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I am a Londoner. I am the Sikh Punjabi daughter of immigrants. I am British.

My parents were born and raised in countries of the British Empire: my mother two years after partition in Delhi; and my dad in Nairobi, where he lived under British rule in one of British East Africa’s stratified societies (the whites above; the Kenyans below). 'Great Britain’ was a country they, like many Asian immigrants, then came to; aspired to thrive in, were proud to be part of. The mother country. 

Having long explored Britain’s imperial project with my parents growing up, I have never bought into the uncritical exceptionalism of Britain’s ‘greatness’ but the acknowledgement of my Britishness is a sort of recognition of my parents’ history. And how this history was and is British history. Those times may have passed, but for some of us they haven’t. They are living legacies. More British than the British.

And it was the British National Party that had its headquarters, disguised as a bookshop and meeting room, opposite the house I grew up in south-east London, where I was born. And it was the Union flag its supporters carried when they rioted with police outside my living room window following the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence in nearby Eltham in the 1990s. 

For the generations who came before me, that flag is a terrifying symbol of the violence of far-right extremism in modern Britain: p*ki-bashing; the National Front chasing black skin. It wasn’t their flag. But their struggles, historic and continuing, made my journey easier and helped change our country. So I was frightened too: why were these rioting hooligans carrying my flag? 

And it was ‘Cool Britannia’ the tabloids talked about when New Labour came to power and the Gallagher brothers went to Downing Street. And when Geri Halliwell wore the Union Jack dress at the Brit Awards.

The Spice Girls reunited years later for the London 2012 Olympic Games. It was a moment many of us felt proud, perhaps, never more British: outward; diverse; plural; confident.

And it’s good old British goodwill I think of when strangers daren’t jump the queue or pull together on a packed, packed-up train. Or when I think of the NHS and our welfare state. Decency. 

Art work/graffiti in Waterloo, London. Photo: Hardeep Matharu

But what is it, to me, to be English? 

Unlike the other nations of the UK, it is true that England does not have as strong a sense of a distinct identity. England is the only nation in the Union not to have dedicated political representation outside of Westminster. One compelling analysis of Brexit was that it was an outlet for a kind of unheard English nationalism. 

For me, the United Kingdom is a last expression of England’s imperial project. And so I personally believe that if the people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland see their futures as independent countries or united with other independent countries, that is their right. But I am also conflicted.

If the Union and Britishness is a limitation of their beings, this I understand. But the same identity that limits them, brings for me expression and expansion.

Why?

Because in Britishness is the notion – however this has emerged in me – of diversity; plurality; difference; inclusivity; outwardness. For me, these thoughts and feelings don’t show themselves when it comes to Englishness – with its inwardness; isolation; exclusion. Englishness is something I have never felt part of. Little England. How many of us from similar backgrounds, people of colour, minorities, living the legacies of Empire, have?

I have my own reasons – for identity is not either political or personal; it is both. But, in a wider sense, because the negative associations of England with the far-right have not been replaced by anything more positive or inclusive, Englishness is not an identity that has ever really been presented to me as me.

That's not to say that 'Englishness' isn't on my radar. The quaintness of formal hall at Cambridge University felt very English. Whenever I speak to Americans, Britishness isn’t a thing (she was the Queen of England, Elizabeth II). A recent Christmas carol service at Southwark Cathedral, Shakespeare’s local church back in the day, felt more English than it did British – and I was part of it, alongside (some) other diverse faces. And the occasional Sunday roast never feels very British (while I do love the odd English breakfast)…  

On a substantive level, an example which has been instructive – and which, I believe, points a way forward – has emerged in football and our current England team. Marcus Rashford, Jordan Henderson, Raheem Sterling, Harry Kane … During the 2020 Euros, the Migration Museum tweeted that “without players with at least one parent or grandparent born overseas, England would be down to just three players”.

Many of us relate to and are so proud of that diverse England team that is achieving such success, which is embracing its togetherness and differences, where there is solidarity, tradition and evolution. Taking on those young men taking the knee was one culture war this Government could not win. And that is saying something.

As the England manager, Gareth Southgate, said in his open letter ‘Dear England’ when those players were being condemned by the likes of Priti Patel and Boris Johnson for raising awareness of racism and structural injustice through sport: “I feel like this generation of England players is closer to the supporters than they have been for decades. Despite the polarisation we see in society, these lads are on the same wavelength as you on many issues.”

