Much has been written about why Scotland should continue its membership of the Union, but little about what England has to gain. Strangely the question just doesn’t arise. The week after St George’s Day is an appropriate time to reflect on why England should value the United Kingdom, and why the other three members resent the English assumption that they are always first among equals.
In the run-up to the Labour leadership election, how often have articles tackled the subject of whether Gordon Brown is far ‘too Scottish’ to run the UK government? At least weekly. How often is it noted that the cabinet is ‘dominated’ by Scots? Now consider how often an English MP has been considered ‘too’ English for the same job, and how often national newspapers have run comment articles about cabinets being dominated by too many English MPs.
It has ever been thus: go back to the 1920s and 30s and you will find resentment about ‘too many’ Scots running the country. Go back to 1707 and you will find resentment among Scots at having only 45 MPs out of 558 in the newly crafted Union. But rather than time doing its work of healing and creating more respect between the two partners, the resentment still festers.
Even progressive English thinkers often question whether Scottish people should be able to stand as a MP for an English seat, without recognising that every citizen in a united kingdom should have the right to stand for office in any corner of the country. These little Englander attitudes help keep the fires of Scottish nationalism smouldering, as does the regular use of the term England to refer to the United Kingdom or Great Britain by those who are otherwise considered quite well read.
One sorry example is in a nice little volume called Brit Wit where the author, obviously better at ribaldry than geography, includes in a chapter on ‘England and the English’ remarks about the British, the Welsh and the Scots. Obviously the editor was English too. On April 14 veteran Telegraph commentator Charles Moore rattled out an attack on government policy relating to the sale of the stories to the media by mariners returning from Iraq and suggested ‘England had gone vastly wrong’. He then proceeded to mix and match England and Britain throughout the article as if he didn’t know the difference. And the thing is many English people appear not to.
In the English-based national media most of these attitudes go unnoticed, but they shouldn’t. This corrosive small-minded attitude is, at least partly, driving support towards the SNP. But internal politics aside, the English should recognise that the Union gives them a far greater position in the world than they would occupy otherwise. As part of a Union with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, England remains as a significant actor in international relations and a significant economic and political force, but without these three partners the English political influence would be likely to shrink to its weakest point for centuries.
At 60m the UK has the 21st biggest population in the world, far behind Japan, Mexico and Brazil, not to mention India and Indonesia. But in world affairs the UK has long punched above its weight. Not surprisingly, in the last few years, debates on the UK’s qualifications for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council have become more frequent as larger nations argue that they have a greater right to a place.
Sixty years has passed since the seats at that table were decided, and the slimming down or dissolution of a United Kingdom would be an ideal opportunity for those fighting to take the UK’s place to argue their time had come.
Those who think that England could instead turn to the EU might also be disappointed. Currently the UK is acknowledged as one of the big three EU players with its 29 votes in the Council of Ministers and 78 votes in the parliament, but other countries are snapping at its heels. Poland has 27 votes in the council and is campaigning for a rethink on voting rights, while smaller nations feel they have too few votes and therefore too little influence. The break-up of the United Kingdom might also be an opportune moment for campaigners to redraft voting rights to make their move.
The English who feel they have nothing to lose and much to gain by Scotland leaving the Union should think again. There is no better time than the 300th anniversary of the Act of Union to work out that a federation where all four members are considered equal would play better on all sides of national boundaries.