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Mr Brown on Britishness - By James Evans
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On the 300th anniversary of the Act of Union between England and Scotland, James Evans examines the Chancellor of the Exchequer's recent pronouncements on Britishness and considers the past and future state of the Union.
As he stands ready to replace Mr Blair, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown has come under fire on many counts. Some say that he is a control freak. Others say that his financial management is short-termist, and that he has helped to create a pensions time-bomb which future generations of politicians will have to struggle with. Curiously, over the last twelve months, the fact that he’s Scottish appears to have worried Mr Brown far more than these genuine issues of political management and accountability. In the past thirteen months, Mr Brown has made speeches and written article about Britishness with all the fervour of a man who, like Mikhail Gorbachev at the collapse of the Soviet Union, fears that he might end up becoming a leader without a country. There is a strong possibility that Scots might soon vote on independence from the United Kingdom; the Scottish National party lead Labour in the polls and there is an election later this year. The case for the union is currently being made with a whimper: the celebrations of the 300th anniversary of the 1707 Act of Union are playing third fiddle to the 1807 ‘Abolition of the Slave Trade’ law; the best case that government supporters could make in ‘Prime Minister’s questions’ this week (24/1/07) consisted of a new O2 call centre in Glasgow. The voice of the secessionists is even stronger than that of the unionists on the internet. They have taken ownership of the full text of the 1707 Act of Union: the first (and one of the few) google 'hit' with a complete transcript appears on a Scottish Independence website, complete with a partisan gloss(1). Even the gist of the wikipedia article on the Act of Union (2) is partisan, suggesting: • The Scots were sold out to England by a cynical money-grubbing elite. • That Scotland’s later prosperity appears to have had little to do with the Union. In January 2006, speaking to the Fabian Society, Mr Brown’s focus was not on the history of the union, but on the wonderful characteristics shared by Brits, their ‘creativity, inventiveness, enterprise and our internationalism...a commitment to – liberty for all, responsibility by all and fairness to all’(3). As recently as 2005, in fact, Mr Brown informed his audience, 90% of respondents to a YouGov poll emphasised that fairness was a key characteristic of Britishness. To back his claims up, Mr Brown did make use of history; for example, he mentioned that Britain ‘led the world’ in abolishing the Slave Trade in the 1800s. He also sees the study of history as a key tool in strengthening the union. In a 2007 article for the Daily Telegraph, Mr Brown has stressed his hope that ‘the current review of the curriculum’ will ‘root the teaching of citizenship more closely in British history’(4). But, in putting the case for a continued union, Mr Brown has neatly sidestepped issues of the historical value of that union, thus handing the initiative to his opponents. It is ironic that, when talking about creating an Institute for Britishness, he suggested debating ‘Magna Carta’, a pre-union English document, and didn’t mention the Acts of Union which created the political structure of the modern United Kingdom. It is perhaps more embarrassing that the Empire and the Commonwealth, the foundation stones of the modern multi-cultural United Kingdom, become the elephants in the room. Not once did Mr Brown mention either in his Telegraph article, although there was one reference to ‘Europe’s first common market’(5). In his speech to the Fabian Society on Britishness in January 2006, the closest he came to mentioning ‘empire’ was a reference to ‘what Britishness means in a post-imperial world’(6). The Chancellor may have felt that to talk or write about ‘the Empire’ would simply encourage a post-imperial hangover. He may have been embarrassed by the Empire-building exploits of his Scottish forebears. It is certain that the Empire is the colossal co-operative economic and political enterprise which has created multi-cultural Britain. It is also certain that disastrous colonial failure by Scottish pioneers in Panama in the 1690s when unsupported by the English went unrepeated after the political and economic union was completed in 1707. Union has been good for Scotland. Even admitting the Empire and Commonwealth argument, Mr Brown would still be in a difficult position, however, because he is a supporter of an unequal, and therefore unfair, system of devolution. It seems bizarre that he can attack Conservatives for wanting ‘English votes for English laws’ when he has been involved in creating a devolved Scottish Parliament which has those powers with respect to Scotland. It has even emerged that Mr Brown co-authored a book in 1980 advocating the Conservatives’ current position(7). With Mr Brown’s version of Britishness so unclear, it is not surprising that a shared discontent has galvanised his rivals. A situation involving an unequal tax burden and unequal rights of governance is characterised by the Scottish tuition fees situation. The Scottish executive’s decision to abolish tuition fees for Scottish universities applied to all students from the EU...but didn't include those from England. Our legislation is a mess because different legal provisions must be made in relation to the differing political rights of assemblies in different parts of the country. If he becomes Prime Minister, Mr Brown’s job should be to make devolution fair: he can standardise devolution, balance its effect economically and politically, or reverse it. If he avoids the issue, the UK, and its sense of fairness, will lose. (1)http://www.forscotland.com/actofu.html (2)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Union.1707 (3) http://www.fabiansociety.org.uk. (4)The Daily Telegraph, 13/1/07, p.23 (5)The Daily Telegraph, 13/1/07, p.23 (6)http://www.fabiansociety.org.uk (7)The Daily Telegraph, 17/1/07, p.12 This article is written by James Evans and may not be reproduced in any way, shape or form without the author's prior consent. To comment on this article please visit our Have Your Say section |