For me, these players are both English, when they play for the England team, and British – because they represent the values I associate with this. And that's the point: our identities are multiple. We don’t, and shouldn’t, have to choose one or the other.

On the deeper constitutional analysis as to why Englishness needs to be given political expression, I am not an expert. But I believe we need to consider our identity associations with the heart, not just the head. 

What does embracing Englishness and feeling ‘more English’ mean? And how would it happen? Why hasn’t it happened so far? 

Of course, for some, it will have always meant something; always have been an identity that speaks to them. But from where will this affiliation have developed?

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While the political dimensions of Britishness and Englishness may be alive for some, I suspect for many more that the question of our identities is an exploration of the many forces that shape us on a personal level. 

The matters of Westminster and regional representation are not, I believe, outweighed by our experiences cultural, social and individual. Most of my reflections of my Britishness are personal reflections. And so merely giving England more political representation will not, in itself, change the state of my attachment to this identity.

I ask the same questions of my Punjabiness. If I am to be ‘more Indian’, what exactly am I supposed to be connecting with? And according to who and what? For some in my community, I’m not Indian enough even though I am Indian. Identities are complicated and not always knowable – to ourselves or to others.

One of the reasons I identify with Britishness is its plurality – for me, it doesn’t tell me what to be or what I need to be. Identities should not be imposed, but be created. They are reflections of the stories within us. The ideas we view the world with.

Could we not, then, create an Englishness that sits alongside our Britishness?

Could we decouple Britishness from its more imperial overtones and, alongside this more modern version, also develop a sense of Englishness – which appeals not just to the head but to the heart? Which is not merely about politics but personal? Not imposed but made available? 

Because I don’t think we need to choose. And neither Britishness nor Englishness needs to be fixed in what we have thought it was in the past.

In this age of the hyper-weaponisation of identities, the blood of tribalism, and the stoking of people’s baser instincts with division, we need to encourage an understanding of ourselves based on the idea of the multiple identities within us – the different, sometimes conflicting, sometimes shifting, aspects of who we are that sit side by side. That this is true but this is true too.

Britishness and Englishness are political and personal. Both can be part of our stories. But we have to be free to choose them. 

Hardeep Matharu is the Editor of Byline Times. This is an edited version of her speech at the 'Break-Up of Britain? Confronting the UK’s Democratic Crisis’ Conference in Edinburgh on 18 November 2023

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While the death of the extraordinary Tom Nairn this year was widely acknowledged in Scotland – with Nicola Sturgeon, Alex Salmond and Gordon Brown all sharing fulsome eulogies about his significant influence on their own thinking – strangely it barely registered among England’s political leaders.

That’s a particular shame since much of his analysis was actually about my homeland and its seemingly permanent state of political crisis. 

Perhaps it reflects the fact that few of England’s political elite are willing to accept they are just English, let alone to contemplate the logic of Nairn’s argument: that the break-up of Britain – the mutual liberation from the crumbling political construct which he famously called "Ukania" – might just be good for all of us.

What’s the nature of the democratic crisis we face?

Seen in one way, the problem is our political institutions.

The archaic and undemocratic 'first past the post’ voting system; an over-centralised governance system; the unelected House of Lords; the populist abuse of sovereignty; the vast networks of patronage; the stuffy and outdated conventions and public school atmosphere – the whole damn lot of it.  

But, seen in another way, it is about nationalisms and identity. And specifically about how England, in particular, has struggled to find its way in the modern world. How we cling to our delusions of imperial grandeur, pretend that we’re so much more than just English – and how the devastating consequences of that are all around us.  

It was English exceptionalism that drove Brexit, for example. In one way, the EU Referendum campaign seems a lifetime ago. We’ve gone through so much since then and, if anything, the alienation and polarisation are much greater today than they were back in 2016.

But the truth was clear even then: that Brexit was the result of division, and would make those divisions worse. And it has deepened the democratic crisis within the United Kingdom.

The fact that England and Wales voted to leave, and Scotland and Northern Ireland to stay, has put incredible strain on the myth that the United Kingdom is an equal partnership of four nations. 

EXCLUSIVE

The Story of Brexit is the Story of Empire: Why Did Asian Immigrants Vote to Leave the EU?

