Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Thanks to a tip from Gareth Young in the vigorous comments section on his OK post about The way forward for the Campaign for an English Parliament, I’ve just read Bill Bragg here in CiF. Billy defends his call for an English patriotism and makes a lot of what is happening in Scotland to prove his case that progressive politics and civic nationalism can go together. He’s right. Two things strike me. Billy makes an explicitly socialist case - from a socialist addressed to socialists - saying internationalism and patriotism are not incompatible and the right should not be permitted a free ride on England. But the SNP have never been a socialist or an explicitly social-democratic party - even if this is what their government is turning out to be. So we have to ask the question: why is it that the most left-wing government in the United Kingdom is not from the Labour or socialist tradition?
Second, and more important, Billy talks about the need for Englishness but seems to draw back from calling for any English institution or parliament. How will his Englishness be delivered if it has no engine? In an early discussion in OK last year where a point was made about the current narrowness of the appeal of England and the risk of its being seen as an ethnic - ie racially coded - concept the come-back was a strong one, I thought. This was, that the comparison with Scotland is an unfair one in because now that they have their own institutions they have the means to make their nationalism civic and inclusive, while it is far harder to do this when you are making the case for having a national voice in the first place.
