Why do the Scottish elections make me uneasy? Because the performance of the SNP, which is certain to be strong, is bound to stir up a reciprocal nationalism south of the border. England’s moment is undoubtedly drawing closer. And I am not sure that is such a good thing.
In his masterly book, England: An Elegy, Roger Scruton describes a country that is, above all else, a home, defined by what he calls “enchantment”, expressed in ritual, culture and the laws which are a gift of the land rather than a mere compilation of decrees. Scruton’s England is restrained, eccentric, civilised: it is an appealing and dignified place. But it is also – and this is the philosopher’s whole point – a thing of the past.
The England that would express itself in a new anti-Scottish nationalism would, I fear, be strident, indignant and, above all, small. At the very moment when Britain needs to look outwards, to relish its historic multiplicity and to find a confident place in a globalised world, the stirrings of an angry Englishness would inspire only introspection, antagonism and a sense of community defined by what we are not, rather than what we are.
Britishness, as Gordon Brown tells us rather too often, is a porous, tolerant, self-assured set of values. To be British is to be at ease in one’s skin, proud of one’s heritage, but unfazed by difference and diversity. Long before the Act of Union, this aspect of our island history was visible in the eclecticism with which its people sought their rulers: the Tudors from Wales, the Stuarts from Scotland, William of Orange from Holland, and the House of Hanover from Germany. Long before the American idealism of the “melting pot”, this was a house of many mansions. Some of my best friends are Jutes.
I know I am British. But, though I live in England, love it, and have supported the English football team through any number of penalty shoot-outs, I am less an Englishman than a Briton. Or – to put it another way – I would rather not have to define myself so narrowly. I do not relish the choice.
In Shane Meadows’s terrific new film, This is England, the 12-year-old skinhead, Shaun, casts his flag of St George into the sea in disgust at the uses to which it has been turned by some of his friends. It is not an unpatriotic moment but – thrillingly – just the opposite. Proud of his father who died in the Falklands, and mistrustful of the least appealing side of English nationalism, Shaun refuses to be confined.
Tempted by the narrow ideology of blood and soil, he finally looks outward as he stands on the threshold of adolescence. In the next few days, the English may well find themselves standing on the same shore and, for the first time since the Scottish home rule bill of 1913, confronting the very same choice.
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