The complicated love-hate relationship of immigrants from former colonies with the British Empire cannot be ignored if lessons are to be learned in post-Brexit Britain, says Hardeep Matharu

Hardeep Matharu

The Government in London decided what form Brexit would take without any reference at all to the elected governments in Edinburgh or Belfast, or indeed, in Cardiff. Unsurprisingly, as a result, support for the reunification of Ireland has grown. The pressure for a second independence referendum in Scotland remains strong. And in Wales, a new sense of national identity is on the rise. The future of the United Kingdom itself is now in doubt. 

Yet we left the EU, primarily, because of what had happened in England. Outside of the capital, every single English region voted for Brexit. It is no disrespect to Wales, I hope, which voted by a majority of only 80,000 for leave, to say that it was an English vote that drove Brexit.  

In the months following the referendum, I travelled to as many leave-voting areas in England as I could to hear from people first-hand and face-to-face why they had supported Brexit. Sometimes this was difficult. One reason was that those who benefitted economically from EU membership, and from the UK becoming a more open and diverse society, did not do anything like enough to share these gains fairly and often sneered at those with a more traditional view of England.

But these conversations were also refreshing and reassuring because there was so much more that we agreed on than held us apart. Many people were angry. Of course they were. But if you took the time to go, and paid them the courtesy of listening, then common ground could emerge.

One theme that continually arose throughout this listening exercise (which my small team filmed and shared as best we could, and which came to be known as ‘Dear Leavers’), was about people’s sense of pride in the places where they lived, but – simultaneously – their feelings of powerlessness.   

I was told countless times that London, and the power that was held there, was so far away that it might as well have been on another planet. They felt unheard and ignored.

This was about more than an economic complaint, however corrosive this country’s grotesque inequalities of wealth and opportunity undoubtedly are. It was also about culture and identity.  

Many resented how some expressions of Englishness were allowed, while others were not. It was acceptable to love the English countryside, English humour, English music and English literature, and to see these aspects of Englishness as welcoming, humane, full of energy and creativity. But the moment Englishness took a political form, it apparently turned into the opposite. 

Even mild forms of patriotism were frowned on. The English flag was acceptable fluttering from a church tower in a picturesque village, but was instantly interpreted as a form of racism if hanging from someone’s window on an estate.

Yet Englishness should not be something to be scared of. Or suppressed within the notion of ‘Britain’ as if this will contain it safely. On the contrary, as Brexit shows, it doesn’t.

We need to recognise that many people who see themselves primarily as English feel they are without a voice, including a political voice. There are no institutions that represent England equivalent to those in the three other countries of the UK. Nothing to give political expression to our complex, rich and sometimes raucous reality, or where differences can be expressed and, perhaps, resolved. 

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The so-called ‘English problem’ is not only one of culture and identity, but also – profoundly – one of democracy.  

And we need to ask ourselves what kind of England do we want now and in the future, either within the United Kingdom or as an independent state, a reborn Kingdom of England? 

Will it be a smaller, diminished version of what we have now? Will imperial delusions and exceptionalism continue to shape its sense of itself? Will it be inward-looking, resentful of lost glories, held back by social and economic injustice, and run for the benefit of a narrow elite? 

Or could it become a genuine democracy, confident, outward-looking, inclusive and recognise our future necessarily involves being part of Europe? 

These questions have taken on an even greater urgency as xenophobic nationalism continues its rise across Europe, from the success of the Sweden Democrats and True Finns to the growth of the far-right in France, Italy and Hungary.  

At the same time, propelled by the outcome of the Brexit Referendum and the 2019 General Election, in the UK the populist-right strengthens its grip on an increasingly extreme and out-of-touch Conservative Party. 

If a progressive alternative to this national populist agenda is to be successful, it needs to do more than offer bolder, more ambitious policies, vital though those are: it needs to unify, rather than divide; to offer hope, rather than despair.  And one of the most effective ways of doing that is by telling more compelling stories of who we are and who we can be.

And so my answer to the question of how do we get out of the current democratic crisis is not only about constitutional answers. It’s not just about a proportional voting system, an elected House of Lords, an end to political patronage, the drafting of a written constitution. It’s also about telling more compelling stories about who we English are so that we might – finally – be more comfortable in our own skin, less intent on subduing our neighbours, whether they be within the UK or across the Empire.

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Because I would wager that, when we English do finally settle with our own identity, we’ll discover we’re much more progressive than we’re ever led to believe.

Right now, Englishness has been hijacked by the right. The dominant version of our national story solely serves their interests. The only people who dare speak of ‘Englishness’ are cheerleaders for isolationism and imperial nostalgia.

