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Tom Brown: True test of national identity is what you feel

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Published Date: 31 August 2008
There is much the English could do to foster our togetherness
HANG out the Union Jack, let's have a chorus of 'Rule Britannia' – not just to get up Alex Salmond's nose, although there is nothing wrong in that. The reason for the flag-waving is to celebrate the proof that I am a red, white and blue True Brit.
I have scrambled a pass in the test of Britishness. Admittedly, I only managed to score nine out of 14, but it is enough to let me claim British citizenship. And if any of my sorely-tried schoolteachers were still alive, they would tell you that is a lot better than I ever did in any other exam.

BBC's Panorama, following up on Prime Minister Gordon Brown's national identity crisis, went in pursuit of Britishness last week and to help us find it, they have put their own test on their website. While not as stringent as the Government's Life in the UK test, now compulsory for those wanting to take out citizenship, it does reveal how little we think about the things that make up our nationality – our society, institutions, history and culture.

There are test centres, run by the Border and Immigration Agency in Glasgow and Edinburgh, but the applicants are not asked specifically Scottish questions. This is a test of 'Britishness' for people who no doubt will regard themselves as Indian/Pakistani/Caribbean/African/Polish or whatever as well as Scottish and British.

In the same way, non-Nats like me are happy to regard ourselves as Scot-Brits and those of us who have won the lottery of life can proudly boast that we are Fifers first and foremost. Just as Olympic hero Chris Hoy says: "I'm a proud Scot and a very proud Briton as well."

In any case, what would a test of 'Scottishness' in the current context ask? Demonstrate how to girn about the English? Recite 'Scots Wha' Hae', sing 'Flower o' Scotland', précis the plot of Braveheart and list in detail historical grievances including sundry invasions over the centuries, the 'robbery' of our sovereignty in 1707 in which we connived, Cromwell's cruelty, the 'theft' of our oil and Gazza's goal? No doubt the clincher question would be: "Which team do you support when England qualify for football finals and Scotland doesn't?"

Some questions based on the Home Office guide to Life In the UK seem downright daft. Why should a new citizen know or care where Father Christmas comes from? I have always believed his grotto is in Lapland, but the official answer is the North Pole. I took a flying guess at the calendar sequence of the four UK national saints' days.

Why would I know St George's and St David's Day when I can't remember my wife's birthday or our wedding anniversary?

One set of questions gives must-know information on modern Britain: what to do when you spill someone's drink in the pub and get into a punch-up. Do you offer to buy another pint, dry them off with your own shirt or prepare for a fight in the car park? Being a belligerent sort, I made the wrong choice, instead of what the Home Office describes as the "prudent" option. After the fracas, one should know which number to phone for police and ambulance. Since when could you phone 112, as well as 999? And why has no one told me before?

And if the bobbies ask you to accompany them to the station, does one absolutely have to go? Those from police states or regard themselves as second-class because they are immigrants will make the wrong choice.

Of course, key to the questionnaire is the kind of Britain the applicants will live in and the answer seems to be tolerantly multicultural; let us hope so. Out of three alternatives, being British means you should "Respect laws, the elected political structures, traditional values of mutual tolerance and respect for rights and mutual concern."

In official eyes, the test reveals, that takes precedence over "sharing in the history and culture of an island nation with a character moulded by many different peoples over more than 2,000 years" or "being part of a modern European democracy, one with a tradition of sharing our ways with the world and allowing the world to bring its ways to us".

Does all this matter? It matters a lot to Gordon Brown and should matter to everyone who wants to keep the UK united. In the last two years, Brown – emphasising his right to be PM of Britain, while very obviously a Scot – has focused on our mutual nationality, while the SNP seizes every chance to crank up the Battle of Britishness.

Britishness should not be one-way and there is much the English could do to foster our togetherness. They could start by not being so bloody-minded about honest Scottish currency; I still rankle at the memory of my family being driven in a London bus to a police station when I offered the conductor Scots pounds.

Little Englanders in Parliament and the London media should zip up before perpetuating the libel that Scots are sponging neighbours. The English Broadcasting Corporation should play its part by not talking about "the UK taxpayer" footing the bill for progressive Scotland-only policies, and by being more accurate about British gold medallists and tennis players who are also Scottish or Welsh.

Britishness or Scottishness is not a matter of passport or ethnic classification, but what we feel. As the proud patriarch of a family which now has Scots, English, Chinese, French, Indian, Irish and Italian blood, I will rejoice every day of the year. I don't need a national day nor an exam result to celebrate what we have in common, not what divides us.





