There should be an English sister party to Plaid, on the left

[lewislewis]

The left has historically organised across Britain rather than in any kind of segregated nations within the UK, and working class reforms like the NHS were fought for by the British working class a whole, however much we might like to big up the NHS' Welsh roots.

But devolution in 1997 has totally changed things and, paradoxically to my first statement, is the only way in which consistent left-of-centre policies (which would be described as Old Labour) have ever been implemented in the UK, despite the presence of an allegedly Labour government in the UK, Scotland and Wales.
In Scotland, New Labour wasn't rejected in the same way as Wales, but the point stands that ten years later, the SNP are in government in Scotland and a referendum on independence will be a reality within the next few years. Plaid Cymru are in government in Wales in alliance with a Welsh Labour party who since the election in 2007 have miraculously started to stand up to New Labour in London (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7275796.stm), and a referendum on law-making powers for the Welsh Assembly is also going to happen. Of lesser importance but still significantly, Sinn Fein is in government in Northern Ireland.

Importantly, people in Scotland and Wales seem to be enthusiastically voting for left-leaning nationalist parties. Commentators here predicted that Plaid would flop after choosing to prop up Welsh Labour- but the opposite has happened. Plaid are gaining all the credit for the Welsh government's modest achievements. People aren't particularly radicalised, but are interested in voting for parties in Wales & Scotland that will oppose PFI and bring public services back under public control. This is an alternative to New Labour and the Tories.
Aside from the very modest reforms, there is also a potential for more radical causes to have a louder voice than they would have in the past. The National Assembly for Wales is opposed to the principle of ID cards. The Scottish Parliament is opposed to the principle of nuclear weapons. Devolution has opened up a space for a politics that is an alternative to the Westminster consensus.

The break-up of Britain is a real possibility, and is quickly becoming an inevitability. The Union might somehow hold together, but only if a compromise is made in which Scotland and Wales becoming even more distinct and gain even more powers. In either of these scenarios, politics in England will eventually be decided on a different basis to the current UK-wide system. Whatever happens, England will emerge as a 'proper' nation in a constitutional sense. This is inevitable.

The question that the left hasn't even bothered addressing is, what are the left in England (or the English Left if people ever choose to describe themselves thus) going to do about this?
An English left-nationalist party does not have to emerge, necessarily- although the situation does seem to demand such an event. A party of the left based in England that simply recognises devolution and supports independence for England could fill the void.
But I would still like to know, could there be a party that challenges empire and the monarchy as symbols of England and instead extols the Tolpuddle Martyrs or the Chartists? England has a hidden radical history that needs to be heard. As it is, the word England seems to mean, to most people, cups of tea, Thatcher, racism and football hooligans.
Could a progressive English nationalism appear that challenges this and supports multi-culturalism?
England has a much larger middle class than Wales but I am convinced that those that have given up voting could relate to an English party of the left as long as it was electable. Whether we like it or not most people in England believe they are English and that that is their nation. They display the flags and have that consciousness. If embraced, then this could become a positive, outward-looking consciousness that could be used to make people vote for socialist policies again.

The BNP and the right will fill this void if the left does not. I know for a fact that the Welsh Left will do everything it can to support comrades in England.

 

[Brainaddict]

It's a fair point, but I wonder if the welsh and scottish parties developed a left wing character through the sense of feeling oppressed by westminster policies. Oppression tends to bring out the left wing in people. Whereas English people would find it harder to locate their source of oppression without also fingering Westminster - and where would that lead? English independence from westminster? It's not impossible but I'm not sure how keen people are going to be on that.
So I reckon that could help explain why nationalist tendencies haven't been taking such a left wing turn in England - people figure we're top dog and it's just a matter of staying that way - not exactly the kind of feeling that turns into a channel for left wing politics.
Just a theory.

 

[mk12]

Some interesting points in there, especially about detaching English patriotism from far-right politics and racism.

I don't really see the point of an English nationalist party though. Scotland and Welsh nationalism exists because those countries were ruled from England. They wanted autonomy and independence from the English. What do the English want independence from? Themselves?

 

[Dillinger4]

It would be easier if there were regions and stuff. It would be much easier to conceive of independence from Westminster when you are from the North West or North East or whatever.

