Inspired by the new wave of English folk music Piers Mostyn began reflecting on English identity and “progressive patriotism”. This article was originally published in Jewish Socialist No.60 Summer 2010 and formed the basis of Piers’ introduction at a recent Socialist Resistance forum. For more information see www.jewishsocialist.org.uk .

The video is underneath but unhappily the last few minutes of the talk were not recorded due to incompetence.

Radio Two is not the station it once was. Its target audience’s tastes are now more post-1968 than post-1945 and many people are breaking life-long taboos to see what’s on offer. Recently I was pleasantly surprised, switching on to this year’s Radio Two Folk Awards, to find in it steeped in rebel culture.

Opening with the Bad Shepherd’s version of “I Fought The Law And The Law Won”, this year’s Best Folk Song was “Arrogance Ignorance and Greed” – a topical assault on finance capitalism by Show of Hands – and the lifetime achievement award went to Scottish socialist Dick Gaughan. Likely as not, all the musicians featured are active supporters of Folk Against Fascism.

Of course radical folk is nothing new. But the radicalism of the recent folk revival resonates well beyond its normal audience and ought to compel us to reconsider the progressive potential in the culture of English national identity.

A certain crisis of national identity has surfaced intermittently over the past century with Britain’s decline from global empire to small island desperate to “punch above its weight”. This has triggered debate – largely dominated by the right, best exemplified by Enoch Powell’s racist English nationalism.

But there has also been a left perspective, arguing that – with the shedding of empire and the prospect of Britain breaking up into its constituent nations– English identity can be re-conceptualised as inclusive, diverse and progressive. This is said to be essential if the far right’s claimed “ownership” of national symbols is to be challenged.

Billy Bragg’s engaging and autobiographical book, “The Progressive Patriot”, for instance, calls for St George’s day to be celebrated, the flag to be waved and for an English national anthem. He has tapped into a tradition that is more sophisticated and radical than many might credit. George Orwell’s patriotism, for example, was interwoven with a subtly powerful critique of class, state and empire. But Orwell has also been repeatedly co-opted by the right and this tells its own story about the pitfalls inherent in any notion of a progressive patriotism (PP).

Post-war, the leftwing variant was rooted in a combination of welfarism and foreign policy bipartisanship. But an anxiety about Britain’s position, caught between a hegemonic USA and European federalism through the EEC, became increasingly significant.

By the 1970s, a resurgence of Irish, Scottish and Welsh nationalism posed the question of whether the “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland” would survive in its existing form – leading to a greater focus on English national identity.

As economic crisis replaced post-war boom, a deeper malaise about what, if anything, “binds us together” was triggered and a decline of deference undermined the popular status of national institutions like monarchy, church and parliament.

An erosion of the welfare state, social solidarity, union strength and local government in a period of economic insecurity have combined with Labour’s rightwards lurch to breed political disillusionment and abstentionism.

The outcome – given Britain’s first past the post electoral system – has been a growing “democratic deficit”. Declining voter turn-out has resulted in governments being elected on 25% or less popular support.

Of course this process has been far from linear. It took over 30 years for Scottish and Welsh devolution to become a reality and the union with the North of Ireland has been bolstered rather than undermined by the Good Friday Agreement. But this backcloth has provided an ideological vacuum in which there has been a limited growth of English nationalism.

Unlike the resurgent Scottish nationalism – largely rooted in progressive struggles (an assertion of democratic control by Scotland’s anti-Tory majority and the popular anti-poll tax and anti-missiles movements) – the English version has material roots in what Paul Gilroy calls post-imperial melancholy.

Nationalist ideologies are often underpinned by “foundational myths” – shared stories about national origins and history – and the promotion of “English” identity is no exception.

England’s historical status as a separate country is questionable – unless you count a short period almost a millennium back when it was run by Normans, with French and Latin the official languages. Our contemporary culture of “Englishness” has more recent origins in the early 19^th century, concocted to bolster a 20 year war against revolutionary France, central control over the newly minted union with Ireland and a nascent empire.