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1

ochone,

Sauchie, Clack's 31/08/2008 00:28:02
Tam Broon, who says there isin't life after the Daily Record, although nowadays it's looked upon as a step downwards if you move here, but then that's what happens if you employ folk like Tam, a man who never let truth get in the way of his bias!

He gives wittering old fools a bad name with 'class' articles like this.
2

Andrew BOD,

Aberdeen/shire 31/08/2008 01:14:42
Tom

Britishness is...

- A BBC Olympic sports commentator telling the viewers where the British athlete is from (A specific location in England, or just plain "Scotland" or "Wales")
- Englishness, if you come from anywhere else in the world
- A news reporter flown up from London to report on a major incident in Glasgow, because 'local' accents are just not acceptable to the wider British public
- 'God Save The Queen' or, hang on... is that not the English national anthem?
- Appearing to be the most democratic country in the world, when actually the current Government received only 24% of total electorate support
- Selling off huge chunks of vital UK infrastructure to foreign companies
- Being intolerant of a non-English Prime Minister (Even if he was competent he would still be "too Scottish")
- Conservative with a small 'c' ( and soon Conservative with a large 'C' )
- Northern Irish, unless of course you want to play for a different sovereign country in some sporting competitions
- Living in a nation of a country stuck together in odd ways, inconsistent at best, intensely unfair at worst

Yes Tom, we live in a very strange place indeed.
3

Peeablo,

UKSSR 31/08/2008 01:35:53
Tam, Sorry to see you've, once again, tried to make 'nationalism' and 'anti-English' to be one of the same. They are not and we readers can see through your tripe.
4

,

31/08/2008 02:10:20
Comment Removed By Administrator
Reason:
5

Team Scotland,

, FC UK No! 31/08/2008 02:42:10
The term British as currently used is contrived. It has only been used officially in any significant way since the 1930s with the emergence of the SNP. Official documentation and treaties prior to this time referred to ‘England’. I remember the late Julian Critchley MP saying his mother refused to use the term British as it was ‘a sop to the Scots’.

Scotland was bound to the UK by the Empire, the military and the crown. The empire is long gone. Scots used to make up a large part of a very large British Army, now Scots are a much smaller fraction of a much smaller army. The crown ruled for a hundred years over two separate nations. It now has no real power other than symbolic and returning to the position pre 1707 is no wrench.

Most Scots when asked define themselves as Scots as increasingly most English describe the themselves as English. Previously for most English people the terms English and British were interchangeable.

As each nation reasserts itself the term British will return to its older and more accurate definition. Covering those countries mainly descended from the Ancient British. This includes the Irish and puts us back in our original context as the Island component of the Atlantic Tradition that extends back to the Neolithic. British will then be analogous to Scandinavian.
6

Linda,

Edinburgh 31/08/2008 08:18:18
BBC national TV, Daily Mail et al should start referring to the UK Government or Government GB when talking about "the Government" as we now have a Scottish Government.
7

Castle Hunter,

Airdrie 31/08/2008 08:26:30
"Admittedly, I only managed to score nine out of 14, but it is enough to let me claim British citizenship. And if any of my sorely-tried schoolteachers were still alive, they would tell you that is a lot better than I ever did in any other exam."

It seems passing exams is not a requirement to become a 'top' Scotsman columnist.
8

Mr. Lachie Todd,

Edinburgh 31/08/2008 08:39:23
Despite having a very different view of the world from the vast majority of people of the Celtic Nations, it is an indisputable fact that the English are one of the most tolerant races on this earth.

However, just like the Irish, Scots, and Welsh, they have a minority of racists.

How else would they have put up with the massive inward migration of the Irish, Scots, and Welsh, along with people from the Carribean and Indian sub-Continent,
and just about every other country in the world!

At the last census it was found that there are over 400,000 English, or English-born people, residing quite happily in Scotland.

The reverse situation found that there are over 800,000 Scottish, or Scots-born people, residing in England.

Since the end of Empire, and the decline in the military, political and economic power of the UK, the English have found it difficult to adapt in a changing world.

After the nations of the former Yugoslavia broke up
and descended into barbarity, many extreme opponents of Devolution held up this tragic example?

Yet, the Scotland and Wales Acts, along with the historic power-sharing St. Andrews Agreement in Northern Ireland, have enshrined devolved government
in the UK constitution! To change the constitutional staus quo only happened because the English are a fair people.


9

donald,

glasgow 31/08/2008 09:32:06
Another nail in the Brit Nat's coffin.
10

Dr. James Wilkie,

Vienna 31/08/2008 10:02:30
*...the Scotland and Wales Acts, along with the historic power-sharing St. Andrews Agreement in Northern Ireland, have enshrined devolved government
in the UK constitution! To change the constitutional staus quo only happened because the English are a fair people."

