Abstract
The political system of Britain in its current form took shape in the years following the Second World War when the elite were obliged to respond as best they could to the collapse of the state-empire system in which they had been embedded. The response was creative and involved a mix of denial and confection as any explicit recognition of profound structural change was elided in favour of an idea of ‘continuing Britain’, an old nation, recently victorious in a virtuous war, a bridge between Europe, the United States and the Commonwealth, a country which punched above its weight, a model for other states/nations. Upon this political-cultural base further additions were made as the post-war period unfolded and events provoked their own reactions. Unhappily, the elite’s initial response was a fantasy and their vision of the future of the political-cultural project of Britain was untenable moreover their vision entailed accommodation to the demands of the USA in respect of a global liberal trading sphere and prompted them to turn away from Europe where the first steps towards union were being made. In recent decades this has meant an enthusiastic affirmation of model of liberal-market democracy, however the recent financial crisis and consequent collapse of the neo-liberal package has underscored the scale of the errors made by the elite in those days. Neither European, nor American nor plausibly independent, the British polity turns this way and that, celebrating a stylized past and trumpeting its self-proclaimed status whilst casting around for a plausible tale to tell about its future. All this implies a rather urgent reconsideration of the character and direction of the polity. And as the present situation combines an established base plus various accretions, it is from within this repertoire of ideas that plans for the future must be fashioned. So looking to the future, downstream from crisis, the polity confronts a choice: poodle-hood, muddle-through or Europe.
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Notes
Spelled out with exemplary lucidity by Susan Strange 1988 States and Markets, London, Pinter.
One critic writes of the ‘Anglo-sphere’ — a consolation for an elite that lost its empire — see Andrew Gamble 2007 ‘Hegemony and Empire: British Exceptionalism and the Myth of Anglo-America’, paper presented to the Political Studies Association Conference, University of Bath, 11–13 April 2007; see also James Meek ‘Short Cuts’ in London Review of Books 35.6, 21 March 2013.
On contingency in general, see Richard Rorty 1989 Contingency, Irony and Solidarity, Cambridge University Press
on the contingency of European states, see Norman Davies 2011 Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe, London, Allen Lane.
There is a ‘deep history’, which read in stylized form, provided the core elements of an elite great tradition. So there are two stands in these discussions: synchronic, detailing the logic of the system — here the elite’s deep history of Britain finds expression in a ‘Great Tradition’ centred on the monarchy, parliament and claims to liberal democracy and it has informal extension, thus a little tradition; and diachronic, unpacking the history in a chronological fashion, noting the configurations of groups and their ways of grasping and ordering their situations; see P.W. Preston 1994 Europe, Democracy and the Dissolution of Britain, Aldershot, Avebury
P.W. Preston 2004 Relocating England: Englishness in the New Europe, Manchester, Manchester University Press.
Inelegant — but it points to the integrated nature of the British Empire — arguments to the effect that the empire was accumulated absentmindedly and discarded easily is right-wing propaganda — see J.M. MacKenzie 2001 ‘The Persistence of Empire in Metropolitan Culture’ in Stuart Ward ed. 2001 British Culture and the End of Empire, Manchester University Press
see also Wendy Webster 2005 Englishness and Empire 1939–1965, Oxford University Press.
Doesn’t mean they aren’t made, see R.J. Evans ‘The Wonderfulness of Us: The Tory Interpretation of History’ in London Review of Books 33.6, 17 March 2011.
These alternatives are readily sketched — poodle-hood, muddle or Europe — see P.W. Preston 2012 England After the Great Recession, London, Palgrave.
On arguments from language, see P.W. Preston 2009 Arguments and Actions in Social Theory, London, Palgrave.
A. MacIntyre 1985 2nd ed. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, London, Duckworth.
The idea of elites is taken from William Case 2002 Politics in Southeast Asia: Democracy or Less, London, Routledge Curzon — the source of the ideas lies in the interwar ‘New Machiavellians’ — Mosca, Michels and Pareto.
Long tradition of ameliorative welfare research in British social science — all the way back to Friedrich Engels and other reform-minded patrician businessmen — later William Beveridge — later still Richard Titmuss and Peter Townsend — recently R. Wilkinson and K. Picket 2009 The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone, London, Allen Lane.
An idea noted by Harold Macmillan in his famous one-liner, and pursued by Joseph Heller — see Thomas Powers ‘Comedy is Murder’ in London Review of Books 34.5, 5 March 2012.
For notes on the debate amongst historians, see Linda Colley 2010 ‘Little Englander Histories’ in London Review of Books 32.14, 22 July 2010,
Linda Colley 2001 ‘Multiple Kingdoms’ in London Review of Books 23.14, 19 July 2001.
See Norman Davies 2000 The Isles: A History, London, Papermac.
Tony Judt 2002 ‘The Past is another Country: Myth and Memory in Post-war Europe’ in J-W Muller ed Memory and Power in Post-war Europe, Cambridge University Press
Tony Judt 2008 ‘What have we learned, if anything?’ in New York Review of Books 55.7
Tony Judt 2008 Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century, London, Heinemann.
Norman Davies 1997 Europe: A History, London, Pimlico.
Tony Judt 2005 Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, London, Penguin, see Epilogue.
