Literature of an Independent England

Revisions of England, Englishness and English Literature

C. Westall, M. Gardiner, C. Westall, M. Gardiner

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781137035233
• eBook ISBN: 9781137035240
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Some of the most incisive writers on the subject rethink the relationship between Britain, England and English literary culture. It is premised on the importance of devolution, the uncertainty of the British union, the place of English Literature within the union, and the need for England to become a self-determining literary nation.

Part I

The Politics of English Independence

1

Understanding the Post-British English Nation State

Andrew Mycock

A report published by policy think-tank Demos in November 2011 suggested survey respondents in England were the most patriotically British across the United Kingdom (though Northern Ireland was overlooked). Although the report readily conflated English and British cultural and political institutions, symbols, and figures, the authors concluded that ‘it is clear that English people have a weak conception of “English nationalism”’ (Wind-Cowie and Gregory 2011: 34). A subsequent report by the Institute for Public Policy Relations (IPPR) countered this view, arguing poll data identified an emerging ‘English political community’ underpinned by a ‘deepening sense of English identity’ which now sought recognition in response to the asymmetric (and unfair) nature of recent UK devolution settlements (Wyn Jones et al. 2012: 2). Longitudinal research suggests, however, that shifts in popular ascription to English rather than British national identity have not encouraged a more assertive English nationalism (see Ormston 2012). This might mean that the oft-noted lack of an English political ‘backlash’ cannot be attributed to some form of popular apathy or cognitive deficiency in identity recognition. Currently, anxieties about the political future of England are expressed mainly at elite levels by politicians, academics and the media. Many English people have instead ‘remained stubbornly galvanized into inaction’, appearing to interpret the process of devolution as one of rebalancing and fairness across the union which should be accommodated by the English majority (Condor 2010: 540).

For Ben Wellings there is potential for the popular ascription to cultural Englishness to become politicised and morph into a more dynamic English nationalism (see Wellings 2012). Whilst issues such as immigration, EU membership, and ‘English questions’ of national representation, governance, and citizenship continue to be addressed mainly within the existing parameters of the UK state, nascent English nationalism has the potential to pursue self-determinationist agendas or even independence for England. This chapter will explore the emergence of English nationalism, considering how the English nation and state have been historically framed in relation to both the UK and the British Empire. It will consider the idea that a range of drivers have encouraged ‘victimhood nationalism’, and look at forms of postcolonial Englishness now seeking political expression. Finally, the chapter will analyse the small but growing literature supporting an independent English government, and further assess the possible establishment of a ‘post-British’ nation state and the coherence of the secessionist nationalism which this would require.

Understanding the English nation, state, and empire

It is widely accepted amongst scholars that the origins of nations are shaped by a convergence of ethnic and civic dynamics which acknowledge the interrelations and interactions between primordial interpretations of nations and nationalisms, stressing the organic and perennial nature of national communities in terms of common kinship, symbols, and rituals, and constructed interpretations, emphasising the instrumental and socially constructed nature of imagined political communities whose traditions are largely a modern invention. Although nations are often understood to intuitively seek to establish their own state, perfect congruence between the two has rarely – if ever – been achieved (see Gellner 1983). In most modern nation states, the evolution from ethnic-based statehood towards incorporative civic (state) nationalisms has involved the prioritisation of the political and cultural institutions, rituals, myths, and practices of a dominant ethno-national group and the concurrent repression of claims by rival ethno-national groups through the relegation or attempted eradication of competing minority nationalisms or ethnic cultures and polities (see Connor 1972; Kuzio 2002). This has encouraged merging and interchangeable application of nationality, a cultural concept emphasising a shared identity, and citizenship, a political concept that defines the relationship between citizen and state.

Nationhood is not a static or persistent status – nations can decline or be reborn. Not all nations intuitively seek or can achieve independent statehood, meaning nationality and citizenship are often multiple and layered. Some voluntarily share sovereignty within multinational or supranational frameworks whilst others are compelled to concede it to another colonising transnational entity. In multinational states such as the UK, one ethnonation – in this case England – typically orchestrated the construction of both state and national culture, prioritising English political, economic, and cultural values, institutions and practices. This sometimes used to be seen as a form of English ‘internal colonialism’ (see Hechter 1975), though such an interpretation can overlook the pragmatic and mutually beneficial nature of British multinationalism. But efforts to impose a hegemonic Anglo-British national culture through ‘state nationalisation’ historically proved sporadic and partial thus ensuring each nation maintained forms of political and cultural distinctiveness. As no one nation was able to claim the UK state entirely as its own, each of the composite nations has, to differing extents, remained ‘stateless’ (see Keating 1997).

