Institute of Governance > Online Articles & Papers, by Author > Online Articles & Papers, by Date Published Online > Being British: A Crisis of Identity? by Frank Bechhofer and David McCrone

Being British: A Crisis of Identity?

by
Frank Bechhofer and David McCrone

We are grateful to The Political Quarterly and their publishers Blackwell Publishing for permission to post this pre-publication version of the paper which appeared in final version in The Political Quarterly volume 78, issue 2, 2007.  The published version can be found at http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/toc/poqu/78/2.

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Introduction

Political commentators and some academics have for many years been predicting, to quote the title of Tom Nairn's book (1977), The Break-up of Britain [1]. Probably because the Union has shown a stubborn refusal to break up constitutionally, despite serious conflict in Northern Ireland and occasional surges of support for Independence in Scotland, the emphasis has shifted somewhat in recent times from predictions of dramatic political change to a somewhat subtler argument that, regardless of the durability or otherwise of the British state, Britishness is in decline, and increasingly problematic. There is a wealth of books and articles; discussions and programmes on the presumed or impending 'death of Britishness' are the stuff of British politics and the media. [2] This view that there is a 'crisis' of Britishness has also been fuelled, indirectly, by recent government attempts to foreground Britishness, notably by Gordon Brown, who has addressed the topic several times in the past couple of years. His speech delivered at Chatham House on 13 December 2005 is a good example. Here are two brief extracts:

Ideas that are not unique to the British culture-indeed all cultures value liberty responsibility and fairness-but when taken together, charted through our history, are at the heart of a modern Britishness, central elements of a modern and profoundly practical patriotism: the surest way in which our nation can succeed economically and socially in the twenty-first century will be by building a society in which there is liberty for all, responsibility by all and fairness to all.

It is the view that a distinctively British set of ideas about ourselves and our role in the world has emerged from the long tidal flows of our national experience-the 2000 years of successive waves of invasion, immigration, assimilation and trading partnerships that have both created a uniquely rich and diverse culture and made us an island-stable, outward looking and open, so that the Channel was-in David Cannadine's words-'never a moat but a highway' for commerce and ideas.

The Chancellor's aim in these speeches seems to be to celebrate Britishness for fairly obvious political ends relating to his wish to emphasise the importance of the Union, and by downplaying his own Scottishness, to allay English fears about his suitability to be Prime Minister. It is almost certainly not his aim to raise fears about the demise of Britishness, but it can be interpreted in that way by those so inclined. It has also been argued that Brown's attempt to forge a 'British way' relies over-much on English history and examples rather than genuinely British ones. [3] Attempts to create formal 'nationality' tests further create the impression that something is amiss. There are many competing explanations for the assumed weakening, even demise, of Britishness: devolution across the UK, but especially in Scotland; multiculturalism; the European Union in its different manifestations; and longer-term political and cultural factors having to do with the decline of empire and loss of global power. Andrew Gamble [4] points to some of these factors, together with something of an identity crisis for the English in particular. He observes:

The identities which arose from Union and Empire which underpinned the expansion of England and the idea of Britishness for more than three centuries have been called into question by devolution, by decolonization, by immigration, and by European integration.

and continues:

With the end of its Empire the English are being forced to rediscover themselves and define themselves afresh in relation to 'Britain' and the other nations of Britain. Britain is no longer simply England, even for the English.

This presumed decline in Britishness can be seen as resulting from one or both of two processes. On the one hand, the English appear to be becoming more 'English' at the expense of being British. Secondly, the Scots are seen as becoming more Scottish and a consequent decline in Britishness is assumed. Are the Scots really becoming less British? Is devolution a prelude to departing the United Kingdom? Setting up a law-making parliament for Scotland in 1999 is seen by some as evidence of, if not divorce, at least a radical renegotiation of the relationship, ironically as the Union commemorates its 300-year birthday this year. Creating the Scottish Parliament is assumed by those of this persuasion to be both the cause and effect of making Scots feel more Scottish and less British.