Whatever “England” was, from the outset its identity was forged in a seemingly permanent series of wars, annexations and pillaging expeditions – aimed at stabilising a strong state, accumulating wealth and expanding influence – to which the ruling elite remains addicted to this day.

The inhabitants of Wales and Ireland were early victims. Their forced subjugation alongside that of the Scottish Gaels creating what we now know as the “British Isles”. And waves of immigrants – including Jews, diasporas from colonial adventure, freed slaves and more – combined with previously settled Celts, Romans, Normans and northern European tribes to create a rich and dynamic mix.

But that melange was never reflected in the officially promoted identity. As recently as 2002 according to Bragg, the Home Office issued a guide to new immigrants called “Life in the UK” claiming that “the English” are descended from the Saxons, Angles and Jutes who invaded in the “dark ages” pushing Celts and Britons back to the western fringes. A racist definition that would exclude the majority of inhabitants, including many readers of this magazine.

British National Party Deputy Treasure David Hannam – arguing that his party should ride the contemporary wave of English nationalism rather than seeing it as counter-posed to its favoured espousal of British nationalism – has described “Englishness” as now “the only refuge for the racially aware voter”.

Is it possible to overcome this history and harness English nationalism to the progressive cause? To answer this, we need a more sophisticated debate than sometimes seems on offer.

Tom Nairn points out that nationalism is an ambiguous ideology that faces in two directions. And Michael Lowy argues that it is essential to distinguish the nationalism of the oppressed – the struggle against invasion
, occupation, exploitation and racism – from that of the oppressor.

It’s therefore not sufficient to simply denounce “nationalism” as inherently reactionary. Cultures of national identity have to be interrogated to consider what they represent.

Besides, the English left has its own history of facing in two directions – from the chauvinism of the late 19^th century Social Democratic Federation, to the main revolutionary groups of recent times exporting their particular brand of civilisation through London-centred international groupings.

On the other side, Bragg and his like have an honourable record of anti-fascist campaigning. Counter-posing their position to any notion of “coded racism”, they favour a national identity that is inclusive, diverse and explicitly anti-racist. Mark Perryman argues that the recent growth in St George flag-waving by large numbers of English football fans – most of whom are not racists, despite the outrageous antics of xenophobes amongst them – suggests a change in its symbolic significance.

But does it follow that, if individuals promoting an English national identity do so with benign motives, this necessarily creates a progressive movement? There are some real contradictions wrapped up in the idea of PP.

At heart is the problem that all nationalism is rooted in material conditions – history, social forces, relations between states etc. The English variant has been a product of deeply reactionary processes. A change in identity or symbolic content would surely have to be the product of underlying change rather than the reverse. Attempts to circumvent this must run the risk of creating support for an agenda at best ambiguous and at worst co-opted by reaction.

The idea that we can confront the BNP by challenging their claimed ownership of the symbols of national pride, presumes such symbols have progressive or at least neutral values that have simply been wrongly appropriated and need to be taken back. But as Mike Marqusee has pointed out, Englishness is a category wide and vague enough to accommodate radically opposed ideas. PP advocates have yet to demonstrate that it is possible to buy into it without getting a job lot.

This has been the problem with Labour’s strategy on immigration and law and order, giving dangerous credence to anti-immigrant and authoritarian politics in the name of “stealing the BNP’s clothes”. To presume that English nationalism can be different is to underestimate its historical roots

Against this, proponents of PP argue that not all politics has to be hidebound by the present and past. On the contrary an acceptance of such limitations would mean we would never move on.

The role of pre-figurative politics is important and often neglected – challenging perceived wisdoms and practices through the utilisation of imagination and culture. But the trick is to keep both feet firmly on the ground at the same time. Like a hot air balloon that provides a bird’s eye view of the city, if not firmly anchored it will blow away with the wind.

To be progressive, any future England of the socialist imagination would have to be one in which a blood-drenched imperialist and racist past has been confronted and defeated; which has fought and overcome divisions based on class, gender, sexuality and ethnicity; that is diverse not homogenous, steeped in solidarity not acquisitiveness, eagerly internationalist not desiring to dominate.

