Socialist Outlook : SO/10 - Summer 2006

Jack or George

The dilemmas of British Nationalism
David Coen

David Coen examines the recent resurgence of the St George Cross and asks what this tells us about the change in working class attitudes to the British State.

The ‘Crusaders’ among the hordes of flag-waving England fans at the World Cup were, no doubt, meant to be wittily post-modern. Latter day armies under the standard of St George, they invoke images of heroic campaigns in defence of Christendom on football fields as foreign as………well, Germany! Crusades? Only joking. Of course, those foreigners in the Middle East might just not get it, lacking the sense of irony and playfulness with history so evident in the plastic chain-mail and swords of our latter day adventurers. A little more literalism however can throw some light on the historical formation of the English and British states and the current identity crises of the British/English, not to mention their relations with the peoples of the Middle East.

Appropriately enough the first use of the flag may have been as a token of having paid the duties for entry into the trading port of Genoa. However, trade even in precapitalist periods, was the obverse of war and though at first the flag was associated more with Crusaders than specifically with England, Richard the Lionheart adopted it in the wars in Palestine in 1191-92. It became a crucial symbol in the formation of the English state, being the emblem in the Welsh War of 1277 and the invasion of Scotland in 1385. In 1415 St George was acknowledged to be the patron saint of England and April 23rd was declared a feast day like Christmas. By the end of the sixteenth century following both the Reformation and the re-conquest of Ireland, the Cross of St. George was the flag of England.

If the St George Cross can be understood in the context of the formation of the English state, in the same way that it later came to be superseded by the Union Jack in the course of the formation of the British State, it is interesting to examine its recent resurgence and what such a change tells us about the change in working class attitudes to the British State.

British or English?

The switch from Union Jack to Cross of St George is partly a footballing story. As late as 1990 England football supporters waved Union flags as they had in 1966 when England won the World Cup at the Empire Stadium, Wembley. By the time England played Scotland in Euro ‘96, almost all England supporters waved the Cross of St George, despite the fact that a year earlier, England supporters wielding Union Jacks stopped a game against the Republic of Ireland in Dublin, and staged a fascist inspired riot chanting slogans against the IRA. These conflicting impulses remain. Fans waving the Cross of St George still sing Rule Britannia and God Save the Queen, anthems of the British state. In the recent World Cup, it was quite common to hear England fans chant ‘No Surrender to the IRA’ while watching games against Portugal, Sweden or Paraguay. In that sense, both flags tap into ancient xenophobia going to the foundation of the English and later the British states.

At the same time these conflicts are revealing about the contradictory impulses between ‘British and ‘English’. And here’s a dilemma. Far from being the necessary recovery of the flag as a symbol from the far right (as was claimed by many), the return of the Cross of St George is undoubtedly meant as the reassertion of a white, Christian, English traditionalism against multiculturalism and political correctness. Politically, it also represents the anger of betrayal as New Labour dismantles the post war settlement and casts its working class base to the mercies of global competition and a global rush to the bottom. In a fundamental sense, Blair has broken the compact between the classes established after the turmoil and near revolution of the period between 1914 and 1945. As it breaks down, what emerges is populist authoritarianism and scapegoating of foreigners, as well as electoral gains for the far right. Except that the potential beneficiaries of such a swing are the British National Party or the United Kingdom Independence Party and there is no such nation.

Gordon Brown recognised the symbolic importance of the return of St. George (and, at the same time, the brittleness of British identity formed around the Union Jack) when he invited the Daily Mail to, ‘watch him watching England in the World Cup’. David Cameron, partly in recognition that the Tories are essentially an English political party, goaded Brown for his bad faith. And then there is the West Lothian question: how can Scottish MP’s vote on issues solely affecting England when the reverse is not possible? If it is, as Alan Duncan says it is, ‘almost impossible for Britain to have a Scottish prime minister’, what does that mean for the future of the United Kingdom, on whose behalf armies are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan? The New Labour leadership denounce such opportunism as a threat to the United Kingdom and are convinced that devolution has punctured the ballooning threat from Scottish and Welsh nationalism.

This fault line is replicated on the left. Some argue that abolition of the monarchy and the break up of the British state are essential parts of a revolutionary socialist programme. Breaking the British state would weaken British imperialism on a world scale and thereby advance the socialist cause. On the other side are those Black or Asian British who say that the ‘composite’ British identity is more inclusive and modern than the Christian medievalism of the latter day crusaders. This argument also appeals to what remains of the reformist left, for example, Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian who advances the case for a Labour or ‘progressive’ unionism, fearing an inbuilt Tory majority in England following the break up of the union. But these ‘progressive’ unionists reduce the issue to mere symbolism, to the kind of identity politics which so pervades the political scene in an era of globalisation and global branding, without looking at the concrete reasons why (in particular, the white working class) adopts the Cross of St George rather than the Union flag.

Imperialist British State

More important is the argument that the break up of Britain into separate nation states would fragment workers’ organisations that operate across the British state and weaken our ability to fight a capitalist class that is increasingly integrated on a global scale, a line advanced both by the Socialist Party and the Communist Party of Britain. The question is: what benefits flow to workers in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and in England from the fact that their trade unions and political parties operate across all four areas? Are they more or less wedded to the British ruling class as a result? The fact that Scottish and Welsh MP’s give New Labour its majority in Westminster? The ability of the TUC to mobilise the big battalions of labour in support of workers’ struggle wherever it breaks out? To ask these questions is to answer them. Unity across the British state is mainly a vehicle for tying the labour bureaucracy into the imperialist adventures of New Labour. Its break up would not in the least hinder the ability of workers to advance their own interests. Neither does this mean an acceptance of the new ‘crusaders’ or a failure to see what they represent.

For the moment the threat of fascism, whatever the electoral gains that might accrue from the betrayals of New Labour, is relatively slight. The decisive shift in Hitler’s coming to power was the backing of the ruling class and the British ruling class have no intention of making the same move any time soon. The majority of the top one hundred companies in Britain earn most of their profits overseas. ‘Britain’, multicultural and ‘modern’ is a superior brand for the overseas marketing of their interests and for the military clout behind the cry for ‘free trade’. Even in its subordinate role to the US, the British state is too valuable a tool of global political reach to be discarded in favour of England and the Cross of St George. Which is also why there are so many TV programmes extolling the benefits of the British Empire. Why, it is even going to be promoted in the national curriculum!

David Coen is a member of Socialist Outlook’s editorial board.

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