If this argument is indeed correct and there is a decline in Britishness, then it is entirely credible that there are or will be highly significant consequences. Put starkly, if the Scots decide that they are no longer British, then the central axis on which UK Union is based cannot be sustained. An independent England, of course, could continue to call itself 'Britain' (much as Serbia kept the figment of 'Yugoslavia'), but that is a debate about names rather than substance. If the English become more conscious of themselves as English rather than British, which would require that the tendency to regard the terms as synonymous should decline, such a change might become acceptable to most people, albeit at present it is the last thing that the dominant political parties at Westminster would want to see happen.

In this article, [5] we shall address this posited 'crisis' of Britishness in a number of ways:

• We shall present data examining how a sense of national identity and attitudes to Englishness, Scottishness and Britishness differ in the two societies.

• We shall ask whether people who say they are not British are actively disengaging from Britishness, and even expressing hostility to 'state' identity, and to British history and culture.

• Finally, we shall investigate whether there is a direct relationship between national identity and political-constitutional attitudes; whether (cultural) nationalists are also (political) Nationalists.

Given the somewhat charged nature of some of these issues, readers should be aware of our personal position. We are deeply, indeed passionately, interested in and concerned about Scottish culture and identity. We are, however, somewhat agnostic about the nature of Britishness, and of an open mind about the future of the Union. That said, the data we shall present here and the findings of our research over the past decade are such that we would be surprised if The Break-up of Britain were to occur in the near future.

The data

We shall examine these issues using mainly data from the Scottish and British Social Attitudes Surveys. Various surveys, but especially the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey and the British Social Attitudes Survey, have carried questions about national identity; our data here come mainly from 2003 and 2005. The surveys, which are carried out by the National Centre for Social Research and its associated body the Scottish Centre for Social Research, involve a face-to-face interview with each respondent and a self-completion questionnaire. The half-module of questions carried by Scottish Social Attitudes survey 2005 was funded by ESRC; the questions on national identity in SSA 2003 and BSA 2003 were funded jointly by ESRC and The Leverhulme Trust. The SSA 2005 carried an extensive module on national identity that we designed especially for the purpose; funded by the Leverhulme Trust, it is by far the most extensive and systematic survey material addressing these questions to have been collected in Britain, albeit referring only to Scotland. Although, strictly speaking, British is a state identity in the absence of the term 'Ukanian', in the interests of simplicity of phrasing, throughout this article we shall treat British, English and Scottish as national identities. The questions were based on the knowledge we have gained from intensive interviews carried out in our various studies over the past decade and more, and especially the research programme on National Identity and Constitutional Change, funded by The Leverhulme Trust between 2000 and 2005. We shall flesh out the findings with a few illustrative quotes from this study.

We believe that the qualitative approaches that we have employed over a long period are the best for teasing out the subtleties of the processes involved in forming and claiming a national identity, and assessing and responding to the claims of others. We have also previously discussed the different meanings that people can attach to an idea such as Britishness and that this has implications for survey work in the area. Nevertheless, if we wish to address the question of a 'crisis' of identity in Scotland, the crucial question must be one of the extent to which certain views are held, and to answer it we need a population sample survey. Despite any reservations that we may hold about the precise meaning that respondents attach to their responses to questions about national identity, we believe the data we shall present are sufficiently clear cut to support our conclusions. Our confidence in the data is greatly increased by the fact that the responses to our survey questions are very much in line with the sense we have obtained from our interview studies of the more and less frequently held attitudes to national identity.

