Canadians can let their hair down, and go nuts during Canada Day. Their nations birthday. People dress up largely in red, with a bit of white thrown in. something Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge took to heart and selected a lovely white dress with a red maple leaf inspired hat during her outings during the Canada Day celebrations she and her husband where involved in during their visit to Canada.
America shuts down and dresses up in red white and blue for Americas birthday on the 4th of July. Independence Day. Parades, fireworks, and flag waving galore.
The French also have their Bastille Day, a day to be proud to be French (not that they need an excuse!)
But what about Britain? There is no national day for Britain. It is a very difficult thing to define. For me, as an Englishman, Britishness is hard to define. England is the largest constituent nation in the UK, and has often seen Englishness confused with Britishness. Rightly, this has seen a lot of resentment in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
This has seen a rise in the Celtic nations in their search for their own identities. Now, the Welsh get their Leeks and dress up on St Davids Day.
The Irish have St Patricks Day. Though a lot of it has been driven by the fact that the Americans very nearly stole it from the Irish!
And the Scots deep fry the proverbials out of everything on St Andrews Day! OK, a bit of a stereotype! But again, there is active encouragement to push Scottishness.
In England, St Georges Day is popular...
But is NOT actively encouraged. Many councils refuse to fund parades for fear of "extremism." Indeed, the TUC according to someone I heard on the BBC, really dont want any mention of "England" at their main conference.
Gordon Brown, as PM, wanted to have a British Day. And I agree. But can we HAVE a British day?
I think we can, but the problem is, we need to work out what it means to be British. To be British is confused and amorphous. It is my belief that the only way to sort it all out is to sort out the current imbalances that are existent already in the UK.
You have macro imbalances which the Celtic home nations bang on about, with England being the dominant nation. And you have micro imbalances, which piss off the English, with the Barnet Formula granting Scots far more in council funding, and Welsh and Scots being able to impact on English only matters.
How can we sort all this. For one, we need the government to actually allow people in England ENJOY St Georges Day without being made to feel like it is some dirty thing (Jack Straw suggested that there is something inherently dark about "Englishness."). Allowing England to be English in a proud AND positive way would allow people to reclaim it from the nutters. This would make it positive, and begin to ease a little of the resentment.
On a macro level, we need to sort out the imbalances. By REALLY sorting out devolution it allows each home nation the chance to sort out their own topics and work together on UK-wide issues. I have talked about this sort of thing
here. Also, the high speed line would allow areas outside London to be able to push for companies to relocate outside London whilst having easy access to the rest of the nation.
On a micro level, we need devolution across ALL home nations. This would then stop the farcical situation of the vote for tuition fees. This was an issue under Tony Blairs Labour government where it was essentially an English only issue. Labours English MP's mostly voted for it after being whipped (not literally! It means that Labours "heavies" instructed their MP's which way to vote "or else.")
However, the opposition voted against it, many English Labour MP's rebelled and voted against, and in the end, the motion was carried after Labour got its Scottish MP's to vote in favour. This proved hugely controversial because this law was in no way going to impact on their constituents. With education being a devolved topic.
It is my belief that we need to scrap the current system. Get rid of the vast numbers of MP's and replace it with a 2 tier system. At 1 level we need each nation to have its own parliament. This would allow each nation to control its own specific areas and prevent dominance by one or another of the home nations.
On top of that, a smaller British parliament This would debate purely British issues. It would also allow you to get rid of the over representation that exists in the current system. As it stands, for the English, 1 English vote counts for far less given that each of the other home nations are over - represented with MP's for their population size. Also, the imbalance exists because a Scot has the right to vote on MSP's who debate on purely Scottish topics, as well as voting for an MP, who can impact (only in a small way, but the fact is they CAN) on English only topics. This means that the English are under represented. I know that if the English MP's band together, the other home nations dont get a look in, but democracy is about the right of the individual to choose, and I have less choice, and less of a voice!
Also, my idea would be for the British parliament would be for the constituencies to ignore national boundaries. This would allow the boundaries to be drawn to be perfectly equal. There is no need for the constituents to worry about whether their MBP (Member of British Parliament) was born in Scotland or England, as they would only be able to work on British matters. The constituents "English" or "Scottish" or "Welsh" concerns would be dealt with by their "English" or "Scottish" MSP/MEP.
If there was a proper balancing of the parliamentary system and of powers across the UK, with all nations being equal, then it would allow each nations people to settle on their own national identity. It would also help England sort out its own identity. If England was allowed to forge its own identity in the UK, then that would then give the home nations the chance to work together and forge a new idea of what it means to be British.
It works in sports, we have England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland in the rugby, who band together to form the British Lions who tour every 4 years.
Also, in the Commonwealth games we compete as the home nations, which works OK for us.
But at the Olympics, we combine as Team GB. To great success, indeed, in the cycling Britain is one of the top nations, and at the Beijing Olympics, Britain basically kicked everyone else. The team is made up of mostly English riders (there ARE more of us!) but it also includes exceptional talents from Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Indeed, the number one rider is Sir Chris Hoy, from Scotland, and during the team pursuit, the team was made up of 2 English, 1 Welsh, and 1 Belgian (OK, Bradley Wiggins was born there, but raised in London!).
the problem we have in the UK is that we just dont have a national day to be proud to be British. also, we are a little uncomfortable with it as there is no real description of what it is to be British. This has allowed the extremists a chance to create their own definition of what it is to be British, and the rest of us are not comfortable with it.
Without a national day, it leaves us with the Olympics, and the occasional big day such as the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. But these days are sporadic, and not fixtures on the calendar.
If there was true equality between the home nations it would ease a lot of the tensions that exist. If we could be comfortable with what it is to be uniquely Scottish, English, Welsh and Northern Irish (though that could be tricky!), then we would be able to seek out those things that combine us together to make us British.
THEN we could be uniquely proud to be British.