Attempts to historicise nationhood, nationalism and statehood in England reveal such complexities. Some argue that by 1066 an English nation state, founded on a ‘substantially uniform’ system of national government (Campbell 1995: 31), was instrumental in defining and inculcating a common Englishness (see Colls 1995). Others suggest that during the late-medieval and/or early-modern periods England witnessed not only the birth of the concept of the nation but also of the ideology of nationalism (see Greenfeld 1992; Kohn 1940). The prototype English nation and nation state propagated a popular national citizenship founded on widespread ascription to shared English ethno-religious and political values, institutions, and rituals (Hastings 1997: 4). However, Anthony D. Smith (2006) questions whether English nationalism went beyond a rudimentary and fragmented ethnic national sentiment to inform a popular nationalist ideological movement seeking discrete English national statehood. Medieval and early-modern England was defined by inter-elite conflict and religious schisms and lacked developed state systems to disseminate a common national identity. Moreover, those who suggest England becomes unambiguously English by the late fourteenth century overlook how expansion across the rest of the British Isles began as early as the eleventh century (see Davies 2000).

Krishan Kumar argues that the union of 1707 and subsequent expansion of the British Empire made England ‘an imperial nation in a double sense’, motivated by a form of ‘missionary nationalism’ whereby political and cultural Englishness was consciously subordinated to allay stimulating rival counter-nationalisms (Kumar 2003: 35). Rebecca Langlands (1999) had earlier argued that the British national-imperial state was underpinned by essentially English political, economic, social, and cultural institutions, values, and practices. But neither the British multinational state nor empire could simply be described as England writ large or considered a dedicated federalist endeavour. English statehood, founded on the principle of subjecthood represented by the crown in parliament, simultaneously extended and diluted sovereignty within ill-defined and fluid British multinational and transnational contexts. The English did not seek to extend their ‘national homeland’ within multi- or transnational contexts or establish homogeneous modes of governance, citizenship, or cultural identity (see Gorman 2006; Mitchell 2009). Emergent forms of political and cultural Britishness therefore drew considerably on ethno-civic dimensions of Englishness but also reflected multinational and imperial ethnic and religious commonality, plurality, and segregated difference.

However, the proposition that English nationalism remained ‘relatively undeveloped’ (Kumar 2003: xi) requires some qualification. Popular ascription to multinational or imperial Britishness was variable and other national identities endured and even thrived (see Brockliss and Eastwood 1997; Porter 2004). Whilst Britishness was ‘superimposed’ over or ‘blended’ with existing national identifications and loyalties (see Colley 1992; Robbins 1998), at no point did it entail the wholesale denial or consumption of political or cultural Englishness. English traditions, practices, and literature continually influenced and shaped a distinctive national culture and identity within England after 1707 (see, for example, Collini 1999; Mandler 2006). Anglo-British whiggish historical narratives stressed the distinctive ‘civilising’ qualities of the English through civic values such as freedom and liberty whilst also lauding the ethno-national attributes of English ‘stock’ (see Mycock 2013). This noted, Englishness was itself fragmented by social phenomena such as class, religion, and gender, and further compromised by regional and local affiliations which were often stronger than their national counterpart (see Evans 1995). The English nation and state were from their inception simultaneously national, multinational, and transnational; a clearly defined national territory whose political and cultural borders were fluid, porous, and progressively reformed by British civic and ethnic multinationality and the concurrent experiences of empire.

Understanding England in the wake of empire

The break-up of the British Empire in the second half of the twentieth century encouraged English identity and nationalism to be increasingly framed within the context of postwar immigration, emergent ties with Europe, and the multinational UK state. English nationalism has, according to some, remained that of an imperial state in the wake of empire, somehow different when compared to ‘classic’ nation states (see Nairn 1977; Kumar 2003). Indeed, many of the institutions, symbols, and rituals of the Anglo-British imperial state remain largely unformed and decolonisation is incomplete. Paul Gilroy rightly identifies a post-imperial melancholia in the ways the ideologies of empire continue to influence contemporary (English) society (see Gilroy 2004). That noted, few English (or British) politicians have sought to explicitly laud the legacies or values of empire (see Mycock 2010). And although some English people continue to celebrate empire, many identify it as a product of virulent, xenophobic nationalism which is more a source of shame than pride (see Condor and Abell 2006). The notion that an enduring English imperialism continues to impede the emergence of a post-empire English nationalism is difficult to sustain.

