Also by Stephen Haseler

Transcription

1 THE ENGLISH TRIBE

2 Also by Stephen Haseler ANTI-AMERICANISM THE BATILE FOR BRITAIN TilE DEATII OF BRITISH DEMOCRACY TilE END OF TilE HOUSE OF WINDSOR EUROCOMMUNISM (co-author) TilE GAITSKELLITES TilE POLITICS OF GIVING TIIETRAGEDYOFLABOUR

3 The English Tribe Identity, Nation and Europe Stephen Haseler Professor of Government London Guildhall University

4 First published in Great Britain 1996 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / First published in the United States of America 1996 by ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC., Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth A venue, New York, N.Y ISBN Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Haseler, Stephen, The English tribe: identity, nation and Europe I Stephen Haseler. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN I. National characteristics, English. 2. Group identity-england -History-20th century. 3. Nationalism-England-History-20th century. 4. England-Civilization--20th century. 5. England -Relations-Europe. 6. Europe--Relations-England. I. Title. DA566.4.H '00941' dc CIP Stephen Haseler 1996 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WI P 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to crimmal prosecution and civil claims for damages I

5 Contents Preface Introduction: Globalism, Europe and Identity 1 The Making of Englishness 9 Who Are the English? 9 Origins 11 The Incubation: 'Land, Class and Race' 17 Building the Nation 22 'Great Britain' or 'Greater England'? 28 The Liberal Idea Defeated 33 The Imperial Soul of Englishness 37 The Making of the English 'Gentleman' 49 Twentieth-century Nationalism 52 Theme-Park Englishness or 'Englishness for Export' 56 2 An Audit of Englishness 64 Illusions of Power 65 A Reactionary Identity 69 The Gentleman Culture 72 The Radical Failure 76 3 Identity Crisis 80 Client-State 80 Cultural Invasion: The Americanisation of Englishness 86 The End of the 300-Year Realm 92 The Waning of National Identity? 97 The Individual and the Nation 101 A Rational Calculus 103 The Last Hurrah True Brits, Real England 105 Real Identities 105 True Brits 109 Does England Exist? 115 The Meaning of 'Being English' 119 Background Not Country 123 Vll v

6 vi Contents 5 A Federal Destiny Living Vicariously Uncle Sam's Deserted Child The Logic of Europe A Federal Destiny Kicking and Screaming 6 Goodbye to All That Notes Index Revolution Replacing 'the Ancien Regime' Nations Again New Parties Rights at Last New Economics New Relations: The German Model New Money Adjusting to a Single Currency 'All the President's Men' -a European Army? A New Identity: Re-inventing the British

7 Preface Only a few years ago the idea that the nation-state of the United Kingdom - the 'sovereign' political structure which has governed the people of the British Isles for almost 300 years - was facing dissolution would have been more than contentious. So, too, would have been the notion that 'Englishness' - one of the world's strongest and most enduring stereotypes and self-images, the identity and culture which I argue had been created and sustained by this nation-state - was also facing a potentially terminal crisis. Yet, since then (as I attempt to outline in the Introduction) the twin pressures of global capitalism and European union have intensified - to the point where the unthinkable is now simply the controversial. Although I share the view that the Single European Act and the Treaty of Maastricht represented a quantum leap in the creation of a superstate, there were many who believed that the European currency crises of had set back the European project, possibly fatally. These events are now proving to have been something of a false dusk; for the new century will certainly see the emergence - in one form or another - of a new European political and economic order. Whether this new Europe will ultimately cohere into a federal, or a confederal, union - and whether Britain's absorption into the union will be slow or swift, positive or grudging- are side issues compared to the historic content of what is happening to the British as, in the aftermath of empire, war and cold war, we re-order our relationships with our close neighbours. These changes which Europe is forcing on the British are the most profound since the Civil War and the settlement of , when the basic contours of the modern British state and its nationhood were constructed. Yet, instead of these dramatic events representing a time of sorrow and nostalgia (always a tempting possibility for a culture unused to adapting to change), they could instead become an occasion for hope. As I attempt to outline in Chapter 6, 'Goodbye to All That', it is through this new European dimension that we might finally achieve the elusive culture of citizenship, a written constitution and an entrenched Bill of Rights; and we might also be induced to refashion the class structures which still inform a 'them and us' industrial culture. Also, as under the impact of Europe we begin to witness the emergence of regional vii

