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Friday 4 July 2008

Rise up, Englishmen

Liam Byrne says the English must be less apathetic about  the United Kingdom, and about the threat of Scottish independence that looms in next week’s elections

But the Union is more than a cash nexus. It is fundamental to our national identity, of which Englishness is part. When the countries of the Union came together, the state of England was transformed from a middle-ranking power playing on the stage of Europe to a world-beater.

On St George’s Day this year, the Home Office proudly flew the Union flag, and I popped along to Southwark to witness the swearing in of 60 new British citizens amidst the civic finery of London’s oldest borough (motto ‘United We Serve’). Such occasions, when ministers are invited to say a few words, are always a good moment to collect a few thoughts about why we are so proud to be British.

I keep my message simple. We may not have a manifest destiny codified in an American Dream, and we may not be animated hour to hour by a Continental joie de vivre but we have something else in this country, which is an indomitable spirit. What is its anatomy?

Well, it is partly the sense of adventure that drove Brits to scale Everest first, and to sail round the world faster than anyone else, and which the Union can trace back to its earliest imperial explorers. It is partly our native inventiveness, an inventiveness that has conceived everything from gravity to penicillin to the world wide web. And it is partly our sense of decency mixed with courage that inspired our stand against Continental dictators, and which today leads us to deploy more peacekeepers abroad than any other country bar the United States of America.

I can think of few who would argue that the English could take all the credit on this balance sheet. It is fundamentally a spirit born in the alchemy of the Union, and today we owe that spirit an extraordinary debt.

Britain has emerged from the last two decades of globalisation as one of the world’s most successful societies. A higher share of our GDP is devoted to trade than any other nation in the OECD. Uniquely, we are members of the UN Security Council, the OECD, the G8, the EC, Nato, the Commonwealth and the Council of Europe, and we have a track record of leadership on the international stage on issues ranging from peace-keeping, to climate change to ending Third World debt. We are one of the world’s largest and richest economies.

Could England have achieved this on its own? Could we maintain this on our own in the years to come? Unlikely. So why on earth could we consider now messing around with our DNA?

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