Why the England-UK equivalency is a problem for us all

Yet of late, England as a substitute for the UK has become increasingly evident. This is not just true on the right, but in left and liberal circles, underlying how widespread is this mindset.

In the past month, there have been numerous cases. One example was Andy Beckett writing twice in The Guardian, one pre and one post-Christmas, supposedly about the state of UK politics, but in both all his references were English and all his analysis was about the state of English politics.

In the last week, the ITV current affairs show Peston had a discussion about the qualities Labour members wanted from their next leader, and as a graphic of “British patriotism” the English flag was used, with no one in the studio commenting or offering an explanation.

Tory PM Stanley Baldwin was thankful he could use England to mean the whole of the UK

Many will say it was always thus, and this is a long running trope that can be found for most of the history of the Union. For example, there has been a long lineage of Tory politicians in the past using the English/British equivalent when they thought they could get away with it. Stanley Baldwin, Tory Prime Minister in the 1920s and 1930s, said in 1924 when addressing the Royal Society of St. George on the subject On England and the West that he had ‘‘a profound thankfulness’’ that he could use the term England “without some fellow at the back of the room shouting out ‘Britain’”.

The idea of “England as the UK” has re-emerged with a vengeance. It isn’t hard to see why. British politics have increasingly fragmented and now exist in name only and in the Palace of Westminster. There is no nationwide UK politics worthy of the term. All four nations march to very different beats, with different parties dominant in each.

This leads, in mainstream Westminster politics and mainstream media, to England becoming a substitute for the UK without it being presented or understood as England. Sometimes this is a deliberate deception. Sometimes self-deception and on some occasions – if we are feeling charitable – oversight.

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Hence, numerous public discussions about politics and policies presented as UK-wide are really about England. Take any UK TV or radio discussion about health, education, law and order, or local government. If the issue also happens to be the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament, then chances are the discussion will be about the state of the English NHS or schools, without it being flagged as that.

The appearance is often given that the public services being talked about are those of the entire UK. Twenty years after the establishment of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly, this continual misrepresentation hinders democracy everywhere.

‘‘England as the UK’’ does not work for the benefit of most people who live in England. Rather it contributes to the detriment of a genuine English politics and public conversation, and disempowers political debate and democracy.

Yet, it is so firmly ensconced that it will be difficult to dislodge, with the Irish writer Fintan O’Toole (above), who has closely followed Brexit, observing: ‘‘The political mindset which has captured England as Britain did not arrive overnight, but has deep roots and traditions.’’

These ‘‘problematic, conservative forces are not just found in the Brexiteer outliers’’, but in mainstream Toryism, the Corbynista left, and centrist evangelicals – who all perpetuate in O’Toole’s assessment ‘‘unattainable versions of the past’’.

WHO then propagates this world-view and gains from it? Firstly, this mindset is reinforced by the over-reach and grip of the imperial state – the hold of what writer Anthony Barnett has called ‘‘the British Empire State’’.

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This still exists to this day, long after the last vestiges of the actual Empire disappeared off the map, reinforcing the lack of democracy at the heart of government and the state, and its championing of a “Britain plc” in hock to the interests of the global class domestically and inter nationally.

Secondly, what can be seen as a de facto English independence is in fact both a giving up on the details of anything going on in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – witness last week what happened with the Brexit Act and the views of the three devolved legislatures.

But it is also the opposite of an emergence of English self-government – in that any of these discussions never get too specific about where political power sits in England: namely an unreformed Westminster. There is a deeper ideological reason which contributes to this mindset.

In 2014 Emily Thornberry tweeted a picture that was perceived to deride people waving the English flag

This is the distorted idea of ‘‘Great Britishism’’ – an outlook which can be seen in the arrogance and conceit evident in the Brexit “Global Britain” prospectus – which assumes post-January 31st that the UK will be able to sit astride the world stage with a buccaneer capitalism assuming its rightful place at the top table.

As the multiple crises of Britain have deepened – economic, social, cultural, democratic, and even internationally – with the UK’s place in the world more unsure in light of Brexit – so the political classes have clung ever more tightly to the notion of “England as the UK” to the exclusion of a genuine English debate or perspectives from the three other nations.

One perplexing dimension of this is why the dominant elements of Labour and the left have gone along with it. Labour have always had a problem addressing England, and its historic Unionism has been one of subsuming England in the Union of the UK.

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This has been influenced by the party’s fears of England being synonymous with reactionary-ness and a desire to build an all-encompassing, binding British political union that had the authority and power to redistribute. But what it has done – to devastating effect as UK politics have fragmented – is to leave the terrain of England to the right.

There is in Labour and the left to this day elements who are embarrassed to talk explicitly of England. This was the line of the Corbyn leadership – an attitude also seen in leadership contender Emily Thornberry’s implied swipe at the flying of the English flag outside of a voter’s house in the Rochester and Strood by-election in 2014.

This is such a deep pedigree that George Orwell (above) wrote about observing the strand of the English left who have a deep seated ambivalence of their own country writing in his 1941 essay England Your England that: “England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality.”

Gordon Brown in The Observer last week surveyed the state of the Union and took account of Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish, as well as something called “Brexit nationalism”, but the two nationalisms he could not even name were the British and English expressions.

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This is a politics of denialism and disconnection from reality which goes to the heart of how Labour misunderstands the UK and avoids any democratic conversation or politics about England.

The omission of England can even be seen in a forthcoming pro-Union conference organised by These Islands and opened by Gordon Brown (below) which has not one discussion on England.

England is the only nation in the world in a political democracy without its own government and parliament. Traditionally, Westminster has served as the proxy English parliament, but this has become increasingly problematic, while Westminster serves England nearly as badly as it did Scotland pre-devolution. England is the object of bad governance, grotesque centralisation and the old mantra “Whitehall knows best”.

England’s predicament matters to all of us. The collusion of the main UK parties not talking about England as a distinct nation and political community has an impact on the state of UK politics.

It matters to Scotland. Even with increased Scottish self-government or independence what happens in England – in politics, society, economy and its international outlook – will have implications for us north of the Border.

Underlying all this is the self-interest of the political, economic and social elites of the UK continuing the mindset of the Empire State – the unreformed, unreconstructed, undemocratic outlook at the political centre and its absolutism.

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Pivotal to retaining this is the mantra of “England as the UK” and trying to prevent England emerge as a modern, pluralist, progressive country.

The denial of England as a democratic country is one of the last pillars holding up the ancient regime at the heart of the UK.

Given its stark record how long will it take for the centre-left and left in England to champion the notion that England needs to overthrow the last vestiges of Westminster rule and imperial delusion and become a modern nation?

Many of us in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would welcome the emergence of a modern, democratic England. We could even suggest a slogan for the campaign: “Stop the World: England wants to get on”.