British and Scottish identity among those living in Scotland

The data come from samples drawn in Scotland and in Britain. We have decided to present the material in terms of the views of those living in Scotland, who we frequently contrast with those living in England, as opposed to those born in these countries. We have done this because the thrust of this article is to assess whether there really is a 'crisis' of Britishness. Such a 'crisis' might come to pass if the opinions of the populations of Scotland and England-that is, those living in the two countries-came to diverge sufficiently to lead to political action; for instance, in a vigorous reaction to the devolution settlement in England, or a victory for the SNP in Scotland leading to a referendum on independence for Scotland. The outcome would depend on how those eligible to vote and take political action reacted in Scotland and England, rather than how 'Scots' behaved in Scotland or 'English people' in England. It is, of course, the case that around one in six of the Scottish sample will have been born outwith Scotland, and by far the largest group amongst them will have been born in England. Some of them will have Scottish parents, may have been brought up in Scotland and regard themselves as Scottish. They may view being born in England as an 'accident of birth'. Similar considerations apply in England. Our previous work has shown that there are various markers that people use to claim a national identity or to assess the claims of others, and rules that guide how these markers are employed in various contexts. By far the most important marker is place of birth. Conceptually, then, rather than in terms of political action, a sharper comparison would contrast those born in Scotland and living there with those born in England and living there. We have checked what difference it would make to look at this comparison. The impact is not great and we shall only refer to this alternative analysis where it may have substantive significance.

The simplest way to ask about national identity is to offer respondents a multiple choice from a range of alternatives, and to sharpen this further by a forced choice question where they have to choose one national identity. The results are shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Multiple choice and forced choice national identity

*Which of these describes how you think of yourself?
†Which best describes how you see yourself?

What is immediately apparent is that although people in Scotland, when forced to choose, are more than five times as likely to claim Scottish identity as British, when they are allowed to choose more than one national identity, the two often overlap. The forced choice question has been asked for many years and Table 2 allows us to make a first crude assessment of whether there is a crisis of Britishness.

Table 2: Forced choice national identity, Scotland, 1974-2005

The gap has widened considerably since 1974, with those choosing Scottish rising slightly but those choosing British halving over these 30 years. Crucially, however, devolution does not seem to have had a major and instantaneous effect. There has been more of a glacial change over a long period of time, and this resonates with the often repeated argument that it was a sense of Scottish identity that produced the pressure for constitutional change; the constitutional convention and the Parliament were the consequences of pressure from below, the wishes of the Scottish people. These questions are, however, somewhat crude and the so-called Moreno question allows a more subtle assessment. The question asks respondents to opt for one of a hierarchical range of five options ranging from 'Scottish, not British' through to 'British, not Scottish'. In 2005, a third of respondents (32 per cent) opted for 'Scottish, not British'; exactly the same proportion (32 per cent) chose 'More Scottish than British'; just over a fifth (22 per cent) 'Equally Scottish and British'; 4 per cent 'More British than Scottish' and 5 per cent 'British, not Scottish'. Over two-thirds of respondents claimed to be British to some extent. A better sense of the trend over time is gained if we collapse the extreme categories and the results are shown in Table 3. To all intents and purposes, there has been remarkably little change in over a decade.

Table 3: Dual identities in Scotland, 1992-2005 (three categories)

Note: 'predominantly Scottish' means 'Scottish, not British' or 'more Scottish than British'; 'predominantly British' means 'British, not Scottish' or 'more British than Scottish'.

These data suggest that a sense of Britishness is not about to disappear, but if respondents regard national identity as of little importance, then the data are uninteresting. However, this is not the case. In 2005 respondents in Scotland were offered a list of twenty-three options describing their identity and asked to state which were of importance to them when they thought of themselves, giving their first, second and third choice. Table 4 shows the percentage mentioning, as one of their three choices, the seven most popular options.

Table 4: The percentage choosing various identity options as their first, second or third choice from a list of twenty-three options

Over half the sample (52 per cent) chose 'Being Scottish' as one of their three choices; the other very popular choice was 'Being a parent', chosen by 45 per cent. In line with the data we have presented so far, less than one-sixth of the sample (15 per cent) chose 'Being British', but looking at it another way, it is seventh out of 23 options. People in Scotland are far more likely to say that they are Scottish than that they are British, but two-thirds (67 per cent) mention a national identity as one of their three choices, indicating that they regard national identity as of some importance. In 2003, the question was asked not only in Scotland but in England, with 'Being English' replacing 'Being Scottish'. Remarkably, the results in the two countries are virtually identical, with two striking exceptions. The 'nation' option of being Scottish or English was chosen by 49 per cent in Scotland but only 21 per cent in England, whereas Being British was chosen by 13 per cent in Scotland and 27 per cent in England. Again, 62 per cent chose one of these two options in Scotland and only 48 per cent in England, but one cannot conclude from these data either that national or state identity is unimportant in either society or that Britishness is about to disappear. Undoubtedly, people in Scotland feel that they have more in common with their fellow Scots than other British people; in answer to a question, 57 per cent say they have a lot or a little in common with them; the corresponding figure for British people is 35 per cent. Again, although considerably fewer identify with their fellow 'Brits', it is over a third of the sample.

