What is Britishness

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What is Britishness?

• Rosemary Sales,
• Middlesex University

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Conflicting notions of British identity

• A renewed national identity to promote social
  cohesion.
• The Union flag represents tolerance and
  inclusion
• (Gordon Brown, 2006)
• An exclusive view of belonging.
•  
• British jobs for British workers
• (Gordon Brown, 2007)

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The British Isles
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Tensions

• There are clearly potential tensions between the
  desire to celebrate common values and the notion
  of Britain as a nation that is welcoming and
  accommodating of a wide range of cultures and
  belief systems.
• Stevenson (20073)

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The nation state

• a state holds sovereignty within particular
  geographical borders
• a nation suggests some shared history and
  culture, an imagined community (Anderson 1983).
  

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Citizenship

• embodies universal principles, above cultural
  difference involving equal access to some level
  of rights
• exists only in the context of a particular nation
  state based on cultural specificity
•  

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Social fragmentation

• economic restructuring undermines traditional
  employment, social structures
• changes in family, undermines male breadwinner
  model and extended family.
• geographical mobility undermines rootedness in
  particular localities.
• restructuring of welfare competition
• increased inequalities

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Fragmentation (2)

• Decline of national narratives shared history,
  e.g. war
• Decline of religion
• Loss of grand narratives, alternative visions

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The impact of globalisation

• Immigrants are the most visible sign of
  globalization while the real causes are invisible
  and complex
• (Castles, 2000)
•  

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Ethnic diversity

• We are forced to share with strangers
• but such acts of sharing are more smoothly and
  generously negotiated if we can take for granted
  a limited set of common values and assumptions.
  But as Britain becomes more diverse that common
  culture is being eroded.
• (Goodhart, 2004 1)
• We need to hold onto a core of Britishness
  (Phillips, 2004).
•  

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A suspect community?

• Muslim leaders must .do more to attack not
  just the extremists methods, but their false
  sense of grievance about the West. Too many
  Muslim leaders give the impression that they
  understand and sympathise with the grievances, an
  attitude that ensures the extremists will never
  be defeated.
• (Tony Blair, 2006)

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 Problems with the promotion of Britishness

•  
• promotion of values without strategies to target
  inequalities
• contradictory notions of British values
• unequal relationship between England and the
  other British nations
• inherently exclusionary, separates us British
  from non-British.
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Social Cohesion

• A social cohesive community has a clearly
  defined and widely shared sense of the
  contribution of different individuals and
  different communities to a future vision for a
  neighbourhood, city, region or country
• Our Shared Future, 2007

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Social cohesion

• sidelines economic, material and structural
  inequalities and the interventions needed to
  mitigate them.
• (Cheong et. al., 2007 9).

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British identity

• To enable integration to take place, and to value
  the diversity it brings, we need to be secure
  within our sense of belonging and identity
• (David Blunkett, Introduction to White Paper
  Secure Borders, Safe Haven)

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British values (2)

• Human Rights Act, 1988 can be viewed as a key
  source of values that British citizens should
  share.
• (Home Office 2002 30).

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Oath of Allegiance

• I swear by Almighty God do solemnly and
  sincerely affirm that, from this time forward, I
  will give my loyalty and allegiance to Her
  Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second her Heirs and
  Successors and to the United Kingdom. I will
  respect the rights and freedoms of the United
  Kingdom. I will uphold its democratic values. I
  will observe its laws faithfully and fulfill my
  duties and obligations as a British citizen.

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The Disunited Kingdom? (1)

• There is a difference between being British and
  being English. English is being indigenous, being
  white and from this country. But being British,
  the primary thing that comes to my mind is that
  you have a British passport.
• (quoted in CRE, 2005 40).
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The Disunited Kingdom (2)

• The most basic, objective and uncontroversial
  conception of the British people is one that
  includesthe English Scots and the Welsh.
• (CRE, 2005 22).

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Britishness and exclusion

• There are currently six different categories of
  citizenship all of which offer different rights
  and privileges
• (Goldsmith, 2008 72).
• The Nationality Act, 1948 created an undivided
  class of citizens of the UK and Colonies
• (Goldsmith, 2008 14).

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Acquiring citizenship

• Residence (five years)
• Language test
• Test on Life in the UK
• Failure rate 31.3, 53.7 for Bangladeshis.
•  

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Citizenship and ethnicity

• not an ethnic, blood and soil concept but a more
  abstract political idea implying equal legal,
  political and social rights (and duties) for
  people inhabiting a given national space But
• for most of us it is something we do not choose
  but are born into it arises out of a shared
  history, shared experiences and, often, shared
  suffering
• (Goodhart, 2004 3).
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Conclusions (1)

• Need to tackle underlying causes of
  fragmentation.
• Britishness ambivalent and contradictory.
  Belief in democracy, the rule of law, tolerance,
  equal treatment for all (Blair, 2007) universal
  human values - to evoke Britishness reminiscent
  of colonial attitudes, civilised and
  uncivilized.

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Conclusions (2)

• Britishness is tied to particularist version of
  national identity - privileges some
• Divisions between British nations make
  Britishness contested not unifying
• Britishness excludes the non-British other,
  creating a constructed national unity