 

[lewislewis]

It's a fair point, but I wonder if the welsh and scottish parties developed a left wing character through the sense of feeling oppressed by westminster policies. Oppression tends to bring out the left wing in people. Whereas English people would find it harder to locate their source of oppression without also fingering Westminster - and where would that lead? English independence from westminster? It's not impossible but I'm not sure how keen people are going to be on that.
So I reckon that could help explain why nationalist tendencies haven't been taking such a left wing turn in England - people figure we're top dog and it's just a matter of staying that way - not exactly the kind of feeling that turns into a channel for left wing politics.
Just a theory.

Good points, I rather think any sense of 'oppression' (though it is not really oppression anymore) is refracted through the constitutional elements- so the argument would go 'we need our own Welsh parliament because London doesn't care about...'

The left-wing character has been developed I think as a component of Welsh nationalism and a way of being elected. The founders of Welsh nationalism were mainly middle-class and had romantic notions, propagating a Welshness that was essentially elitist and rural in character. In the 1960s and 1970s Welshness shifted and became a working class identity in places like the Valleys, and Plaid Cymru adopted socialist policies around about the same time. It is still possible to stand on a 'socialist' or social democratic platform in most parts of Wales and win, although Wales is not discernibly more radical than England. It is just generally less conservative.

You're right that nationalism hasn't gone left in England because England doesn't have the sense of oppression. That's exactly why.
But rather, I was arguing for the opposite to happen, and for the left to either embrace or neutralise the formation of an English nation by using the populist platform that emerges to argue for socialist reforms.

Claiming the territory of Englishness from the right, basically.

 

[Dillinger4]

This might sound bizarre, but I see myself as a Lancastrian/Northerner kind of thing before I would see myself as English.

 

[lewislewis]

It's fine that after Britain, left parties operating in England will automatically become 'English' in the way they relate to standing in elections etc. But by then it might be too late to win English workers back to socialist politics.

It might sound bizarre but seriously, we've neutralised the BNP (of course recognising they are about 500 times more organised and numerous where you are and that its an easy job here). Plaid Cymru sets the tone for what Welshness is and if a progressive set of policies are promoted as part of this people will vote for them anyway because Plaid is the distinctively Welsh party.

I am quickly becoming aware that i'm not up to scratch on the national identity situation in England or politics in England in general, but I do hope there is a left response to post-Britain.

 

[Dillinger4]

I wrote my dissertation about sub-national identities, mostly in the Basque Country in Spain, but it applies in a similar kind of way to other European nations.

 

[JTG]

This might sound bizarre, but I see myself as a Lancastrian/Northerner kind of thing before I would see myself as English.

Ditto for me and the West Country really. Unfortunately, the few Wessex Regionalist types around and about seem to be more of the right than the left tbh (Mebyon Kernow are excluded from this given the different perception of Cornish identity). But then, outside of the big cities/industrial areas (Bristol, Plymouth, Gloucester, Midsomer Norton believe it or not), left wing alternatives to the Tories have stopped with the Lib Dems.

 

[isitme]

I don't identify with my country or my region, not being a titend

 

[Andy the Don]

There can never be a left wing English party until England gets its own national Parliament. You currently have a situation of Scotland, Wales & N Ireland having devolved Parliaments legislating on issues which are then voted on by their members. In England issues are voted on & passed by the massed lobby fodder. Many who represent seats in Scotland, Wales & N Ireland. The West Lothian question as asked by Tam Dayal. Why should he as a MP representing a Scottish seat have a say & vote in issues which will not effect his constituency or even the country his constituency is located.

 

[Udo Erasmus]

As a socialist in Wales, the reality is far from as rose-tinted as Lewislewis describes. He has to answer the question that if the Assembly is making such a difference why the majority of Welsh people didn't bother to vote in the last elections to that august body? His claim that the BNP is neutralised is surprising and not helpful, while thankfully the BNP was driven back in the last council elections they came closer than most of us would like to gaining a seat on the Assembly. And polled very highly in areas of North Wales during the assembly elections. There is no room for complacency.

The break-up of Britain is a real possibility, and is quickly becoming an inevitability.

Is it? the rise of nationalist parties is mainly because people are voting for them because they seem to offer some of the stuff that Labour used to offer. As Lewislewis is aware, Plaid have not made independence a central and immediate demand for a longtime, and the SNP won't hold a referendum because Salmond knows that they wouldnt' win. In fact, I recently saw some poll quoting from memory where a huge proportion of Plaid voters were said not to even support a Welsh parliament with tax raising powers let alone independence, so talk of the break-up of Britain is a little premature.
My own opinion is that any rise in nationalism among workers is a product of defeat and an upsurge of workers militancy a la early 70s would sweep it away.