Pride in being British and attitudes to Britain and its past

Knowing that people say they are English, Scottish or British, or that they choose one of these identities as important, does not tell us how strongly they feel about these identities and whether they carry an emotive charge. Indeed, while unlikely, it could even be the case that people say that being British is important to them because they have powerful negative feelings. Let us first look at what people say if asked 'how proud' they are of their identity, in terms of responses to a question asking 'How proud are you of being British?', the options being very proud, somewhat proud, not very proud, not at all proud and not British. Nearly twice as many people in England say they are 'very proud' (41 per cent, compared to 23 per cent in Scotland). Nearly eight out of ten express some pride in being British (79 per cent) as opposed to two-thirds of those in Scotland (64 per cent). Nevertheless, these data are certainly not compatible with a strong rejection of being British.

Unsurprisingly, if we ask about pride in being Scottish or English on the other hand, we find very large differences. Seven out of ten (70 per cent) in Scotland are 'very proud', as opposed to just over four in ten (43 per cent) in England, and if we combine 'very proud' and 'somewhat proud', the figures are 88 per cent and 76 per cent. Very few in either group are 'not at all proud', though around one in ten reject the identity altogether. The question immediately raised is whether being proud of being Scottish or English rules out pride in being British. Yet again, the data show the same picture: people in England are somewhat more likely to take some pride in both England and Britain than are people in Scotland to take some pride in both Scotland and Britain (84 per cent against 77 per cent), but it is a clear majority in both countries. Three times as many people in Scotland reject the 'state' identity altogether (20 per cent against 6 per cent), but that is still only one in five of those in Scotland who answered the question. These data partially refute the argument that people think being British is important to them because they have powerful negative feelings about Britain, but we can provide a much more stringent test that goes to the heart of this issue. In the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey 2005, we asked questions probing three aspects of whether the term 'British' conjures up positive or negative images for people living in Scotland. Respondents were asked whether, on a five-point scale, they agreed or disagreed with the following statements:

• to be 'British' is to be proud of Britain's past and the strong part it has played in shaping the world (British Past);

• to be 'British' is something to be ashamed of because of the poor treatment of the people who lived in the former colonies of the British Empire (British Empire);

• 'British' is a label that unites all peoples living in Britain today regardless of colour, creed and nationality (British Unity)

Table 5 shows the results.

Table 5: Agreement and disagreement with three statements about Britain

These results provide little support for the view that people in Scotland tend not to think of themselves as strongly British because they feel negatively about Britain's past, are ashamed of Empire, or do not regard 'British' as a label identifying a tolerant multicultural place. Well over half (56 per cent) say that they are proud of Britain's past, are not ashamed of Empire (57 per cent) and take a positive view of British as a unifying symbol (59 per cent). If we examine the same data for those who, on the face of it, are least likely to take this view-that is, those who respond to the Moreno question by saying that they are Scottish not British-the figures change to 49 per cent, 48 per cent and 52 per cent, which is hardly a dramatic fall. In other words, even among people who deny that they are British and whom we might expect to be hostile, there is no deep underlying animosity to 'Britain' as such, and many are willing to see it in positive terms. This ambivalence is nicely expressed by comments from individuals interviewed in our nationals and migrants study:

Sometimes, again when you go back into history and there are things that we were once proud of, proud of the fact that there was once a British Empire and that Britain had done so much, but then when you realise the cost and how much the people from the colonised lands had to suffer, I'm not so proud. In the time of the British Empire, they achieved a lot, they found a lot, they discovered a lot, but on the other hand there was a lot of things that they shouldn't be proud of ...

