Patriotism, scoundrels, and rule-breakers

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In his attempt to explain, during PMs Questions last week, why it was that other countries have both a lower death rate from Covid-19 and fewer restrictions, the PM came up with an absolute classic example of the English exceptionalism which is proving so damaging to the whole of the UK. He said, “Actually, there is an important difference between our country and many other countries around the world: our country is a freedom-loving country. If we look at the history of this country over the past 300 years, virtually every advance, from free speech to democracy, has come from this country. It is very difficult to ask the British population uniformly to obey guidelines in the way that is necessary”. I’m not sure which is worse – the possibility that he actually believes any of this, or the possibility that he knows it to be absolute guff and says it anyway.

It is one of the problems of a certain kind of nationalism that those nationalists have a desperate need to believe that their nation is in some way ‘better’ than other nations; claiming that ‘we’ invented virtually everything of value plays to that. I wouldn’t argue against the proposition that the UK has been the home of people – both native-born and immigrants – who have been responsible for a number of major advances (more than average for a country of its size, even) in a range of fields, including science, technology and political philosophy, but most advances are the result of a process of collaboration and synthesis of work done in many places. Ideas feed off each other. However, conflating the genius of particular individuals who happen to reside in one place with the characteristics of a nation is a nonsense – and a dangerous nonsense at that.

To take one specific of his claim, the idea that a state more than half of whose parliamentarians hold their position due to heredity, religious affiliation, or appointment rather than election, and where a governing party can gain an overall majority on around 30-35% of the vote, can be regarded as the ‘inventor’ of democracy is laughable. At best it requires a strange definition of democracy; at worst it’s a deliberate attempt to mislead.

To turn to the more immediately relevant specific, the idea that ‘the British’ love their freedom so much that they can’t be made to follow rules sounds like an attempt to project his own attitude onto the population at large. He certainly has some difficulty getting his own family and advisors to follow rules, but – despite such application of double standards – most of the population were willing, for an extended period, to follow the rules laid down.

He may, though, have accidentally stumbled upon a key point, even if it isn’t the one he thinks it is. There is indeed a key difference between the UK and most of the rest of Europe, and it’s about social solidarity. One of the key elements in getting a population to follow advice willingly and collectively is that they should believe that it is for the common good. That works better in much of Europe that it does here, because in the UK the Tories (aided and abetted by New Labour) have spent four decades promulgating the idea that there is no ‘common good’. People, they have argued, should put their own interests first and look after themselves rather than expecting the state to look after them. Competition, they have told us, is good – there must always be winners and losers, and the losers have only themselves to blame. The problem is not, as Johnson effectively says, that people in the UK (and he largely means England here, of course) are too fond of their freedom to follow rules, it is that they have been drip fed an ideology (by Johnson and his ilk) which encourages them always to ignore the needs of others and pursue their own selfish interests. Against that background, the surprise is not that some have not been following the rules, but that so many have done so.

Employing the definite article

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Given his lawyerly background, and his careful use of language in his increasingly pointless weekly attempts to ask questions of a PM who deliberately avoids answering any of them, it is reasonable to suppose that when Keir Starmer chooses a particular word or phrase, he does so with care and thought. So, when his speech to the Labour Party’s conference was widely billed as him wrapping himself in the flag, it’s reasonable to suppose that the use of the definite article before the word flag is entirely deliberate. It’s also revealing.

‘The’ flag to which he refers and which was prominently displayed behind him as he spoke is, of course, the union flag, but it’s a flag whose power to unite is far from universal. In Northern Ireland, it’s deeply divisive. Revered as a totemic symbol by the half of the population which will never support Labour, and hated by the half more likely to vote for Labour’s partner party, the SDLP, wrapping himself in it seems hardly likely to attract much support there. But then, Northern Ireland’s voters are unimportant to Labour which chooses not to stand there. The situation in Scotland is rapidly heading in the same direction; the die-hard unionists unlikely ever to vote Labour may applaud his ‘patriotism’, but for the rest of the population – including, according to some polls, many traditional Labour supporters – it seems unlikely to do more than confirm Labour’s downward slide. But then, Scotland’s voters are increasingly a lost cause for Labour; perhaps they’ve been written off too. In Wales, the situation is more complex. There are some firm unionists, of course – but they’re more likely to vote Tory than Labour. And there are some of us who regard Y Ddraig Goch as the only flag of Wales, but we are still in a minority. My own assessment (and I’ll admit this is based on experience and anecdote rather than hard numbers, but I’m pretty confident in its accuracy) is that the majority here are more ambivalent, regarding both flags as having some salience as an expression of their nationality. If that's so, then demanding loyalty to only one of those doesn’t immediately strike me as the best way to enhance Labour’s standing in Wales. Perhaps they are simply taking Wales for granted – as usual. But all this means that it is, effectively, only in England where there is anything approaching unanimity over the question of whether the union flag represents them, and even there, there is a growing movement towards using the cross of St George. In essence, therefore, Labour’s appeal is pitched predominantly at English, or Anglo-British, nationalist feeling, without really taking account of the consequences elsewhere. It’s strangely at odds with his stated aim that, “we must once again be the party of the whole United Kingdom. The party of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland” (a statement which, in itself, skates over the fact that the party has never even attempted to represent Northern Ireland). It’s English exceptionalism and superiority at its best. Or worst, depending on your viewpoint.

