Abolish England!

Ben Wildsmith

I’m not going to lie, I sorta low-key like Mark Drakeford. I mean I haven’t got a tattoo of him or anything and I wouldn’t want him turning up on a night out (can you imagine?), the way he talks sets my teeth on edge and I won’t be voting for him, but he’s OK, isn’t he?

This week has seen the re-emergence of the blonde unflushable as, predictably, he attempts to use the Covid enquiry as a vehicle to ram-raid his successor in Number 10.

We are collectively traumatised by the pandemic. The clearest tell for this is that nobody can remember the order in which various lockdowns, fatality spikes, and new variants occurred.

A fractured timeline is typical of traumatic memories and a key reason why abuse victims are often seen as unreliable witnesses by the Crown Prosecution Service.

Whilst we often see abusers using their trial to re-traumatise their victims, I can’t recall one turning up at an inquest to gaslight bereaved relatives.

Boris Johnson’s behaviour this week demonstrates yet again that the deaths of hundreds of thousands of UK citizens on his watch has registered as no more than a political inconvenience in what he imagines is the great sweep of his career.

Grudging respect

In my own jumbled memories of the pandemic, Drakeford stands out for a number of reasons.

Firstly, living in his shed to protect his family was leadership by example of a sort I thought was lost to UK politics. It bought the FM enough grudging respect to insist on restrictions that were crafted in his own, cautious image.

Now, that was a pain in the backside at the time and history may yet record that his measures were ineffective, but during those terrifying days, most people in Wales felt that our interests were being served by a FM whose motives were unquestioned.

The contrast with Westminster chaos was stark and whilst Nicola Sturgeon’s performance was assured, Drakeford managed to avoid the impression that the pandemic was a political opportunity.

He dished out restrictions and warnings calmly, seemingly unconcerned whether we liked him or not. It was schoolmasterly when, in truth, we all felt infantilised by a threat we could not counter.

‘A load of auld pish’

But that was then, wasn’t it? The Drakester is approaching the final furlong of his run in public life and, like all retiring politicos, his focus has shifted to ‘legacy’.

This seems to be a particularly Labour obsession; exiting Tories shed the responsibility of government like a despised work suit and tootle off to roll around in mountains of cash with their City pals.

It’s obscene, but at least we don’t have to watch it.

Labourites, however, have managed to convince themselves that they are the inheritors of a grand, radical tradition and, as such, duty-bound to leave their philosophical mark for future generations to pore over alongside Rousseau, Roosevelt, and Stevens

The absolute king of cut-price elder statesmen is Gordon Brown.

Let’s recap his achievements: spent 10 years being gamed by Tony Blair during which time he transferred responsibility for decent wages from corporations to the taxpayer, flogged off the UK gold reserves when the market was at its lowest, and failed to regulate the banks.

On assuming the premiership, he dodged a winnable election just in time to see his unregulated banks tank the economy and send him into the political netherworld after calling an old lady a bigot on tape.

Since then, however, he has grown his hair out as a sure signifier that he is above the squalid dogfighting of the political class and now projecting himself as a Merlinesque purveyor of philosophical insight into world affairs.

It was in this capacity that he swept into Scotland on the eve of its independence referendum to promise last-minute concessions from the Cameron government that ensured a no vote would trigger the federalisation of the UK.

As we know, this turned out to be what Brown’s fellow Kirkcaldy-based free-marketeer Adam Smith might have described as ‘a load of auld pish.’

Relevance-hungry has-beens

It is to Brown that Mark Drakeford has hitched his wagon in a late bid to lend his career some constitutional significance.

The duo are joined by Anas Sarwar, Andy Burnham and Tracy Brabin in the latest bid to persuade unionists and separatists that a third way is possible.

First off, having Brown head this up is like handing Phil Mitchell the keys to the Vic in the expectation that he’ll turn it into a vegan chai house. Cut Gordon open and he’d bleed green leather and order papers, he is a Westminster politician to his marrow.

The opening statement from the ‘Alliance for Radical Democratic Change’ (!) falls apart on contact with the air. In paragraph one they seek to, ‘devolve effective economic and social powers to the regions and nations.’

Just two paragraphs later the relevance-hungry has-beens reckon they can deliver ‘a union which offers strong devolution for all parts of the UK; a union where all four nations are treated as equals.’

Domination

Now, I’m not a mathematician, but given that the population of England is 56 million whilst there are 3.1 million of us here in Wales, I’d conclude that any federal arrangement that leaves England intact as a political entity has domination of the smaller nations baked into it.

As someone who grew up in Birmingham, I’d like to help them out with their evident confusion.

England doesn’t exist in any meaningful way and should be abolished.

If you travel to the Black Country, or Yorkshire, Lancashire, Devon, East Anglia, or anywhere else that labours under the false cloak of Englishness, you’ll find distinct accents, dialects, food, senses of humour, ways of greeting and socio-political mores that denote the existence of living, breathing cultures.

It is impossible not to be charmed by the absurdist humour you find in Dudley, or the spectacular delicacies of Lancashire, or the always-great music in Manchester.

These cultures thrive in the words and deeds of living humans whose joys and sorrows find expression through them.

Unjust rule

What, on the other hand, is Englishness? It is impossible to conceive of it without deferring to a received history that paid attention only to the ruling class.

Its claimed characteristics: the ‘stiff upper lip’, stoicism, and deference are the virtues of serfs whose obligation is to keep quiet in the face of unjust rule.

‘Keep Calm and Carry On’, as those T-shirts bearing the crown urge.

The flag of St George has magical powers. The regions east of Wales have birthed a universe of radical ideas, inventions, and art but once draped in the red cross all of that is silenced in a way that the Union Flag could never mute the Celtic nations.

The shameful scenes attached to England football supporters over the years speak of an ugly nationalism that is rooted in insecurity and a childlike craving for discipline.

Englishness diminishes a diverse group of people to a powerless mob whose status is defined from above. Regional identities sing in their own voices, Englishness bellows its masters’ orders.

Grotesquely overpowered

So, Mr. Drakeford, if you are serious about federalisation, let’s get real about what that entails.

There can be no equality of nations if one of them is an artificial superstate with a fabricated culture that serves solely to preserve the political status quo.

Unless the people of the regions of England wake up to their own disadvantage within it then the English ‘nation’ will remain grotesquely overpowered in any federal settlement.

As I began writing this piece, news came through that the popular Mayor of North of Tyne, Jamie Driscoll, has been barred by Keir Starmer’s Labour from running for the expanded role of North East Mayor that will replace his office.

Anybody placing faith in the Labour Party to decentralise the UK shouldn’t hold their breath.

You can find more of The Shrewd View and the rest of Ben’s writing on Nation.Cymru by following his links on this map