What has driven nationalism to go 'left' (though not that left) is not oppression but the necessity of having to expand from a very narrow electoral base into South Wales, Plaid had to change and had to start to make an appeal to traditional Labour voters. So today, Plaid don't make the language issue central and it's barely discussed in the Assembly because they know that 70-80% of Welsh people don't speak it.

We should also recognise that while Labour and Plaid in Wales have discovered that some vague echo of Old Labour policies is a vote winner, they don't buck the neoliberal trend. For example, the only council Plaid controlled in Wales carreid out a whole programme of attempting to close local museums, the biggest school closure programme in Wales and cutting local services. The leader of the nationalists is campaigning for a new nuclear power station in North Wales, the support for the UK Military Academy, and an overall economic strategy based on taxbreaks to multinationals.

More to the point there is a central contradiction - Wales has some of the poorest areas of Britain and on average wages are lower here to really start to shift things we need more audacity and readiness to fight from our politicans and social movements. The problem is that any reforms introduced by the Welsh assembly are extremely fragile because Brown can just slash the budget to Wales. The strategy of Labour and Plaid is based upon making some mild reforms while not challenging New Labour and Westminster because their strategy is based on trying to carve out the best deal within the existing set-up

But to really break from neoliberalism and start transforming things we need this kind of challenge.

In the past, various local government bodies have been in a position to mobilise popular support and confront central government, one thinks of the GLC and radical local councils who have achieved far more than the Assembly in terms of reform and raising working class consciousness, but the Assembly is a very dull echo of the kind of difference local government has made and fightback that has happened in the past.

There's also a parochialism and provincialism. Rather than using any reforms made in Cardiff Bay to bolster nationalism, we should rather be using them to bolster the fight for reforms across Britain and as Welsh socialists saying if school league tables and prescription charges have been abolished in one section of Britain then they can be abolished everywhere in Britain.

 

[Belushi]

Bring back the Heptarchy!

 

[Udo Erasmus]

I don't think that England having a national parliament is a key thing. I think more favourable is a campaign for a restoration of local democracy and wrestling back power to local councils to start wrestling back the concentration of power - power has been taken from local government and given to Westminster, in Westminster we have a government unaccountable to parliament, in local councils we have a shift of power to the "cabinet" and specialist advisors.

The GLA has far less powers than the GLC. Local councils used to have far more scope to introduce reforms.

One should treat the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly the same as the GLC recognise that it can be used by socialists but not have illusions or over play it.

 

[phildwyer]

Bollocks. Nationalism is the scourge of Europe. Patriotism is the last refuge of an et cetera.

 

[CyberRose]

This might sound bizarre, but I see myself as a Lancastrian/Northerner kind of thing before I would see myself as English.

I'm not really sure how I see my self nationality wise. On forms if given the option between English and British I always chose British, because technically I am British (as it says on my passport) and I don't really see myself culturally any different from Scottish or Welsh people. In fact, being a Yorkshire man, I would say I have a lot more in common with the Scottish or Welsh (maybe just north Wales tho?) than I do with people from the south of England. I know right-wingers hate the so-called break up of England into regions, but Northerners are culturally as different to Southerners as they are to Scottish or Welsh so being "English" is not really something I pay much attention to (altho obviously I am English!)

 

[Udo Erasmus]

Actually there is a lot of division in Wales, though nationalists hate you to mention this. Traditionally culturally South Wales has been closer to South West England than North and West Wales.

There's also the small matter that it is quicker to get to London than North Wales or Aberystwyth. Unless you fly regularly like the Leader of Plaid, Ieuan Wyn Jones leading people to call the airline that links North and SOuth Wales "Ieuan Air"

They also rewrite Welsh history in terms of hundreds of years of Wales united rich and poor against English opression to gloss over the reality that the history of Wales has been one of sharp class conflict.

 

[glenquagmire]

All parties with a basis in nationalism are inherently regressive.

 

[KeyboardJockey]

Some interesting points in there, especially about detaching English patriotism from far-right politics and racism.

I don't really see the point of an English nationalist party though. Scotland and Welsh nationalism exists because those countries were ruled from England. They wanted autonomy and independence from the English. What do the English want independence from? Themselves?

Agreed. There is a market for an English Left party.