But there are other stories, equally compelling, about who we are: about the English people’s radical inclusivity, their ancient commitment to the natural world, their long struggle to win rights for all. Stories that put the Chartists and the Diggers in their rightful place alongside Nelson and Churchill. That draw inspiration from the Agreement of the People, from Tom Paine, and from Shelley, Milton and Blake. That draw on medieval writers and Romantic poets who emphasised the sanctity of the environment. That recognise and celebrate England’s ancient multicultural heritage.

My forthcoming book, Another England, sets out to tell those stories. Because I believe that rediscovering those stories of an England at ease with itself and with our past – forward-looking, open, more equal, diverse and multi-ethnic – and identifying the policies that can help to realise them, has become a political project every bit as important as investing in infrastructure or levelling-up. 

A country without a coherent story about who and what it is can never thrive and prosper, it can’t extract itself from its own democratic crisis, and certainly can’t rise to the existential threats of our time – the climate and nature emergencies.  

As the writer Ben Okri puts it, “nations and peoples are largely the stories they feed themselves. If they tell themselves stories that are lies, they will suffer the future consequences of those lies. If they tell themselves stories that face their own truths, they will free their histories for future flowerings".  

Finding and telling stories that speak to the truth of England’s past and present, and inspire us to imagine and pursue new and better futures, might turn out to be one of the most transformative acts we can undertake. And one of the greatest contributions to a healthier democracy across all of these islands.

Caroline Lucas is the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion. Her book 'Another England: A New Story of Who We Are and Who We Can Be’ will be published in 2024. This is an edited version of her speech at the 'Break-Up of Britain? Confronting the UK’s Democratic Crisis’ Conference in Edinburgh on 18 November 2023

Yesterday’s announcement from Whitehall that HS2 would proceed – at an estimated cost now of £100bn, a figure that seems likely to rise substantially – has opened a wide fault-line about the future of Wales and Welsh devolution.

As Plaid Cymru MP Jonathan Edwards argues persuasively in a piece in Nation Cymru, the issues for Wales are simple. HS2 is classified as a project that benefits both England and Wales, and therefore Wales will not receive any consequential funding as a result of the Barnett Formula, which provides that increasing public expenditure in England will be reflected in an increase in Westminster funding for Wales. This is despite the fact that not a centimetre of HS2 track will be laid in Wales and economists estimate that HS2 will actually damage the economy of South Wales – to the tune of £150m per year; the justification is that it will be possible to get a connecting service from Wrexham to Crewe, which some would regard as a pretty desperate piece of post-hoc rationalisation. It looks especially threadbare when one considers that Scotland – which will potentially benefit from substantially reduced travel times to London – will receive Barnett consequentials.

The loss in Barnett consequentials is likely to be around £5bn – assuming the £100bn overall cost of HS2 is correct (and it seems reasonable to expect it will come in above that).

All of this matters, not just because of the loss of £5bn of desperately needed funding in the poorest country in Northern Europe, whose economy is blighted by notoriously inadequate transport links. It throws into sharp relief issues that are beginning to emerge about the future of devolution itself.

First, it is a reminder that the Barnett Formula is no more than a convention. It has no force in law, and only exists as long as the Treasury in London allows it to exist. The Treasury could announce tomorrow that it was over and the Welsh Government could do absolutely nothing about it.

And politically, it’s essential to remember two things: first, that the new Tory government, faced with the austerity that will inevitably follow the hard Brexit it now appears to be pursuing, will be under huge pressure from its new North of England Tory MPs to protect spending in their areas, in line with Boris Johnson’s rhetoric about promoting the North of England. The convention that automatically uplifts Wales’ spending settlement is bound to be under political pressure in these circumstances.

Morevover, Wales has recently been granted tax-raising powers. There is a close fit with the Cameron governments’ localism agenda, which in theory granted extra revenue-raising powers to English local authorities through retention of business rates, but in practice became a rationale for cutting central Government funding: the message was, you can raise the money locally so we don’t need to fund you.

So there is a clear rationale emerging in which Welsh political institutions continue to take the responsibility for providing services but are systematically starved of the resources to do so; the scenario facing many English local authorities but from which Wales – has to a limited extent – been protected by the Barnett formula (although it’s becoming increasingly obvious that the ability of Welsh political institutions to deliver services like health is under huge and growing pressure).