It wasn’t the only use of the definite article which struck me, though. He also said that he wanted the UK to be “the best country to grow up in and the best country to grow old in”. Note again the use of the definite article. For any country to be ‘the’ best necessarily requires that every other country be worse. Socialism, this is not. Internationalists not only want their own country to do well, they want to help others to reach the same level. It’s only a nationalist who want his or her own country to be regarded as ‘the’ best. He may not have gone quite as far in his jingoism as the current PM, who demands that everyone agrees that the UK actually is ‘the best’ when it patently is not, but the difference between someone who wants to make it so and someone who merely wants everyone to believe that it is so is one of detail and delivery, not of political philosophy. What Starmer has shown us is that the difference between Labour and Tory, when it comes to English nationalism and exceptionalism, is minor. Perhaps we should be grateful for that demonstration.

I won’t lay this next one directly on Starmer himself; it’s not something which his speech actually referred to, but it’s of a piece with his message. In response to the speech Baroness Chakrabati suggested that, amongst the things in which British patriots should take pride was the English language. It is again an Anglo-centric view of the world (and in this case, even of the UK itself). It’s true, of course, that English has become the lingua franca of the world, but taking pride in that fact without recognising the reality of how it happened displays a certain blindness to history. The language wasn’t something generously shared with the world community, it reached its dominance through a process of imposition and dominance; it involved cultural genocide enforced by waves of colonialism and at the point of a gun. The clock cannot be turned back, and the cultural dominance of one language is certainly beneficial to those of us able to speak it fluently, but pride in the process of imperialism which achieved that position doesn’t seem wholly appropriate to me. It is, though, the position to which ‘patriotism’ of the not-nationalist-at-all Anglo-British variety so often leads.

Is Mark Drakeford "inherently right-wing"?

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The First Minister’s attempt to explain why ‘nationalism’ and ‘socialism’ are incompatible serves only to highlight a lack of clarity about the meaning of either. He’s not alone in that, in fairness; it has been obvious for years that the way in which everyone ascribes their own meaning to both words obscures and frustrates debate rather than facilitating it. I could also throw ‘patriotism’ into the mix as well, given that it’s a word used recently by his own party’s leader. According to Drakeford, nationalism and socialism are complete opposites, but according to Starmer, the Labour movement and patriotism are “two sides of the same coin”. (I guess, though, that he means ‘British’ patriotism rather than the Welsh or Scottish variety.) Logically (and assuming that the two men’s political philosophies have at least a passing resemblance) that can only mean that they also see nationalism and patriotism as being polar opposites as well.

In truth, none of this debate about labels or what they mean is particularly helpful, particularly when we try to apply it to the question of how government should be organised on a territorial basis. It is perfectly possible for a patriotic – and perhaps even a nationalistic – Welsh person to believe that the Welsh nation is best served by remaining part of a larger whole, just as it’s possible for someone who isn’t Welsh, and opposes both nationalism and patriotism, to believe that Wales’ best interests are served by independence. It’s why I tend to use the term independentista – it’s not exactly elegant or commonplace, but it does explain more precisely what it is that I support. Debating the constitutional options for Wales is harder, of course, than simply dismissing anyone who disagrees by labelling them – that’s why Labour have long preferred to use labels. Why anyone would seriously expect Drakeford to be any different is the real puzzle here.

One other point struck me about what he said, however. I don’t know whether he was quoted accurately, because this sentence seems a bit convoluted to me: “In the end, I think it’s an inherently right-wing creed that operates by persuading people that they are because they are against what somebody else is”, but I think he was saying that persuading people to be one thing by contrasting that with what they are not is inherently a right-wing approach. I can’t help thinking that it is awfully similar to the traditional approach of Labour asking people to vote for them because “we’re not the Tories”, another way of avoiding debating the substance of what people stand for. Does that mean that we can safely label any Labour spokesperson who repeats that line as being “inherently right-wing”?

