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THE FOUNDERS OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
1900
Our Common Identity
Review by David Hughes-Jones, Adelaide, Sept 2006
The Leader in the Weekly Telegraph, Issue 443, January 2000, commented on the disturbance being caused among politicians in Britain resulting from the devolution of Wales and Scotland and the consequential rising of English sentiment seeking their own representation in their own parliament.
Before 1688 and certainly ever since there has been such a mixing of the component races which occupy the British Isles that it would be difficult to find anyone in Britain who could claim a completely pure blood line.
There are probably more Irish and Irish derived people living on the mainland of Britain than in Ireland itself and the same would apply to Scottish and Welsh derived people living in England and Wales.
The problem with the "English Nationalism" the Leader commented
" is that it has no history. and by the time people were thinking in terms of nationality in the 18th Century, England was part of a single unified polity covering all areas of the British Isles." It was in fact the "United Kingdom"
Englishman spoke of "England" and "Britain" interchangeably.This is a very irritating solecism to Scots,Taffs and Ulster Irish today but this use of "England" was common among all people in Britain until political correctness and devolution appeared after World War 2.Many people in other countries still continue to use "England" when they really mean "Britain".
"Until devolution of Wales and Scotland no one gave much of a thought to what Englishness meant. English voters rarely thought of themselves as such. Only now, as it dawns on them that Scotland will have internal autonomy while continuing to legislate on English matters, have they begun to reach back towards their older identity."
The Leader continued,
"Most of humanity came to know "England" as a result of the British (never English) Empire. In general, it approved of and often emulated British Law and Institutions.British commerce and British engineering transformed the world in the Industrial Revolution"
While there is,
"as yet, no political movement in England seeking independence from the United Kingdom; and separatist parties in Scotland and Wales have, respectively, six out of 72 and four out of 40 parliamentary seats. There is a simple enough way to head off the "English backlash" -- restore the balance at Westminster by removing the right of Scottish MPs to vote on English domestic matters. Such a move would cause no resentment in Scotland, whose fair-minded people regularly tell the pollsters that it is the price for devolution."
The conclusion arrived at by the author was,
"that politicians in all parties should be prepared to support and praise the common Britishness which previous generations took for granted. In sharing that identity -- with its tolerance, fair-mindedness and indignation at injustice -- all of our constituent nations are elevated."