 

[Udo Erasmus]

I think generally the idea that the Left needs to "reclaim" patriotism or nationalism is bogus. the idea of nation is a key weapon in the ruling class arsenal and counterposed to building class consciousness. The Labour Party traditionally fudged things by channelling working class consciousness into the nation state and despite it traditionally being the party that working class people vote for, it tries to claim to represent the whole nation.

There was the idea in the communist party historically of reclaiming national culture ie. the American CP tried to play on the idea that they represented the best traditions of indigenous American radicalism around the time of the popular front.

In Britain the Communist Party historians like Edward Thompson, Christopher Hill et al, also tried to construct an alternative national-popular culture. I think this arose from theorisation in Italy that said that the fascists had successfully been able to use nationalism and national symbols to whip people up.

The CP project hinged on presenting an alternative national story of popular revolt expressed in the norman yoke, magna carta, peasants revolt of 1381, English Civil War, Levellers, Diggers, Luddites, romantics, chartism etc.

I think this idea of creating an alternative people's history from below is valid not sure about pushing the idea of nation as it is very dangerous, afterall these things didn't come from the nation as a whole but a certain section of the nation.

 

[lewislewis]

Actually there is a lot of division in Wales, though nationalists hate you to mention this. Traditionally culturally South Wales has been closer to South West England than North and West Wales.

There's also the small matter that it is quicker to get to London than North Wales or Aberystwyth. Unless you fly regularly like the Leader of Plaid, Ieuan Wyn Jones leading people to call the airline that links North and SOuth Wales "Ieuan Air"

They also rewrite Welsh history in terms of hundreds of years of Wales united rich and poor against English opression to gloss over the reality that the history of Wales has been one of sharp class conflict.

There is division in Wales but not as much as there used to be, what with lots of people from North and West Wales now moving to South Wales, and people from South Wales now being more likely to holiday in their own country rather than going abroad.

 

[lewislewis]

All parties with a basis in nationalism are inherently regressive.

This is patently not true!

 

[Udo Erasmus]

This is patently not true!

yes it is!

nationalism is based on distorting and mythologising history and fudging the question of class and inequality within the nation.

Your right about lots of people from N.Wales moving to S.Wales. Some Cardiff people compain about all this gentrification going on!

 

[glenquagmire]

That isn't to say that everything that a nationalist party does is regressive. That would be patently untrue. But if a core value of a party is based on the arbitrary designations of race or national boundaries then there is an unsocialist idea at their heart.

 

[lewislewis]

yes it is!

nationalism is based on distorting and mythologising history and fudging the question of class and inequality within the nation.

Your right about lots of people from N.Wales moving to S.Wales. Some Cardiff people compain about all this gentrification going on!

Some Cardiff people also complain about the Poles moving in. There are always going to be morons in this world.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Originally posted on the English Democrats thread but probably fits better here:

What about an English nationalism not based on the idea of being better than anybody else, but rather on the notion of belonging to. Couldn't the English (and I include myself here) get together and come to some sort of agreement on how we know we are English, not because it makes us better than everbody else but because it is ours? Afterall I don't have to denegrate the French language, Tolstoy or the Florida Keys because I feel some sort of geographically and historically specific identification with English, Ted Hughes and the South Downs.

I'm not about to set up a party or anything, but I'm also not convinced that in a globalizing world, the old presumed left certainty that nationalism in neccessarily regressive still holds true (if indeed it ever did).

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[glenquagmire]

I don't understand the link between between liking Ted Hughes and the South Downs and having to be interested in English nationalism.

I like cricket, real ale and cryptic crosswords, all of which are somewhat English, but that doesn't mean I'm going to join a political party or start searching for an identity based on those things.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

I don't understand the link between between liking Ted Hughes and the South Downs and having to be interested in English nationalism.

I like cricket, real ale and cryptic crosswords, all of which are somewhat English, but that doesn't mean I'm going to join a political party or start searching for an identity based on those things.

I'm not saying you have to join a party or search for an identity. I was just wondering aloud if you could have a nationalism that wasn't regressive, and apart from the cryptic crosswords I could live with an Englishness which said cricket and real ale were ours.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[glenquagmire]

But why would you want one? Except maybe for electoral expediency? Doesn't nationalism by definition prioritise one nation above others? If not then surely it's just a liking for real ale and cricket.

 

[audiotech]

Fuck nationalism and all who sail in her, including the Barking poet who doesn't live in Barking anymore. Reactionary tosh.