8 viii Preface 'provinces' (including city-states), then this, too, will be a positive development - for it will allow the kind of local self-government and democracy which the centralised United Kingdom (what I call throughout this book 'the UK-state') has, up until now, refused to countenance. Yet for many, although the loss of the nation-state is troublesome, the prospective loss of 'national identity' is traumatic. It is this anxiety which fuels not only the nationalists, Europhobes and Eurosceptics, but many more besides. Yet, as I suggest in Chapter 4, 'True Brits, Real England', for the British true 'national identities' (representing the nations, even the regions, of the British Isles) have rarely over the last 300 years been able to express themselves. For what is often meant by 'national identity' is really 'state identity' (identification not with the nations of the British Isles but with the over-arching nation-state of the United Kingdom). We have had another problem with our 'national identity'. Are we English or are we British? And are those of us who live in England both English and British? There is little question that ever since 1707 the English have dominated the Union, and that the idea of 'Englishness' has determined British 'national identity' and 'national culture'. Yet, as I attempt to outline in Chapter 1 - in a short survey of 'the making of Englishness' -this identity was essentially contrived, and it had little to do with the lives of real English and British people. (Hence, although I use the term Englishness without quotation marks, there is a strong case for using them throughout the text.) Joel Kotkin in his influential book on race and the new global economy has described the English as a tribe. Yet this 'English tribe', supposedly possessing a 'strong sense of common origin and shared values' was not really a tribe at all (see Joel Kotkin, Tribes, New York, 1992, p. 4). 'Englishness' was the identity of a small caste which ran the 'tribe' and, more importantly, the state, and it became -partly by imposition, partly by acceptance - the uniform identity. Thus, the end of the UK, and the demise of this uniform identity, provides a chance to express finally the diversity of the peoples of the British Isles. This book is dedicated to a rediscovery of that diversity. The need to modernise has been a theme of radicals and reformers for most of the twentieth century. Yet, their endeavours have largely been in vain. The culture of Englishness has been too strong for them. Although both Labour's socialism and social democracy and Thatcher's 'enterprise revolution' possessed radical modernising elements, they were all too timid, foundering on the rocks of the traditionalism of the state and its culture.

9 Preface IX Yet, the European project is different, because it is total. It challenges, in a way in which domestic radicalism was never able to, the core institutions and values of the British state. A real 'cultural revolution' is coming from outside the shores, from beyond the water's edge- from a civilisation of which the British are certainly a part, but only a part. As an Englishman, born when the country still - just - had an empire, and schooled when 'Empire day' was still celebrated, I too probably believed in the maxim that to be born English was to 'have drawn the top card in life'. I was certainly proud to belong to 'the English tribe'. Nationalism historically was a progressive force as it broke down feudal bonds and hierarchies. Yet, as the postwar decades rolled by and the country's power waned, I began to witness a defensiveness about national culture, a growth in provincialism, even in xenophobia. And the country's famed cultural content also began to exhibit a narrowness, a degeneration into what I describe as theme-park Englishness, or 'Englishness for export'. Amongst those who accept much of this analysis, some will still find it difficult to contemplate life without the United Kingdom and its associated national identity - without, as some would have it, 'being British'. Long-held loyalties and affections may be involved here. Yet the state, and even the nation, have not for some time been adequate, or desirable, objects of loyalty and affection - emotions more properly directed at family, friends and locality. And, 'being British' has always been a plural phenomenon, involving a variety of identities, and a variety of nations. It is my hope that we can express this new plural and diverse reality and welcome the new European future. London STEPHEN HASELER