This implies pretty substantial structural change, itself inconceivable without major struggles against deeply entrenched interests. Without such a process any national identity will tend to exclude sections of the population that cannot or will not identify with the ruling interests it continues to reflect.

In short it would surely only be forged as part of a radical transformation of society. Otherwise any such pre-figurative identity risks being framed by existing material conditions – lacking the necessary counterweight to overwhelm other forces. Culture, particularly national culture, is not formed in a vacuum.

At heart, the PP argument rests heavily on the intentions of those promoting it. But is national identity reducible to subjectively defined self-image? Isn’t it as much about the perception of others?

PP advocates argue that England (unlike Britain), and the St George’s Cross (unlike the Union Jack) is not associated with exploitation, war and racism. That, free of the same baggage, it can readily be dressed in radical garb.

But is that really possible? Isn’t “Great Britain” seen by most outsiders as a type of “greater England” – as much the seat of the empire of old? Isn’t that in fact its history? Is it possible to wave the flag in a time of war without others, particular from the global South, perceiving this as patriotism of a more traditional sort? The flag seen as “butcher’s apron”, rather than symbol of friendship?

That’s not to say we cannot dream. On a bad day socialists may have little else to fall back on.

There are certainly foundations to be laid for a progressive future English culture. There is a rich history of political, social and cultural resistance – from the Peasants revolt, the Levellers, the Chartists, the Suffragettes and Cable Street through to Rock Against Racism, CND, the miners’ strike and anti-war movements of more recent times. Minority radical cultures have thrived despite tremendous adversity. There is a rich seam of stories, ideas, songs, poems and theatre enriched from a variety of communities.

Which brings us back to a familiar question: where is the 21^st century culture with a critical eye on the contemporary world, which gives voice to today’s revolts? Well, unlikely as it may seem, this year’s Radio Two Folk Awards, are as good a place to start as any.

In the 1960s and ‘70s, Leon Rosselson and Roy Bailey made albums that combined songs about England’s radical tradition – exemplified by the Diggers and Levellers – with more contemporary concerns such as militarism and nuclear war. But they were exceptions. The folk revival of these decades, invaluable though it was, tended to see itself as a “keeper of the tradition” – with an essentialist notion of “authentic” English culture when a vernacular medium ought to be in flux.

The more recent new wave has shed that, revelling instead in cultural interaction and in the process opening the door to a radicalism with a much broader potential appeal.

From Martin Simpson’s Louisiana blues-influenced slide guitar to Bellowhead’s raucous dalliance with jazz and European cabaret; from the Unthanks explorations of maritime tradition, gender and class to Imagined Village’s collaboration with Transglobal Underground – there’s nowhere better to find a critical take on England, its contradictions and its place in the world.

Chris Wood’s “Hollow Point”, about Jean-Charles De Menezes is an un-paralleled portrait of the “war on terror” as a war on all of us – its opening line, “Awake arise you drowsy sleeper”, a slap in the face for English complacency. Or his “Albion”, about a father and son who witness a suicide as they walk in the park, its title a jarring counterpoint to the story told.

Shaking off its narrow reputation, this new wave folk is rooted in hybridity, dynamism and collaboration. Typified in the past year by the Darwin Project CD – a festival performance of specially penned
songs to celebrate Darwin’s anniversary – and another Radio Two triumph, “The Ballad of the Miner’s Strike”.

There’s material here to awaken and inspire as we build the struggles that perhaps will, one day, allow us to celebrate a new rich and open national identity.

Piers Mostyn

See Benedict Anderson Imagined Communities, Billy Bragg Progressive Patriotism, Paul Gilroy After Empire, Gunter Minnerup and Brian Jenkins Citizens and comrades, Michael Lowy Fatherland or Mother earth?, Tom Nairn The Break up of Britain, Mark Perryman Imagined Nation and www.folkagainstfascism.com.