However, this person goes on to say:

... I'm not at all ashamed of being British, not at all. I suppose every country had a go at getting what it could for itself, at one time and making other people suffer. I'm not really ashamed but I'm very conscious of the fact that everything that Britain did is not something that we should be proud of.

Another person echoed these views:

Some of the things that happened we can't be proud of but I don't think any other country would have a clean sheet in this respect. ... Overall, I think the fact that the Commonwealth has replaced the Empire shows that there were some reasonable ties between the countries that were dominated, as it were. They never wanted to separate off entirely.

Attitudes do vary with party support, as one might expect. Three-quarters (74 per cent) of those supporting the Tory party agree with the first statement (British Past) and the same proportion disagree with the second (British Empire). Labour (61 and 57 per cent) and Liberal Democrat (57 and 62 per cent) supporters are rather less enthusiastic and, as one might expect, SNP supporters (44 and 52 per cent) are even less so. But it is remarkable that 52 per cent of SNP supporters are not ashamed of Empire, and while less enthusiastic about the British past, those taking a positive view outnumber those taking a negative view by a factor of 1.5 to 1. There is less variation in response to the statement seeing 'British' as a label that unites people living in Britain today, with Labour supporters most inclined to agree (68 per cent), followed by the Liberal Democrats (62 per cent), the Tories (57 per cent) and the SNP (51 per cent).

The effect of age is in one respect entirely predictable. Almost twice as many in an older group (65+) value the British past more than those in a much younger group (18-24 years old), with 75 per cent agreeing with the first statement as opposed to 39 per cent. However, there is no difference between the groups with regard to the second statement (54 per cent and 55 per cent), while somewhat more of the young (69 per cent as opposed to 58 per cent) see 'British' as a unifying label. These results may reflect more general attitudes, with the old more than the young valuing the past, and the young more inclined to be liberal and thus to see 'British' as a unifying label.

Taking these data together, while the detail and variation is of interest, the dominant impression is that a majority of people in Scotland and in England take some pride in being British and that in Scotland, although people are more strongly 'Scottish', they do not take a negative view of Britain's past, its Empire or in 'British' being seen as a multicultural unifying label.

There is rather more differentiation at a symbolic level when respondents were asked in 2003 how they felt when they saw the Union Jack or, in Scotland, the Saltire and, in England, the Cross of St George-very proud, proud, a bit hostile, very hostile or not much either way. Only 36 per cent of people in Scotland feel proud when they see the Union Jack as opposed to 61 per cent in England; the corresponding figures for the Saltire and the Cross of St George are 76 per cent and 47 per cent. In so far as flags are indicative of imagined communities, these figures clearly indicate where sympathies lie in the two countries, but for our argument here what is more striking is that there is an almost total lack of hostility to both flags in each country.

Politics and national identity

At this point in the discussion, it is helpful to remember that national identity in Scotland is only loosely associated with party preference and with constitutional preference. This further weakens the already severely damaged argument that we are seeing a decline in 'Britishness'.

Table 6 shows the data for party preference.

Table 6: Party identification by national identity

Three-quarters (76 per cent) of the Tories-traditionally the most unionist of parties-say that they are at least as Scottish as they are British. Only one in five of their supporters prioritise being British to any extent. On the other hand, even among the SNP only half their supporters reject any sense of British identity. A similar picture is found in the data on constitutional preference, given in Table 7.

Table 7:National identity by constitutional preference, Scotland, 2005

Only among those who regard themselves as 'Scottish, not British' does support for independence just exceed 50 per cent; only among those prioritising their Britishness is there any real support for not having a Scottish Parliament, and even here it is only 32 per cent; rather more (38 per cent) favour the status quo, and a further 8 per cent want a Parliament without tax powers which, in the history of the Parliament to date, is not an issue. Nearly one in five of these 'Brits' (19 per cent) actually favours independence.