Confusing government and country

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When Johnson (Samuel, not Boris) referred to patriotism as being “the last refuge of a scoundrel”, he wasn’t referring to patriotism of all kinds at all times; he was referring, rather, to what he saw as the ‘false patriotism’ of Pitt the Elder.  Defining ‘false patriotism’ isn’t quite so easy, but when Johnson (Boris, not Samuel) demands that everyone ‘gets behind’ the government over Brexit, he is most certainly guilty of it.  Supporting the country isn’t at all the same things as supporting the government, a distinction which Johnson’s government is not unique in failing to draw.  Mark Twain suggested that “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it”, which makes a very clear distinction between the two things.

Of course, what “supporting your country” means isn’t exactly amenable to clear and objective definition either.  Ultimately, it comes down to supporting what you individually believe to be best for your country, and there will inevitably be some very different views about that.  The point is that opposing a government can be every bit as patriotic as supporting it.  Those who feel that the current direction of government policy is wrong for Wales (or the UK) can be every bit as patriotic as those who support it.  Deliberately conflating the two things is indeed the action of a scoundrel.

For many Brexiteers, their version of ‘patriotism’ is at the heart of their rationale for Brexit and seems to be based around notions of absolute sovereignty.  For others of us, what is best for our country considers the wider interests of humanity as a whole, placing the ‘country’ in a global context on the basis that individual survival depends on collective survival.  From that latter perspective, a willingness to share sovereignty through organisations and structures which take decisions collectively through discussion and agreement is an entirely natural outcome; the debate then centres on the nature of those partnerships.  Tying to reduce the issue to one of patriotism is trying to avoid real debate about where our best interests lie, for the long term as well as the short term.  And pleas for ‘unity’ around some idealised notion of ‘Great’ Britain (the “greatest place on earth”) are an attempt to move beyond patriotism into a jingoistic version of nationalism.

That Johnson is a practised and habitual liar is established fact; but on his namesake’s definition, he’s also a scoundrel.

Drifting ships

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I can’t remember exactly when (although I think it was towards the end of the 1970s) but many years ago Atholl Cameron from the SNP spoke at a Plaid event and told us a story about a cruise she’d been on in the Mediterranean.  The engines on the British ship broke down and the ship was waiting for an engineer to come on board to make repairs.  There was also another problem on board, as a result of which the kitchens were unable to prepare hot food for the travellers.  The passengers were sitting in the dining room stoically eating cold food in a drifting ship in the middle of the sea, and a fellow diner, from England, said, “Doesn’t it make you proud to be British?”.  Atholl’s cutting response was that she’d have been a great deal prouder if the ship was underway and they were eating a cooked meal.

The memory was prompted by the prime minister’s claim last week in relation to possible stockpiling of food and medicines that we should all feel reassured that the government was taking the necessary steps to protect us from the worst-case outcome of Brexit.  In truth, I’d feel much more reassured, and have rather more confidence in the government, if they hadn’t taken us to a position where they seriously need even to consider stockpiling food and medicines.  It tells us something, though, about Theresa May’s concept of Britishness.  Like the English passenger on that cruise ship, she sees virtue in the ability to respond to adversity with stoicism and resignation, to find a way of somehow muddling through.  For those who think that way, there is something profoundly un-British about having a concept and a fall-back plan before starting in order to avoid getting into such a situation in the first place – that’s the sort of thing that only Europeans do.  It helps to explain the gulf in understanding between the two sides and how we’ve got to where we are.

The interesting part of the decision, since rescinded, to release information gradually over the summer about the status of preparations for a ‘no-deal’ Brexit is that it was apparently taken to placate Brexiteers, by publicly demonstrating to Barnier that the UK was ready to simply walk away.  It was a cunning plan of Baldrickian proportions, but it appears not to have occurred to the devisers of the plan that telling the world about the preparations being undertaken might just have an impact on the domestic audience as well, by highlighting the scale of the potential problems.  The expectation was that we would all display that famous British stoicism and take pride in the way that our ‘proud island nation’ was preparing to respond to those beastly Europeans.  Instead of which it seems that those responsible for drip-feeding the details to the public have now realised that it’s more likely that the public would panic and never vote Conservative again.  As a ‘senior source’ told the Sunday Times (paywall), “People will shit themselves and think they want a new referendum or think the Tory party shouldn’t govern again”.

The rather patronising suggestion that people might only ‘think’ they want another referendum (with its implicit assumption that ‘we know they don’t really’), like the rest of this not-so-cunning plan, reveals, yet again, the extent to which the Brexiteers’ world view is mired in an idealised past in which people did and thought as they were told, and blind patriotism and deference to their ‘betters’ were enough to allow the government of the day to get away with almost anything.  But blind patriotism doesn’t keep a ship moving through the sea; neither can it turn Brexit into a triumph.