What is "Britishness"?

What is "Britishness"? Is there some common national identity that all of us, or most of us, in these islands share? And are there common characteristics which we tend to assume other Britons are likely to have? The question poses itself in the week in which Tony Blair and William Hague, in their own ways, tried to make political capital by appealing to British voters' instincts of national identity.

There is certainly a British stereotype, though of course the way in which we might like to think of ourselves is by no means necessarily the way others think of us. Last year, MORI interviewed members of the "successor generation", those expected to be the decision makers and opinion formers of future years, in 13 countries round the globe on behalf of the British Council. [How The World Sees Britain] The images that to them "best sum up" the countries of the United Kingdom are mostly trivial or superficial ones, and overwhelmingly visual: kilts, mountains and whisky for Scotland, castles and rugby for Wales, the Royal Family, Big Ben and the Tower of London for England. But they also have strong views on the nature of British society and the British people: they agreed by a big majority that Britain is "truly multicultural" and disagreed that it is a classless society; by more narrow pluralities they also thought that Britain is not very welcoming to foreigners, and that the British are not racially tolerant.

But how do we characterise ourselves? The first thing to emerge is that "Britishness" is very much another name for "Englishness" - these days, at least (was it ever really different?) it is only the English who tend to think of themselves as British in any numbers; most Scots think of themselves primarily as Scottish, most of the Welsh as Welsh. The English, on the other hand, are more likely to describe themselves as British than as English. (The whole question is rather different in Northern Ireland, but as MORI and the other Great Britain based polling companies do not normally poll there, and as Messrs Blair and Hague do not campaign for votes there, we shall leave it well alone.)

These identifications were explored in a MORI poll for the Economist in September last year. [British Identity] Scots were most likely to identify primarily with Scotland (72%) and their region (62%), less with their local community (39%), and only rarely with Britain (18%). Even more overwhelmingly, the Welsh identify first with Wales (80%), then region (50%) and community (32%); 27% of the Welsh identify with Britain. But among the English, there is an almost even split between the importance of region (49%), Britain (43%), local community (42%) and England (41%).

Perhaps even more revealingly, the same poll asked which flags respondents identified with. In England, 88% identify with the Union Jack and only 38% with St George's Cross; but in Wales the dragon outscores the Union Jack by 85% to 55%, and while 75% of Scots identify with the Saltire only 49% do with the Union Jack. This "Britishness", if not exactly an English invention, is now primarily an English survival.

There is certainly little feeling that we are European, except in a purely geographical sense. The European Commission's Eurobarometer survey in Autumn 1998 [Eurobarometer 50] asked samples across the EU whether "In the near future, you see yourself as (nationality) only, (nationality) and European, European and (nationality) or European only". Across the EU, 43% admitted only their own nationality, and 43% to their nationality first but also to seeing themselves as European. Only 11% felt European first (7%) or solely (4%); 2% didn't know. In 7 of the 15 member states, more felt at least partly European than not European at all. But in Britain, by contrast, 62% said they felt British only, 27% British and European and just 9% European and British or only European.

But we are able to make a wider and more profound analysis of what Britons think with the help of the 1999 MORI/Socioconsult monitor, the British section of a wide-ranging multi-national survey which attempts to diagnose and link trends in public opinion, and point up their relevance for companies operating in the British market. A special analysis for British Public Opinion newsletter of mostly unpublished data from the survey reveals an underlying tension which will make any fusion between "Britishness" and "New Labour" a difficult task.

MORI/Socioconsult has detected an increasing polarisation in the last couple of years between the broad bands of British opinion which on one hand hold to a distinct national identity and on the other embrace internationalism, the European Union and multiculturalism. One of the purposes of the Socioconsult monitor is to be able to identify and track "currents" in opinion - underlying trends that tie together answers to similar or related questions, and which can give a coherent pattern to the numerous attitudinal and behavioural strands of Britain's national character. The current identified as "National Superiority", basically the conviction that Britain is different through its unique culture and heritage and in many ways better than other nationalities, is one that has shown a distinct increase between the 1997 and 1999 surveys. These attitudes seem to have particularly high resonance among the population groups that MORI/Socioconsult classifies as "Traditional Working Classes" and "Traditional Poor", as well as "Corporatists" - in general, those whose values would identify them as being Labour's natural "heartland" core vote. Of course, for much of the past century it has been the ability of the Conservative Party to divert many of this group away from Labour support with the more seductive appeal of patriotism and nationalism that has made them the "natural party of government" even in a country where the middle-class has until recently been much in a minority. If Tony Blair can successfully wrap the Labour Party in the Union Flag without at the same time compromising its welfareism or its Europeanism, he will substantially strengthen his electoral position.

But can he? Consider two of the characteristic questions defining the National Superiority current: 49% of the public agree that "It is important that the British remain very different from all other nationalities", and 71% that "What I love about Britain is our heritage". These are two attitudes that correlate strongly, and five in six who agreed with the first statement also agreed with the second. At the same time, 47% of adults agree that "I support Britain's involvement in the European Union. It's the way ahead in the nineties", a sentiment with which the government has made it plain enough that it agrees; but, unfortunately for Mr Blair's ambition to appear patriotic, most of the public seem to feel pro-EU sentiment is diametrically opposed to a distinctive national identity - only 18% of British adults agree both that "It is important that the British remain very different from all other nationalities" and that "I support Britain's involvement in the European Union. It's the way ahead in the nineties".

This group of pro-EU patriots are not demographically distinctive - they are fairly evenly distributed through all groups and classes of the population, and indeed in their political support are spread between the various parties in the same proportions as everybody else.

But quite apart from these considerations, those voters who set store by their "Britishness" are not Tony Blair's natural constituency. Three in five of those who strongly agree Britain should remain different also say "I would like Britain to be the way it used to be" - probably no room for New Labour here.

One charge that is almost invariably made whenever the Tories appeal to the notion of national pride is that they are 'playing the race card'. Whether or not that is their aim, the Socioconsult analysis suggests how strong the relationship between the two issues is. 75% of those who agree that "It is important that the British remain very different from all other nationalities" also think that "There are too many immigrants in Britain" (although, it should be noted, so do 57% of the whole adult population).

All of this seems to be quite a long way from some of the assumptions that are apparently behind both Tony Blair's and William Hague's tactics in the last week.