The non-fiction work that for me came nearest to explaining what I was looking for was Wingfield-Stratford’s two volume History of English Patriotism. The thing is he never reduces the subject to a checklist—hence the two volumes. The book begins with an impressively honest and beautifully English-ly written section on the difficulty of saying what patriotism is in the first place. He basically gives up on defining it and just shows it: law, Church, arms, letters, the slow formation of a people who already understood themselves as continuous.
It did for me what the Reform Club shelves gestured at. It informed me deeply on what British values are. Here’s the point, though: it informed by refusing the civic method; there’s no checklist. I recognise it’s a bit of a stretch but for me the books read as kind of an Old Testament, i.e., a statement of a people’s existence and character in the form of a history, not of the Hebrew tribe but of the English trive.
The attachment that civic nationalism requires stays inside the record. That means ypu have to have the record. People have to read it, not necessarily in one go but in a regular and constantly reinforced manner, in school, in the public sphere generally, that does not apologise for the tribe’s existence in the first place.
It cannot be started again from a borough boundary when that’s convenient for whoever happens to be running the country at the time.
As far as I am concerned that’s why what was said at Birmingham falls flat. A civic nationalism argued in good faith would have to be grave about the inheritance, specific about what integration requires, and frank that the creed is not a screen to be redrawn.
And any British politician who attempts that has to be brave enough to admit that the British state (which is to say they) has offered the opposite for thirty years I’ve been here and for more years before that: a recorded anthem, a shitty quiz, a ‘culture’ redefined whenever it starts to inconvenience the managerial elite—that’s just not going to work anymore. Come up with something better or there’ll be hell to pay.
Trust goes before the argument, sorry to bang this drum but it is the fundamental point of our society now. Until trust is restored, civic nationalists cannot talk about a common culture without being heard as opportunistic, and as hypocritical. Badenoch may mean what she says. Fact, though: she is speaking from a position that has treated the values as convenient.
The conference did not repair that. It assumed the trust was still there to be spent but it is not.
@VladVexler Very good video!
It would interesting if you had a video responding to the ideas of @DavidBe31099196 on likelihood of civil conflict in the West.
@DavidBe31099196 frequently touches on many of the same points you do.
@DavidBe31099196 For a millennium, only two fundamental immovables in England: 1. Common law legal system. 2. City of London Corporation. Islamisation of Britain now threatens those, you'd have expected Big Money interests to demand a crackdown. Instead, there's capital flight.
I spoke to the Daily Skeptic about the Dover protests and what I think they demonstrate. I found it a good interview with useful questions. I think it’s worth a listen.
@DavidBe31099196 Something I've noticed NOT coming up in UK debate. Even with UK govt fully committed to deportations, it's often impossible. Need to know where they're from, that place willing to take them back, airline willing to board them, actually being able to find them inside UK.
This is a recent interview with me on Long History Short podcast. The questions were very on point and the interviewer Brian left me space, I think, to answer them more or less clearly. https://t.co/7mNjGL3gOx
@DavidBe31099196 Narcissism is characterised by an imaginary society, seeing themselves sat among the true elite. Cluster enough narcissists together and their fantasy worlds blend together into a perception-is-reality thing where it's difficult to tell where you are, let alone what's real.
@DavidBe31099196 Similar dynamic in corporate / business sector in England. Failing upwards, progression based on arse kissing / 'fitting in'. The people with actual money and / or talent are leaving.
@Felix_Nuno Essentially, they want the deal for Northern Ireland extended to the whole of the UK. The deal Theresa May negotiated came close-ish, however, the die was cast when House of Commons rejected that deal by largest anti-government vote on the floor ever. No going back.