Labour should embrace the positive English patriotism that exists in the country
By Mark Rusling
—The late David Cairns devised the ‘conservatory principle’, which stated that an MP should only become Labour leader if they understand the desire to own a conservatory. Spot on. I would add the ‘England shirt principle’ – a Labour leader should be happy with someone wearing an England football shirt and voting Labour.
This goes to two issues that cause many in England to feel uneasy about Labour. We have an England problem. We are happy to celebrate Burns Night or St Patrick’s Day, but not St George’s Day. This is not to pander to racism or nationalism (English or Scottish). It is simply saying that our tone, policies and, occasionally, our leaders do not tap into a sense of Englishness in the same way as some Tory policies seem to do effortlessly. Free schools and fundholding GPs evoke folk myths of the village school and doctor who everybody knows. We might scoff at the myths, and they might well be false, but they speak to an Englishness that George Orwell would have recognised, and that much of the country understand.
This is not to legitimise John Major’s cant of old maids cycling to Holy Communion, which does not speak for England now, if it ever did. But we should not therefore assume that there are no English myths, traditions and values that people want to believe in. We should too. And we should be happy for people who wish to express those myths by wearing an England shirt. Just as many a decent religion is defamed by its violent followers, so we should not allow the English Defence League-marching, British National party-voting fringe to blind Labour to an important part of our national story.
Labour has always succeeded when we combine social justice with positive, value-driven patriotism. Clement Attlee did not win his 1945 landslide only because of the NHS and the welfare state – he won because, from the mid-1930s, Labour and not the National Conservatives expressed the widely felt need to stand up to fascism. We should never ignore the terrible underbelly of patriotism. We can compromise with the electorate, but not with the EDL. But we should not sneer at positive patriotism.
When we do so, it feeds into a sense of Labour as a metropolitan party – fine for the big cities, but out of touch with everyone else. A look at the map of English Labour seats tells you that. This is our second problem. It explains why, in the leadership election, Andy Burnham did so well in the north-west and Ed Balls drew support in Yorkshire. Both appeared to challenge the metropolitan consensus. This is not a north versus south argument; it is a metropolitanism versus the rest argument.
We have to get to grips with England, patriotism and the sense of Labour as a purely metropolitan party. We have to show that we understand the desire to own a conservatory and to wear an England shirt (often the same people – go to the suburbs). We have to do this, not just to gather votes, but because we want to; not just because we understand our voters – all of them – but because we are them.
Mark Rusling is a councillor in the London borough of Waltham Forest and owns an England shirt
Of course Labour should but it is an article of faith, albeit and negative one, not to be patriotic about England but no Labour person questions Welsh or Scots patriotism. For many in Labour, England means Conservativism and nationalism of the right wing kind. Always found this strange, as Labour seems to wave the Union flag with vigour and display British nationalism, which itself is wrapped up in many negative issues such as colonialism.
We keep getting these articles every six months in response to developments elsewhere in the UK. No one in the Labour hierarchy will change a thing for the fundamental reason: if there is an English Parliament Labour fear they won’t control it (this is not the case if elected byPR)!
Write another article again in 2013 – it’ll be the same old line.
What utter twaddle! If you honestly think anybody is going to be influenced by that sort of irrelevant rot when there are millions unemployed, pensions attacked, hospitals and the NHS being privatised, and a Labour leader whose policies are only a vacuous assertion that virtue is good and sin is bad, but without a recognisable policy that is anything to do with Labour, you have lost the plot. We ought to be campaigning on the de-industrialisation of the UK under the Tories (and continued under Blair) allowing the rich to continue to accumulate wealth on the basis of the Banks and the City investing in the industrialisation of low-wage economies instead of modernising UK industry to keep jobs here. Get real. Wake up.
Why not all of the things you mention plus the English question? I don’t think you have grasped the bigger picture as the recent IPPR report (The Dog That Finally Barked) will tell you.
Good article
We’re in this mess because Labour ignored England to the extent that they thought it ok to have a leader (Brown) who was NOT responsible to ANY voter on matters such as Health, Education, Social Policy, Housing, Policing etc.
We will always have the types that love socialism ‘if it wsn’t for the ghastly working type oiks in their England shirts’, but we don’t have to pander to them.
Sorry, but Mark is heading in the right direction. I for one am sick and tired of all the 3 BRITISH political parties arguing the toss, coming out with the same old tired tripe. Where is the English voice in all of this? (and before you try to pigeonhole me as some sort of Right Wing Scum, the English voice I’m talking about is inclusive of all ethnicities, both sex’s and all sexual orientations).
Don’t talk to me about MP’s elected from English constituencies, especially when they represent the interests of BRITISH political parties, who love the Party Whips more than their constituents. When ARE you people going to wake up to the fact that you must address the “English Question”.
Not to do so will be handing, on a plate, real scumbags like the BNP, UKIP and some others an issue which will, in the coming months and years become a political battleground concerning the Governance of England, by the English, for the English.
The Labour Party can have a vital role to play here and I do not imply it should be one of supression. Whilst I do not particularly espouse your political views, I recognise that England would be a poorer place without a strong and functioning English Labour Party working at the heart of it.
Get real or get left behind.
Sorry, but Mark does not go far enough. Labour is never going to make progress until members stop drinking tea out of mugs (in false solidarity with the working class) and go back to using proper cups and saucers like voters in the English shires. We need more debate on this sort of radical and progressive identity politics.
Mark raises some interesting points in his article. As a proud owner (and wearer) of not one, but two, England shirts I can whole heartedly subscribe to the ‘England Shirt principle’.
During the fight against the BNP in Stoke-on-Trent we, in the local Labour Party, were clear that we should embrace English patriotism and the symbols that go with it. As a Party we shouldn’t allow pride in your country to be seen as anything other than something to be celebrated.
When we see a Saltire sticker on the back of a car we don’t read anything more into it than some faint affiliation to the Scottish nation. In the same way we shouldn’t automatically assume that someone wearing an England shirt, or even flying the flag of St. George in their garden, spends their weekends filling our city centres with racist chants.
This isn’t suggesting that as a party we should foster some kind of ‘My country – right or wrong’ patriotism. English patriotism should be a celebration of the country as it is today, equally accepting of the issues and victories of our past, and eager for a vibrant and successful future. It is vital that as a movement we are happy to be part of this celebration, not vaguely sneering from the sidelines.
As a party we have nothing to fear from a man, or a woman, in an England shirt. In fact, from my own experiences as a candidate standing (and winning) against a BNP Councillor, I’d put money on a fair number of them being Labour voters.