the television camera dwelt solely on the faces of the English team during "God Save The Queen". I desperately wanted to know if any of the Scots players would express their loyalty to the Crown. Perhaps even more fascinating would have been to seek out the faces of those Rangers fans among the crowd to see if the most notoriously Unionist football supporters in Britain could stomach singing the loyalist anthem with the English team after giving it loads during "Flower of Scotland". I doubt television viewers would ever have witnessed a starker illustration of the reality of loyalism; that the Queen belongs to the English and by expressing loyalty to the Crown, Scottish Unionists are merely expressing their loyalty to the English status quo.
    It was the presence of the Scots team in our qualifying group that allowed these exquisite anomalies in the fabric of our united kingdoms to be witnessed by millions as they were aired in the midsummer daylight. Had we been drawn in a group without Scotland I fear the English team performance might never have risen above mollusc level.
    And their supporters had a salutary effect on us, too. They came to this tournament proudly proclaiming their well-earned reputation for being better behaved than the English. They made much of getting on famously with the Dutch during their opening game and their behaviour in London was exemplary. On my way to Anfield for the Italy—Russia game I picked up a free card that showed a photo of a tartan-bedecked fan kissing a policewoman. "Scottish supporters," it read. "Best behaved inside the ground. Best behaved outside too."
    That didn't seem to be a boast on the part of the Scots, more a reminder. Yet whoever it was at Euro 96 who had these printed up was obviously hedging their bets, for beneath the picture was printed the Crimestoppers' hotline number, just in case you happened to bump into any of these well-behaved chaps. Welcome to England, lads.
    I managed to get a ticket for the England—Holland game and, once seated inside the stadium, was astonished to be confronted with a sea of flags of St George. In 1966 England supporters waved the Union Jack almost exclusively, yet this time it was hardly to be seen. Even in recent years the British flag has been draped, more often than not, around the shoulders of our travelling supporters. So who do we have to thank for this sudden recognition of our true identity? Well it wasn't Baddiel, Skinner and that bloke out of the Lightning Seeds. Again, we have the presence of the Scots to be thankful for. It would have been quite acceptable to wave the old red, white and blue if we were up against anyone else, but when confronted by massed saltire flags and Scottish standards it became important for English men and women to identify themselves with something other than the Union Jack.
    True, it is easier to paint the Cross of St George on your face than the British flag, but if we English are ever to come to terms with our role in the Union—and until we do the other nations have little hope of getting any understanding from Westminster—then we must start recognising who we are. As long as we remain largely uncomfortable about being English we will always be seeking the security blanket that our sense of Britishness offers. Yet we only became British relatively recently, as a means to end centuries of intermittent warning between England and Scotland. By settling on the name "British", merchant capital north and south of the border had much to gain. Instead of fighting each other, the merchants could plant their newly devised flag on far-flung battle lines and build themselves an empire.
    Without the British Empire though, our reasons for being British start to lose their meaning. This historical process is something that is keenly felt by the establishment. As British institutions become more and more identified with the old order, the staus quo is threatened from within and without by demands for devolution at home and the federal agenda in Europe. Having spent centuries entrenching its powers, the establishment is not about to let it all slip away. It is already laying the ground for a red, white and blue election, which will allow it to make a big play of refusing to surrender Britain's souvereignty, while at the same time shouting "Traitor!" at those in the United Kingdom who want their souvereignty back. And you can already hear its battle-cry in the negative campaigns emanating from Conservative Central Office—"And always keep a hold of nurse for fear of finding something worse."
    For the notion of the United Kingdom is beginning to break down. To the Welsh and the Scots it is obvious how to hasten this process. For we English who wish to see a new constitutional relationship between our countries, the path forward is not so clear. On the left, any expression of national identity is bound to be tainted by fears of national chauvinism and racism. But if we continue to leave the flag of St George out on the fringes of our society, we are allowing the right to dictate what is and what is not English.
    If Wales and Scotland get the freedom they want, unless we wish to become some sort of British rump we, too, will be out of the Union. Once we realise that, the next step is to ask what kind of England we want to live in, because our national identity remains to be defined. We need to grasp the nettle of this question and make English an inclusive identity rather than and exclusive nationality.
    While we wait for that debate to pick up momentum, let us thank the Scots for showing that a sense of national pride can be a great asset in a modern society. They have rediscovered their dissenting traditions and tapped into them to oppose the British state. By their presence at Wembley Stadium they have offered us the opprtunity to do more than just wave the flag of St George again with little trace of embarrassment.

Paul Richards: Inclusive Patriotism

    Billy Bragg rightly calls for the English to reassert their sense of national identity, but also points at the heart of the paradox ("I am looking for a new England" 26 July).
    Englishness is seldom expressed as a pride in nationhood and shared culture. It is rarely a pride in England's past achievements and confidence about the future. It is usually expressed by what it is not: not Welsh, not Scottish, not French nor German. At the xenophobic extremes it is expressed by hatred and intolerance, from the Tory right wing, to the football hooligans (who are proud to be British, as long as it doesn't include anyone from Wales, Scotland, Ireland, anywhere in the north of England, anyone without a white face).
    There is no contradiction between a love of country and a desire to see the lot of ones fellow countrymen and women improve, between socialism and patriotism.
    It is a great outrage that patriotism has been expropriated for the Conservative Party, and that the left feels uncomfortable about being patriotic. There is nothing patriotic about letting homelessness and unemployment spiral out of control, or in undermining our national institutions, our schools and hospitals. There is nothing patriotic about playing fast and loose with the economy for narrow party advantage, as the Conservative government is doing.
    As Billy Bragg once sang:"shame upon the patriot / when the mark of the bulldog breed / is a family without a home / and a pensioner in need."

Sources:

• 8. 1995, 344 (17.03.1995)
  
• 8. 1995, 347 (7.04.1995)
  

• 125. 1996, 4294 (26.07.1996)
  
• 125. 1996, 4295 (2.08.1996)