A Grim Joke

One of the most grimly amusing moments in recent British History occurred on the occasion of a speech a few years ago (Jan 14^th 2006)  by our current (unelected ) leader Gordon Brown.

Britain, he said, should have an equivalent of the USA’s 4^th of July or even the French 14^th of July... ‘Where’ (he asked), ‘is the (British) equivalent of a national celebration of who we are and what we stand for… to ‘help develop the ties that bind the British together … commemorative, unifying, and an expression of British ideas of standing firm in the world of in the name of liberty, responsibility and fairness?’  The former Tory Prime Minister John Major agreed that Brown’s idea  was ‘absolutely right.’

The punch line of the joke came when Brown was immediately pounced on by the  representative of an Asian pressure group who denounced his arrogation of ‘fairness’ and so forth as a specifically British characteristic as ‘racist.’ Really, you had to laugh.

Of course, the British have never needed any such a day.  We would gladly celebrate what we or our compatriots have done - the self sacrifice of those who fought and died for their country on Trafalgar Day or VE Day,  or Armistice Day or Remembrance Day, for example.  But it has in the past gone against British traditions of reserve and self–effacement deliberately to celebrate ourselves as such.

We Know who We Are

More importantly however, the British have never needed a day to celebrate who they were which would be ‘unifying’ because they always knew who they were and what unified them. They were the British by birth and breeding and it was their bonds of a common ancestry, religion and culture, not just Geography and a particular form of government which unified them. And such was their entirely justifiable pride in their nation because of its glittering world-historical achievements which spoke for themselves (‘To be born an Englishman,’ said Kipling, ‘is to have won first prize in the lottery of life’) that it was enough to know that they were part of it. No other ‘celebration’ or ‘unifying’ was necessary.  Such things were left to ‘lesser breeds without the law.’

Left-Liberalism's Year Zero: Reinventing Britain

Brown’s speech of course was all in the cause of ‘reinventing’ Britain as a multicultural, multiracial ‘society’ in this country’s very own Year Zero,  ie destroying it.  The native British should forget their history. It was the story of their race in these islands and therefore shameful. Furthermore it was ‘exclusive’ and therefore anathema to a Party which had promised a more ‘inclusive’ society to an unwitting electorate which had no idea that this meant inviting the whole world to live in their country.

More Like the USA?

For such a ‘society’ to exist, Britishness had to stop meaning anything to do with race (shudder) and to start meaning  something else. Well, what? Brown apparently wants Britain to be ‘more like the USA.’ That is, a nation founded not on race, shared history, culture or religion, but on ‘Ideas,’  ‘Ideas’ such as ‘fairness’, liberty, responsibility etc etc.

The Unwritten Constitution of the USA

Unfortunately Brown seems not to realise that while the USA has a Declaration of Independence with ringing but essentially meaningless phrases such as ‘inalienable rights,’ ‘the pursuit of happiness’ and so forth and a written constitution (based on the18^th Century British Monarchy), it was also founded on other unwritten but more fundamental things; the strong assumption that the USA would continue to be a European, Christian and even Protestant country.  Thanks to the USA ceasing to be any of those through mass immigration, the USA  itself seems  to be at the beginning of its end, certainly at the end  of its World  dominance.

The  Asian who objected to Brown redefining Britishness in terms of ‘fairness’ and rhetoric of that kind was right, up to a point. ‘Fairness’ and other such characteristics are not and never have been exclusively British characteristics, although it is fair to say that they have been a great deal more in evidence here historically than in most other places most of the time. That though was a function of the fact that the British had lived on their island untroubled by invasion for a millennium and were racially, culturally and religiously one of the most homogenous societies on earth.

So What is Britishness if you are a Left-Liberal?

Well, how then do you define Britishness?  If you are a globalising multiculturalist and multiracialist  like Brown or Cameron, you cannot rely on a system of government or indeed the struggle of the British through the centuries to attain Parliamentary Democracy and the other rights of a free people in order to define it. After all, it is you who are advocating the dissolution of that same Parliament into the EU and  subsequently into a World Government; in other words the practical obliteration of a specifically British  constitutional history and way of life  which  will lead and is leading now to the loss of our hard -won freedoms in favour of tyranny at the hands of distant and barely accountable bureaucrats.

Nothing Left with which to define Britishness

So what is left if fairness etc and systems of government, race, religion and culture cannot be said to describe ‘Britishness?’  The answer, of course, is nothing whatsoever. There is nothing British about Britain. It is simply a geographical expression and the possession of a passport.

It is the People Who Define True Britishness

Whether left –liberals like Brown or Cameron or those over at the ‘Nothing British’ Website like it or not, the Britishness of Britain lies in its people: the English, the Irish the Scots and the Welsh. Whatever else has changed in the long history of their presence in these islands; Tribalism, Feudalism or Capitalism, Kingship or Constitutional Monarchy, Dictatorship under Cromwell or semi-Dictatorship under the EU, Small Island, Mighty Empire, Agricultural Economy, the world’s first Industrial Revolution, only they have remained constant, united fundamentally by their ethnic affinities; race and shared history, religion and culture.

Anything else is lies.