Conclusion

At the time of writing (January 2007), with the Scottish Parliamentary elections only four months away, the kinds of issues we are discussing in this article are extremely hot political topics. Polls are showing the SNP marginally ahead of Labour, although history suggests that any gap will narrow as an election gets nearer, and also the way in which the list system operates could mean that any constituency seats won are largely offset by list seats lost. They are committed to a referendum on independence if they gain control, and the polls also appear to show that a bare majority in both Scotland and, remarkably, England favours such an outcome. [6] Our intensive interview material leads us to doubt whether 'independence' means the same thing to all those interviewed, and especially to those in England, where there is certainly some confusion between devolution and independence. The SNP road to independence is made rockier by the fact that they would have to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats who, thus far at least, would not be willing to sign up to the independence referendum. In contrast, Labour is extolling the advantages of Union, and the idea of a common 'Britishness' is an important plank in the party's argument. The Chancellor went so far as to publish an article in The Telegraph of 13 January entitled 'We need a United Kingdom'.

What gives the issue a peculiar piquancy is that the data we have presented here show clearly that a sense of Britishness is still widespread in England and Scotland; and, indeed, while there are differences, that the two countries do not differ sharply in this regard. Can this sense of Britishness then be mobilised by the political parties, and to what ends? We have already quoted Gordon Brown on this topic. David Cameron, speaking recently in Glasgow, [7] referred to the Chancellor's comments but rejected the strategy, saying:

So how should those of us who support the Union respond to the current discontents? We could bury our heads in the sand and make more speeches proclaiming the virtues of Britishness. We could launch ferocious attacks on the SNP. But I'd rather ask an honest question: Why, in the post-devolution era, are so many Scots still dissatisfied with the relationship between Scotland and England and what, if anything, can be done to make things better?

Paradoxical as it seems, the Conservatives, the traditional party of Union, may be wise not to appeal to a sense of Britishness in Scotland because, while our data show clearly that people in Scotland are not rejecting Britishness, there is a problem confronting those who wish to mobilise this. First of all, our previous work shows that politicians cannot assume that, if they wish to appeal to Britishness, it means the same thing in England as in Scotland, or indeed to different groups in either country. Further, Englishness, Scottishness and Britishness nowadays may be more cultural than political. The relatively weak association between identity and party political support or even views on independence suggests that it is difficult to mobilise national identity in a straightforwardly political way.

While national identity-Scottish, English or British-is currently not 'political', much depends, of course, on political events: the outcome of the Scottish elections in May 2006, whether or not Gordon Brown, as a Scot, becomes Prime Minister, and in the medium term the outcome of the next British general election, especially if a Labour government is even more dependent on Scottish MPs to get its legislation on purely English matters passed in the House of Commons. The material that we have presented thus suggests strongly that these matters are by no means as clear cut as the political rhetoric would have people believe, and that any and all of these arguments could backfire. By the time this article appears, readers will at least be able to review the outcome of the Scottish election with the benefit of perfect hindsight.

Notes

[return to reference in text, 1] Tom Nairn The Break-up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-nationalism, London, New Left Books, 1977

[2] See, for example, Peter Preston, 'National emergency: the growing support for Scottish independence could trigger a crisis for Gordon Brown ', The Guardian, 27 Nov ember 2006 ; Simon Jenkins, 'If Scotland wants partition, the British cannot deny it ', The Guardian, 29 Nov ember 2006.

[3] Simon Lee, 'Gordon Brown and the 'British Way ', in The Political Quarterly, vol. 77 , no. 3, July -September 2006, pp. 369 -78.

[4] Andrew Gamble, Between Britain and America, London, Palgrave, 2003, p. 9.

[5] Frank Bechhofer produced the first draft of this article, but it is the product of a collegiate form of working in which the data, the analysis and the drafts have been discussed by both authors throughout.

[6] 'British want UK break-up, poll shows ', Sunday Telegraph, 26 November 2006.

[7] David Cameron, 'I will never take Scotland for granted ', speech, Glasgow, 15 September 2006.

(Published Online: 5 October 2007)

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