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A St. George's Day for am imagined nation |
 Mark Perryman, editor of a new book on England after Britain asks why St George still makes some on the Left so cross?
Unlike celebrations of St Patrick's Day or Burns Night much of the Left finds St George's Day a time to sit on its hands rather than join in the party. Of course to a much greater extent than arguments over over Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish identity, debates about Englishness are dominated by the question of race and this in large measure explains our reticence.
No one doubts that as the break-up of Britain gathers momentum, as it surely will, there will be powerful tendencies towards defining an emergent Englishness against immigration and Europe.
Yet to presume that there is an unstoppable shift towards exclusion instead of inclusion would suggest a profound lack of confidence on the part of the left in England. The combination of Englishness and migration is virtually indivisible; driving a wedge between the two would therefore be immensely difficult for the right if the left could only engage with both parts of the mix.
There is a populist strain to an anglicised racism that is certainly not limited to the BNP hardcore. This is centred on a nostalgic longing for the days when England could be imagined as not only nothing to do with Eurrope but all- white too.
However it is now almost impossible to imagine England without black and Asian people as an integral part. From pop to politics, cuisine to music, fashion to business, the black experience is now intimately interwoven into the fabric of English daily life, in a way that is not so obviously the case in Scotland or Wales. Attempt to remove black people from England's racial landscape and you remove one third of the capital, between a fifth and a third of the football team, most high street restaurants and a huge number of successful businesses.
The overwhelming proportion of all people of black or ethnic minority origin in Britain live in England. Forty-five per cent in London, and the next highest concentration the West Midlands, where it is 13 per cent.
A little over nine per cent of England's population is of black or ethnic minority origin, compared to 2.2 per cent in Wales, 2.1 per cent in Scotland and just 0.75% in Northern Ireland.(33) This is a significant differential, and one whose representation should be a subject of contestation, not abandonment to the right who quote such percentages as resounding negatives.
When we track the potential popularity of the St George Cross flag as a potential symbol of our multicultural Englishness, this is the contest we are observing. A team, flag and nation for all, or only for some? There are those who parade their Englishness as a barrier to a new nation.
And those who celebrate inclusion as a core value of the England that we seek to build – not in denial of our imperial and martial past but in recognition of, and opposition to, its worst excesses. In this sense the flags we fly, the shirts we pull on and the teams we cheer for are part of our interpretation, as individuals and communities, of the connections that bind and separate us.
These are complex and contradictory, rarely uniform. As a shift away from insularity gathers pace, an opposition that resists such a process also emerges.
But it is remarkable that this period of an unfolding emergence of Englishness as an identity has been accompanied by ever-increasing numbers of black and Asian football fans identifying with England. Does that mean an end to racist discrimination, abuse and assaults? No – and who in their right mind would make such a claim? But it does indicate an imagined England where inclusion and identity are not the polar opposites that some presume. A place we can call multicultural England is emerging, with a pride in what makes us different – without that there's no basis of nationhood – but proud, too, of our differences.
Respect member Mark Perryman is the editor of the new book Imagined Nation: England after Britain. Described by Gary Younge as " some of the sharpest thinking on both the pitfalls of nationalism and the potential for a progressive English identity" contributors include Billy Bragg, Tom Nairn, Paul Gilroy and Rupa Huq. Published by Lawrence & Wishart the book is available direct from Philosophy Football. |
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