And, second, it’s essential to understand the political context in which the HS2 decisions have been taken. It was instructive to hear Boris Johnson, yet again, using the HS2 announcement to attack the Welsh Government’s decision not to build the M4 relief road around Newport. The point is that whatever one might think of that decision, it was taken in Wales by our own government; Johnson and Westminster have absolutely no jurisdiction. here.

Added to that is the huge pressure that Brexit – especially the hard Brexit envisaged by Whitehall – will place on Wales: both on our economy and on our political autonomy. The effect of a hard Brexit will obviously be catastrophic for Wales; the Government’s own estimates suggest a 7% fall in GDP across the UK as a whole – similar to what Spain and Ireland experienced in the Eurozone crisis. Wales, because of our economic structures, is far more vulnerable than many parts of the UK. And the EU withdrawal legislation means that over areas determined by Whitehall fiat to be part of the UK single market, it will be far more difficult for the Welsh Government to act, least of all to mitigate the effects of Brexit on either the economy or essential quality-of-life issues like the environment or food standards.

In other words, the HS2 decision is a reminder that the cumulative effect of Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party’s attitude towards Wales – including its attitude to Brexit – is to undermine fatally both our political institutions and our ability to finance our own public services; it is essentially a denial of service attack on Welsh democracy. And anybody on the progressive side of Welsh politics has to understand that the HS2 decision exposes clearly the ruthless determination of Tories, ultimately, to ensure that Wales learns its place and takes its medicine.

So where do progressives start to fight back? One of the complaints that one hears on the progressive side of politics is that we don’t have the three-word slogans that Boris Johnson and his minders used so devastatingly in the EU referendum: “take back control” and “get Brexit done”.

So here’s one for Welsh progressives: “its our money”. And let’s use this as a reminder that achieving progressive politics in Wales is intimately bound up with developing constitutional arrangements that are fit for purpose, robust and not subject to Whitehall whim.

Last night, the BBC’s Question Time was broadcast from Cardiff. Events leading up to the programme – as well as the programme itself – give rise to further questions about audience selection; an issue that has given rise to considerable concern over a long period.

Inevitably, Brexit and the prorogation of Parliament were issues on the show. The city of Cardiff voted strongly remain in the 2016 referendum; by 60.02% to 39.98% on a turnout of 69.7%. More recently, although the Brexit party topped the poll in Cardiff in the 2019 European elections, it only did so by a whisker with 21% of the vote, with the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru receiving similar shares of the vote; the majority of Cardiff voters backed Remain parties, to the tune of more than 70% if you include Labour, on a turnout of 41.6%.

In other words, Cardiff is a Remain city. But you might have been surprised to learn that if you watched the audience and listened to the questioning.

I applied for a ticket, as did many of my colleagues in the Cardiff for Europe group, one of the many local groups operating under the umbrella of Wales for Europe. Not one of us, having honestly answered the question on the application form that asks how you voted in the 2016 referendum, actually received a ticket – which suggests that, assuming the selection process was unbiased, the law of averages was having a week off. Similar experiences have been reported on Twitter from party political groups.

Moreover, the selection form gave rise to concern. As I mentioned, Plaid Cymru took 20% of the vote in the European elections in Cardiff – and a similar vote across Wales as a whole. Yet the question on the online application form asking which party one would vote for did not include Plaid Cymru. It included the Brexit Party (0 MPs) and the Green Party (1 MP) but not Plaid, with its four MPs and a substantial vote share across Wales, for a programme that was taking place in the capital of Wales – in the Senedd no less, where 10 Plaid AMs sit. Plaid supporters were required to tick the Other (please specify) box.

The BBC has refused to answer Freedom of Information requests for information on how Question Time audiences are selected. The FAQs on the programme website provide a handful of opaque generalisations that appear to have been drafted by Sir Humphrey Appleby. In the light of long-running controversies over the programme’s audience selection, surely a greater degree of openness would be sensible.

Bias is a serious allegation, and one that I am obviously not prepared to make without some pretty substantial evidence – although there is, as we have seen, a history of allegations. What I am willing to say is that this audience did not appear to reflect the City of Cardiff – certainly not the city that I know; that is a subjective view, obviously. But the marginalisation of Plaid Cymru – who, whatever you may think of them, are obviously an important part of the Welsh political scene – suggests at the very least a sloppy, ill-informed and cavalier approach to audience selection, one that paid little heed to the actual political balance in the city where the programme was recorded.

And, while the BBC continues as a national broadcaster funded by what is in effect a Broadcasting Tax, it needs to do a lot better than this.