The general population of England are a fair people, as I know from personal acquaintance, but the same cannot be said for their ruling class. They had to be dragged kicking and screaming into setting up the devolved legislatures and governments in Scotland and Wales, after putting up resistance to the last against these developments. The Scottish Labour mafia were the worst offenders, who used the most despicable methods in their failed attempt to prevent devolution.

The restoration of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly happened only because the international authorities threatened the UK with sanctions if its democratic system was not brought up to international standards. The evidence, which has been suppressed for years for party-political reasons, is only now starting to come to light with the opening of some of the records of the Council of Europe, which finally forced the issue against the resistance of the Blair government. A lot of research has still to be done, but the initial results can be read at:

http://www.realmofscotland.com/paper/View_Scotland-UN-Papers.aspx?id=10

11

Dave Millar,

Embra 31/08/2008 14:10:14
'the 'robbery' of our sovereignty in 1707 in which we connived'

Ah, so the ordinary people of Scotland 'connived' in the Act of Union. So there was some kind of referendum or plebiscite? I didn't know that. And those old stories about rioting in the streets of Edinburgh was some kind of 18th century political spin then?
12

PL,

31/08/2008 18:06:32
Who is Tom Brown? Presumably he did something once. When did he matter?
13

Steve,

31/08/2008 20:49:07
Tom Brown, a fat wee cringeing nobody from Kirkcaldy who has spent his life wearing ridiculous bow ties and sucking up to Gordon Brown and Labour. A fool.


You give Fife a bad name.

14

Ian Campbell,

W Horsley & Tiree 01/09/2008 13:18:24

I was with Tom Brown until I reached his Little Englander paragraph. It annoys the English, Little Englanders or not, when the BBC says ‘UK’ when it means ‘England’. Tom should know that the ‘English Broadcasting Corp’ was recently criticised in a report by Prof King not just for failing to report enough stories from Scotland and other parts of the UK but also for failing to distinguish between England and the UK, with stories for example about the ‘national health service’ where they were applicable only to England. In admitting its fault, the BBC pointed out that the British government does exactly the same thing. It is clearly a deliberate policy for both of them to say Britain when they mean England. Their policy is, to paraphrase John Cleese, “Don’t mention England!” That is because the English are being told they are British, not English, and neither the Govt nor the BBC wishes to remind them that they are English. The BBC was in fact embarrassingly accurate about gold medalists. The BBC and the London press always referred to Mr Hoy as a Scot and to Ms Cooke as Welsh – but all the English athletes were British. They were never described as English. Mr Hoy and Ms Cooke received a national welcome, covered by the BBC, when they arrived back in Edinburgh and Cardiff respectively. The English athletes were just sent back to their home towns - they can celebrate with the full British team in London in October. No flags of St George for them. At least you have choice about being Scottish. The English have not been asked if they would like their own Parliament and they are certainly not being offered a referendum on independence. Opinion polls put support for an English Parliament at 60% plus. That is why the English will not be asked. England has no political existence, no parliament, no government, no first minister, no voice in the British-Irish Council or in the EU. Ministers elected by constituencies in Scotland have headed up the English Health Service Home
15

Ian Campbell,

W Horsley 01/09/2008 13:21:05
Balance of comments:
...to continue: ...Office and Transport. The Labour MP Derek Wyatt was recently informed by Michael Wills for the British Government that while England may be divided up into regions those regions will not be permitted a coordinated national voice. You should not assume Tom, as you appear to, that English support for the Union can be taken for granted.
16

Hugo of Garven,

03/09/2008 19:02:54
" . . not just to get up Alex Salmond's nose, although there is nothing wrong in that."

I do like an unbiased journalist. And his name is Tom Brown.

Oddly enough, I mean what I said!

I know he is biased (not like me, I am an unbiased SNP supporter) but I DO like his writings.
17

Hugo of Garven,

03/09/2008 19:07:34
"Britishness should not be one-way and there is much the English could do to foster our togetherness. They could start by not being so bloody-minded about honest Scottish currency; I still rankle at the memory of my family being driven in a London bus to a police station when I offered the conductor Scots pounds."

Tom, it is a far more tolerant man than I am that you are.
18

TWC,

Ayrshire 07/09/2008 14:31:57
Tom Brown is living in the past, Scotland will have Full Fiscal Autonomy or it will be Independent. Nothing less than full fiscal autonomy will save the Union.
Mr Brown, Calman & the Treasury are scared to detail their propsals. They want to concede as little as possible.
They don't want to give Full Fiscal Autonomy but they want Independence even less.
A wee bit of revenue control won't do it Gordon
19

,

20/01/2009 09:27:45
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