We will be hearing a lot about England over the next few weeks as the World Cup gets under way. But this column is not – at least not explicitly – about football, English or otherwise. It’s a column about England itself. It is a column about the country whose name is surprisingly rarely referenced outside the sporting context, yet a country with which the overwhelming majority of people living in these islands strongly identify.
A lot has been written since 2016 about whether the Brexit vote marked an eruption of English nationalism. My experience is that this debate gets ahead of itself rather too easily and that those who make the claim sometimes put their fingers on the scales for reasons of their own. Explicit English nationalism remains nonexistent or dormant, not active, unlike other nationalisms in these islands. That the Brexit vote was, in part, an immense expression of English identity is, on the other hand, beyond dispute.
Throughout this week, the BBC’s Mark Easton has been reporting on English identity. Most of it is based on a large survey by YouGov that explores the language, contours and contexts of that identity. Its findings should be a real wake-up call for anybody who is serious about modern British politics, especially on the left.
The fundamental finding in the BBC’s English Question surveys is that 80% of people in England strongly self-identify as English. On one level this is hardly surprising. England is where they live. It’s where most of them were born. But let the idea and its implications sink in. And note also that there are almost no exceptions at all. This isn’t just coastal towns or leafy lanes. In every region, every class, every age group and almost every other demographic subset, a majority strongly – note “strongly” – self-identifies as English. The only subset exceptions, though they are important ones, are black and minority-ethnic adults (but only by a whisker), people who self-identify as British not English, and people of other nationalities altogether.
Almost as important a finding, however, is that a strong sense of English identity actively coexists with other identities. Again, this is hardly surprising. Which of us is not like this in some way? Which of us self-identifies as one thing alone? The most common of these other identities, not surprisingly, is a British one, with 82% strong identification. On this, with the sole exception of other nationalities, every subset in the survey (this time including black and minority-ethnic adults) strongly identifies with Britishness – again, note the word “strongly”. Additionally, half of the survey strongly feel an English regional identity – up to 74% in the north-east. Around a quarter strongly feel European too.
There is much else in the BBC/YouGov survey, but we must press on into the politics of what this all means. What the survey shows is that England means an awful lot to an awful lot of people. It also shows that it can’t be treated as more or less the same thing as Britain. It shows that political silence and evasion about England are no longer an option.
Many on the left prefer the silence. Some find England embarrassing – a “not in my name” country. Many prefer to navigate the multiple identities of Britishness while leaving the self-identifying English alone. As a result the left of centre is not much represented in the English conversation. I suspect that the English have noticed.
Labour embodies this unease. Few Labour policy documents mention England at all, even when they concern policy areas such as the health service or education, which are devolved and on which, therefore, “national” policy actually means English policy. Faced with English identity, Jeremy Corbyn is little different from Tony Blair or Gordon Brown. This week Brown made a fine speech about bringing the country together with a programme of reforms. Yet the word England appeared just once in his speech, and only in the context of English regionalism, not English identity. It is hard to think of any senior Labour politician since Tony Benn or Michael Foot who talked about England with any degree of comfort. Their view of England may have been unduly romantic and radical, but at least it existed.
This isn’t intended as a bash-Labour point. For the most part, Labour is no better and no worse than anybody else on the liberal left in this regard. There are honourable exceptions, notably the former minister John Denham, no longer in parliament but actively pushing his English Labour Network. A recent Institute for Public Policy Research speech by the maverick shadow cabinet member Jon Trickett was another important recognition of the need for a political conversation to develop on the left that includes, not ignores, England.
England is not going to go away. And the current English mood is a challenge to every aspect of the progressive tradition. As the BBC/YouGov survey shows, England is not just a place with a real sense of identity. It is also a pessimistic place. Most people in the survey think England was better in the past. The pessimism is widely shared across all parts of England. Only one in six people in England think the country’s best years lie ahead of it.
But this pessimism is not something that need embarrass the progressive traditions in politics. There isn’t much sign of a harking back to whiteness or for the empire. It’s about feeling that the country is incredibly beautiful, has a rich history, and is witty and polite. But the country also used to make things, used to matter more, used to be more caring and connected. The England that cries out from this survey is not at ease, is disempowered, is disconnected from Westminster and insufficiently able to shape its own future at local, never mind national, level.
English identity is a cultural issue that requires more than just a constitutional answer. Nevertheless, England is the largest nation in Europe without its own parliament and it has become difficult to argue against one, with powers similar to those in the rest of the UK. An English parliament would force the progressive wing of politics to engage seriously with England’s mood and England’s needs. Compared with an English parliament, combined or regional authorities just don’t cut it.
And what is the alternative? If the progressive tradition in British politics cannot find ways of listening to, connecting with and speaking for England, its sense of itself and its sense of place, it risks not just electoral failure but the loss of a much larger argument. To cede the politics of England to the right is to ensure that it is the right that speaks for England. That is what is happening. Yet it does not have to be this way. Bear that in mind as you watch Harry Kane and his team.
• Martin Kettle is a Guardian staff columnist