However, the legacies of empire have vexed those on the political right who continue to laud the civilising and progressive global impact of (white) British colonialism after decolonisation. Postwar immigration has seen empire (and its aftermath) increasingly posited as a threat to Englishness and England, diluting a common sense of national culture and community (see Webster 2005). Those on the far right in particular have continued to draw on racist imperial ideologies in seeking to stem and reverse migration from the former empire and maintain ethno-cultural hierarchies (see Tyler 2012). The signposting of perceived grievances regarding the status and rights of ‘indigenous’ population vis-à-vis newer migrants (see, for example, Rhodes 2010) can be seen as a form of postcolonial revisionism whereby some members of the former imperial core now see themselves as ‘victims’ of empire.

This would suggest that a form of ‘victimhood’ nationalism has emerged as a device to explain political, social, and cultural change, and attempt to define the borders of national inclusion and exclusion (see Jie-Hyun Lim 2010). This is an intrinsically transnational process which seeks to contextualise victimhood within a series of binary relations whereby national ‘others’ are identified through a range of past, present, and even future threats or grievances. But complexities in patterns of immigration in England mean it is difficult for those on the far right to establish a significant migrant national ‘other’ or ‘others’ to define a specifically English sense of national victimhood. The shared experience of immigration across the UK has meant that, although most of their support originates from England, ethno-nationalist and racist political parties such as the National Front and the British National Party (BNP) have typically framed xenophobic nationalism in Anglo-British rather than discretely English terms. Whilst some contend the English Defence League (EDL) has a ‘powerfully patriotic sense of English nationalism’ (Jackson 2011: 14), they typically focus on the threat of Islamic extremism to an ill-defined English national culture. The EDL have not sought to propagate a politically framed English nationalism, and their decision to sign an electoral pact with the British Freedom Party in November 2011 underlined the continued conflation between British and English far-right nationalism.

For Bill Schwarz, decolonisation and migration of significant numbers of colonial subjects to the UK from across the Commonwealth meant ‘inner forms of English culture’ are becoming clearer (Schwarz 1996: 1). The centrality of ethnic and racial ideologies in shaping historical and contemporary formations of English culture and identity suggests Englishness itself must be viewed in postcolonial terms which acknowledge the impact of empire and decolonisation on national politics, history, literature, and culture. But Schwarz rejects the idea of England as a solely national entity, arguing it can only be understood by exploring the imperial and global connections established during empire. MacPhee and Poddar similarly note that cultural studies and literature seeking to isolate postcolonial Englishness have often explored intersections between the local and the global rather than the national (see MacPhee and Poddar 2007). Studies exploring the impact of immigration on British society have often focused on changes in metropolitan England but framed debates about multiculturalism, identity, and citizenship in British rather than English terms (see, for example, Gilroy 1987; Parekh 2000; Modood 2007). Moreover, reluctance amongst some minority migrant communities to express issues of nationality and citizenship in English terms reflects enduring concerns regarding the racialised content of English identity, though some contextualise Englishness as a distinctive (white) identity within a broader multicultural civic Britishness (Condor et al. 2006).

Wellings argues that it is hostility to European supranationalism rather than the legacies of empire that has defined the ideological contours of a nascent English nationalism infused with individualistic, conservative populism. He suggests that Euroscepticism has become ‘an increasingly English trait’, founded on the valorisation of Anglo-British ‘parliamentary sovereignty’, which is allied to a concomitant historical narrative that stresses the great victories against Europeans and the perceived threat to the unity of the English nation from a ‘regionalising’ European federal state (Wellings 2012: 7). The adoption of European supranationalism by ‘disloyal’ pro-European British parliamentary elites and secessionist nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales has allowed England to be imagined as a distinct political community. This means ‘Euroscepticism is in all but name English nationalism’ (Wellings 2010: 503). But Gifford challenges this view, arguing the transition from imperial state to EU membership is defined by British Euroscepticism (see Gifford 2008). Right-wing Eurosceptic political parties such as the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and the Conservatives rarely frame issues of European supranationalism in discretely English national terms. Whilst they draw much of their party membership and electoral support from England, they have representation in the EU parliament from across Britain, and other unionist parties in Northern Ireland also share their Eurosceptic views. Moreover, populist Euroscepticism is evident across all the nations of the UK, suggesting it is predominantly a British rather than a discretely English phenomenon (see Young 2011).

According to Arthur Aughey, changes in England’s relations with other parts of the UK in the wake of devolution have altered the anatomy of contemporary English nationalism by creating new legislatures in Scotland and Wales and altering the function of Westminster (see Aughey 2010a). Aughey notes that, prior to devolution, the UK state acted as the fifth nation, seeking to centralise, integrate, and encourage uniform...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction
• Part I: The Politics of English Independence
• Part II: England in English Literature’s Canon
• Part III: England’s Contemporary Literary Landscape
• Part IV: English Literature as British Ideology
• Afterword
• Select Bibliography
• Index