Patrick Wright 1985 On Living in an Old Country, London, Verso
Wright’s discussion is intellectually rooted in the writings of Agnes Heller, a follower of Georg Luckas, and Wright recalls that Heller attends to the realm of everyday life — the mundane sphere of ordinary living — it is within this sphere that people encounter both history (the ways in which their lives are slotted into unfolding time — personal, familial, community and polity) and culture (the ways in which their lives are informed by a repertoire of concepts carried in tradition). Heller insists that everyday life is situated — that is, it is always precisely located and imbued with the intellectual/moral resources of tradition — it presents itself in stories — it is with reference to these stories that people lodge themselves in communities and in turn tie these into wider schemes of history — such stories focused on the polity can be tagged ’the national past’ — Wright has looked at both urban and rural — see, for example, Patrick Wright 1993 A Journey through the Ruins: A Keyhole Portrait of British Postwar Life and Culture, London, Flamingo
Patrick Wright 1995 The Village that Died for England, London, Jonathan Cape.
Richard Gott 2011 Britain’s Empire: Resistance, Repression and Revolt, London, Verso.
Thus, internationally, Ernest Bevin’s ‘Churchill option’ locating Britain between the three spheres of Commonwealth, the USA and Europe (on this generally, John Saville 1984 ‘Ernest Bevin and the Cold War 1945–50’ in Socialist Register); domestically, the welfare state, the new Elizabethan age of science-based progress, new towns, public housing, motorways and so on — the moves which tied the polity into the US-centred ‘West’.
One coherent statement is made by Roger Scruton — England as home, rooted in the land and the local folk-ways whereby life is ordered — R. Scruton 2001 England: An Elegy, London, Pimlico.
On this see John Lanchester 2010 Whoops: What Everyone Owes to Everyone and No One Can Pay, London, Penguin
P.W. Preston 2012 England After the Great Recession: Tracking the Cultural Consequences of the Crisis, London, Palgrave
John Lanchester 2009 ‘Bankocracy’ in London Review of Books 31.21, 5 November 2009
John Lanchester 2010 ‘The Great British Economy Disaster’ in London Review of Books 32.5, 11 March 2001.
Tom Nairn 1977 The Break-Up of Britain, London, New Left Books, reprinted with a new Preface in 2002 — Nairn distances himself from the economistic elements of the work, insists that the arguments for nation and democracy remain good, so too the diagnosis of the moribund nature of the British polity.
There is a European aspect to these debates — rebalancing power and authority within nation-states, hitherto considered to be institutionally unproblematic, is a Europe-wide issue — in conventional terms, the European Union moves power both upwards and downwards — but there is also a local aspect — the Labour Party in Scotland has combined a generic subaltern conservatism with a determined celebration of the union and thus British-ness — it has failed to grasp the logic of the rise of the Scottish National Party — which addresses itself to Scotland qua Scotland — on this see T. Nairn 2010 ‘Triumph of the Termites’ in London Review of Books 32.7, 8 April 2010.
Anatole Lieven 2004 America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism, London, Harper Collins.
See D. W. Urwin 1997 A Political History of Western Europe Since 1945, London, Longman, Chapter 9.
Lots on Britain/Europe: for a specimen sensible pro-Europe work see, say, Anand Menon 2008 Europe: The State of the Union, London, Atlantic
Robert Cooper 2012 ‘Britain and Europe’ in International Affairs 88.6
the rise of Euroscepticism is addressed by Simon Usherwood and Nick Startin 2013 ‘Euroscepticism as a Persistent Phenomenon’ in Journal of Common Market Studies 51.1 (who argue it should be addressed directly) and also Julie Smith ‘Introduction’ (Britain in Europe Special Edition) in International Affairs 88.6 (who notes that the British elite were latecomers and never really signed up for the core member’s project).
As a sample from the immediate commentary, which was mostly highly critical: Philip Stephen ‘Was this the Moment the UK Stumbled out of Europe’ in Financial Times 12 December 2011
Jonathan Powell ‘Cameron’s Catastrophic Decision on EU’ in Financial Times 11 December 2011
Quentin Peel ‘A Case of Different Mindsets’ in Financial Times 11 December 2011
Andrew Rawnsly ‘Now it’s Three-Speed Europe. And We’re Left on the Hard Shoulder’ in The Guardian/Observer 11 December 2011
Charlemagne ‘Europe’s Great Divide’ in The Economist 9 December 2011
Bagehot ‘Britain’s not Leaving, but Falling out of the EU’ in The Economist 9 December 2011
Charles Grant ‘Britain on the Edge of Europe’, Centre for European Reform 9 December 2011
Gideon Rachman ‘The Summit will Prove a Footnote’ in Financial Times 12 December 2011
Peter Mandleson ‘David Cameron is no Bulldog. Even Thatcher never Left the European Table’ in Guardian 11 December 2011
David Owen ‘High-Handed Approach that has Exposed the Coalition’s Faultline’ in Independent 12 December 2011
and Norman Tebbit ‘David Cameron has Taken the First Steps in Solving Euro Crisis’ in Guardian 11 December 2011.
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Preston, P.W. (2014). Continuing Britain: Contemporary Political Culture Unpacked. In: Britain After Empire. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137023834_11
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