11
ISSUES: Citizenship
Chapter 1: Citizenship in the UK
its own claim to those shared and
popular British institutions. There
was reassurance about the monarchy
and the BBC as well as an argument
about keeping the pound. Indeed,
the Yes campaign’s final push placed
just as much emphasis on the NHS as
the opening ceremony had. “We must
leave Britain to keep Danny Boyle’s
flame alive,” was the counter-intuitive
message of a Yes campaign which
argued that Scottish independence
was now necessary to preserve the
jewel in the crown of the post-war
British welfare settlement.
Most pro-independence Scots who
wish their team was carrying their own
flag into the Rio stadium will cheer for
Andy Murray during these Olympics,
just as their political opponents would
have done had the referendum result
been different. That doesn’t make
sport more important than politics
– but the value of national identity
is that it can unite those who are
deeply divided over even the most
foundational issues.
We are still the country we were during
that Olympic summer – a country
that can be anxious and confident,
with a strong sense of our history
and identity, and with different views
about what that should mean for
the choices we make today. Perhaps
it is our awareness that we can be a
fragmented and fractured society – by
class, by place and by politics – that
gives us an appetite for the moments
that bring us together.
5 August 2016
Ö
The
above
information
is
reprinted with kind permission
from British Future. Please visit
for further
information.
© British Future 2017
Cornwall and Yorkshire
show regional identities run
deep in England, too
An article from
The Conversation
.
By Pete Woodcock, Head of the Division of Criminology, Politics
and Sociology, University of Huddersfield
W
e are living in an increasingly
decentralised
UK.
Devolution to Scotland,
Wales and Northern Ireland – along
with the Scottish independence
referendum and a rise in nationalistic
sentiment – have posed obvious
opposition to the idea of the UK as a
nation state.
Yet recent researchandarticles suggest
that there are further challenges
looming – particularly within England.
As Matthew Johnson puts it, there is “a
feeling that British politicians define
English interests as those of London”,
and that “those in the northeast,
northwest, and southwest have their
own ideas about identity”.
These
ideas
differ
from
the
dominant London-centric concept
of Englishness. Issues of English
devolution are currently framed for
the most part in economic terms,
especially by mainstream parties – as
epitomised by Osborne’s attempt to
manufacture a Northern Powerhouse.
But my research suggests that there
is more to Englishness – and that
territorial identities may play a key
role.
Cornwall: a Celtic nation
There has been a growing sense of
politicisation among English regional
identities in recent years, and nowhere
more so than inCornwall and Yorkshire.
The Cornish have always had a distinct
sense of cultural identity, which is
different to Englishness. They would
reject the description of Cornishness
as a sub-national English identity.
Instead, the Cornish people would
argue that they identify as a nation on
the same grounds as other members
of the Celtic League – an organisation
that campaigns for the political rights
of Celtic nations such as Scotland,
Ireland, Wales, Mann and Brittany.
This stance has had a political edge
since the 1970s when Mebyon Kernow
(MK) – previously a pressure group
aimed at promoting Cornish culture,
pursuits and history – started fielding
candidates in elections. And yet, such
politicisation of Cornishness is not
confined only to regionalist parties
such as MK (whose electoral results
have been, all in all, rather marginal).
The Liberal Democrats – which used
to consider Cornwall a stronghold –
played a part in this as well. Through
their position in the Coalition
Government, the Lib Dems had an
instrumental role in the process that
led to Cornwall receiving special
minority status in 2014. In the past,
the Lib Dems strategically exploited
Cornish identity for electoral ends,
so as to maintain a support base in
the area. More recently, the party
pledged to form a Cornish Assembly
if returned to government, a prospect
which was shattered by the outcome
of the election which saw the Lib
Dems devastated across the country,
and the Conservatives take all the
parliamentary seats in Cornwall.
Yorkshire (first?)
Yorkshire is also often defined as
having a distinct regional identity.
There are around ten times as many
people living in Yorkshire as in
Cornwall, and the region’s population
is roughly the same as Scotland’s.
The Yorkshire identity seems to
have solidified even further in the
wake of the Scottish independence
referendum, and the resulting plans to
devolve more powers to Scotland.
Scotland now has greater influence
both “at home” and at Westminster,
and this has prompted claims that
Yorkshire should also have a form of
devolved government, comparable to
that of Scotland.
