The Observer - 11.08.2019

The very idea of a united

kingdom is being torn

apart by toxic nationalism

Boris Johnson’s Brexit strategy is

imperilling centuries of common

purpose. It can’t be allowed to succeed

Illustration

by Dominic

McKenzie

Gordon Brown

was prime

minister from

2007 to 2010

The good old days?

Look deeper and

the myth of ideal

communities fades

Jon Lawrence

Page 45

Gordon

Brown

41

T he fi rst step to solving a problem

is to see it clearly. And if we are to understand why we are

facing not only our most serious constitutional crisis since

the 17th century but an unprecedented economic calamity

precipitated by a no-deal exit from the EU, we must

recognise that nationalism is now driving British politics.

Having set almost impossible terms for any negotiation

with Europe and preparing to renege on legal obligations

to pay our debts to the EU – the economic equivalent of a

declaration of war – Boris Johnson’s government is hell-

bent on conjuring up the absurd and mendacious image

of the patriotic British valiantly defying an intransigent

Europe determined to turn us into a vassal state.

His soundbites, pledging token sums for the NHS

and 20,000 more police on the street at some future

date, cannot disguise a government driven not by the

national interest but by a destructive, populist, nationalist

ideology. And with Scottish nationalists pushing a more

extreme form of separation and Northern Ireland’s

unionists becoming, paradoxically, Northern Irish

nationalists – digging in, even if it means, against all

economic logic, a hard border with the Irish Republic –

we are, at best, only a precariously united kingdom.

Johnson’s fl ying visits to all corners of the UK have

done nothing to dispel the impression that under him the

world’s most successful multinational state is devoid of a

unifying purpose powerful enough to hold it together and

to keep four nationalisms – Scottish, Irish, English and

also a rising Welsh nationalism – at bay.

Recent polling shows a majority of Scots support

Scottish independence. In a new Hope Not Hate poll,

many more – 60% – agree a no-deal Brexit will accelerate

the demand for independence. Only 15% disagree.

What is most worrying is not just that so many think

the union will end but how at least for now so few appear

to care. Only 30% of British Conservatives (and only 14%

of Brexit party voters) would oppose Brexit if it meant the

break-up of the union: 56% of Tories (and 78% of Brexit

party voters) – in total 70% of Leavers – would go ahead

regardless, even if the union collapsed.

Three weeks into the Johnson premiership, English

nationalism is on the rise, the Conservative and Unionist

party has been reincarnated as the Conservative and

Brexit party, unionism appears to be sleepwalking into

oblivion and the UK, once admired around the world for

an understated but comfortably unifying Britishness that

was inclusive, outward-looking, tolerant and ultimately

pragmatic, now presents an ugly picture: of bitter

division, intolerance and introversion so extreme that

it has sacrifi ced common sense in favour of a dogmatic

abandonment of its own best interests.

Incoming governments normally announce that they

will seek to serve the whole electorate. Now, playing out

in triplicate across the UK is a “divide and rule” approach

to leadership, straight from Donald Trump’s playbook:

each faction consolidating its base, choosing an enemy

and accusing opponents of treason in the hope that

in a multi party system they can win with a minority

of votes. Johnson adviser Dominic Cummings depicts

the Commons as the enemy in a “people v parliament”

election, with the people led to believe – by a costly public

information campaign that is nothing more than Brexit

propaganda – that their parliament is prepared to betray

democracy and abandon traditional national values. Next,

the Tories will likely embrace Lynton Crosby ’s well-honed

election strategy: to whip up English nationalism by

demonising immigrants as well as perfi dious Europeans

and playing the Scottish card he so successfully deployed

in 2015, with the spectre of a minority Labour government

controlled by an even smaller minority of Scots.

A s this hardline nationalism tightens its grip, there

is much worse to come: Johnson joining Nigel Farage

in insisting that a no-deal Brexit on 31 October is the

only true expression of patriotism; trade wars putting

businesses and jobs in jeopardy; Scottish separatists

not just threatening to leave every institution of the UK

but planning for a no-deal exit too; a rerun of the old

pressures for an Irish unifi cation poll; and England being

pushed towards a self-regarding xenophobia.

The SNP is already peddling what it claims is a

progressive, pro-European Scottish nationalism that

must break free from Johnson’s reactionary, anti-

European and anti-Scottish English nationalism – and

the inescapable conclusion that only thus can Scotland

regain its dignity. But if the UK pound, the UK customs

union and the UK single market all go, this desire for

hard – not soft – separatism ignores the hundreds of

thousands of jobs at risk of going too.

Labour’s role should be to stand up

for Britain’s true economic interests but a few days ago

John McDonnell also fell straight into the nationalist trap ,

suggesting a Scottish parliament should not be frustrated

by what he called the “English parliament”.

Unionist parties in Northern Ireland should have been

persuaded that their stated objectives – the integrity

of the UK and an open border with the Irish Republic

• could be best secured by continued membership of
  the customs union and single market. Such an outcome
  would have better refl ected the dominant pro-European
  vote of Northern Ireland’s electors. But the DUP has
  convinced itself that its stance on Europe has to be
  couched in purely nationalist terms – as a test not of
  what’s best economically for Northern Ireland but of
  whether a diehard brand of nationalism will prevail.
  As the Second World War ended, George Orwell made
  a distinction between patriots who instinctively love their
  country and the opposite, a political nationalism that he
  defi ned as “power hunger tempered by self-deception”. He
  noted its defi ning features: unreality about the country’s
  prospects; introversion bordering on the xenophobic; and
  hate-fi lled obsessiveness that treats people solely in terms
  of their loyalty and utility. Orwell argued passionately that
  the descent into a narrow, chauvinistic nationalism could
  be halted only by what he called “moral effort”.
  In our times, this means we must rediscover the age-old
  virtues of empathy, solidarity across borders, reciprocity
  between nations and co-operation rather than confl ict.
  These precious ideals – and a tolerant, inclusive and
  outward-looking Britishness – could not survive the
  divisiveness and chaos of a no-deal Brexit. To prevent the
  rise of dysfunctional nationalism, the fi rst step is to stop
  no deal in its tracks.

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