The Right Needs to Answer the English Question
In Westminster on Monday, the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation hosted Now & England, a conference exploring England’s culture, history and future. The sold-out event attracted a crowd of mostly white, mostly English and mostly young, smartly-dressed professionals. At 42 I must have been one of the oldest attendees. This was a pleasant surprise. A decade ago a conference like this would have attracted few under-60s.
The opening speaker, Robert Jenrick, railed against “too much doom, too much fatalism”, described mass immigration as being “at the root of… so many of our national problems”. He also described himself as an Anglo-futurist, and seemed rather surprised by how popular that was with the audience.
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The answer is obvious. Of course some people from other races can adopt what are typically “English” mores (though of course the “English” do not behave as a block – we are all individuals) but many won’t. Evolutionary pressure produces races and races produce cultures.
I’d like to suggest that religion produces culture
Good point, it certainly has an influence, though countries with the same major religion are often quite different culturally.
Connor Tomlinson was at this conference and has some interesting thoughts, with a focus on the Michaela Community School. When I hear some people speak about this subject, including Connor, I get the impression that they want to live in England like it was thirty years or more ago. Wouldn’t many of us, given the choice? Or at least extract certain aspects of it to move to the present day. There is lots to moan about and lament if all we do is hark back to certain times in history that make us nostalgic and contrast that with the here and now, but we have to be realistic. Those times are never coming back, nor will you ever get schools or communities that remain humogenous or even as fervently patriotic as decades gone by. You cannot put the multicultural genie back in the bottle; ”Well-educated Western-philes have become enamoured with Birbalsingh. Michaela is pedestalized as proof of the greatness of Michael Gove’s education reforms, and a fix-all for the failure of immigrants and their children to integrate organically into British culture. The likes of Fraser Nelson, for whom Britishness is solely an identity conferred by the happenstance of birthplace or via legal document… Read more »
There is lots to moan about and lament if all we do is hark back to certain times in history that make us nostalgic and contrast that with the here and now, but we have to be realistic. Those times are never coming back, nor will you ever get schools or communities that remain humogenous or even as fervently patriotic as decades gone by. You cannot put the multicultural genie back in the bottle The brazen, self-serving disingenuity of such a statment is astonishing. Multiculturalism is an illusion caused by continuous mass immigration of people from alien cultures. The moment the Exciting New Babarians¹, a Dime a Dozen! tap is turned off, things will start to settle down and ultimately amalgate into shared culture over the course of a few generations. But that’s what the people making such ‘arguments’ don’t want to do under any circumstances because they want to avoid getting back onto the path to a society no longer composed of warring factions because this war of the factions – also called identiy politics – is what keeps them employed with managing it while letting everything else go to waste on the pretext that it’s just not important… Read more »
Yeah, calm down, Rain Man. You can disagree with somebody without being rude. I am a realist, not an idealist, as you and many others appear to be. If all immigration stopped tomorrow you would still have the same problems in the UK because the people are here, it’s too late. Their culture is here, their demands, lack of integration, drain on resources, parallel societies, influence on government, infiltration of various authorities, increased crime rate, their higher breeding rate compared to natives, and on and on the examples go. Do you honestly think any government, including Reform, are ever going to perform these much coveted ”mass deportations” that we keep hearing about? Farage even went on record as saying not for his party. So even the illegals get to stay. There is no longer even Christianity to fall back on due to ever-dwindling numbers, hence even churches are being replaced, I don’t see what good waxing lyrical about how England was decades ago achieves anything other than make people feel more bitter and resentful. And as for schools, I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to run a school which is minority white and ‘multi-faith’ nowadays, as it appears… Read more »
Yeah, calm down, Rain Man. You can disagree with somebody without being rude.
I was under the impression you were – as usual – just quoting someone, in this case, someone who seemed to be in favour of continuous mass immigration. In my opinion, so-called mulitcultural society is an abnomity caused by constant influx of lots of strangers and it’s perfectly possible to let that come to a natural end by halting this constant influx so that things can start to settle down.
“You cannot put the multicultural genie back in the bottle”
Of course you can. The multiracial ‘genie’ is broadly irrelevant & should not be conflated with culture, but the notion an aggressively integrationist (i.e. monocultural) future is impossible is quite untrue.
“You cannot put the multicultural genie back in the bottle”
You sound like Barbara Lerner Spectre, “Europe has not yet learned to be Multicultural”.
Lucky for your kindred Israelis, they don’t believe in pushing Mass Third World Immigration on themselves, and they are not willing to feebly accept Marxist Multiculturalism. This has made Israel strong, while making the West weak.
I suspect that the main problem of Now & England is that well meaning people think that the government should do something. It’s as if people think even ‘more government’ will work, this time, when previous efforts have only made things worse.
Rather ask instead what government should stop doing, which QUANGOs and NGOs should be disbanded, and I rather expect ‘England’ will sort itself out.
Stop building housing estates.
Divide land up for self build plots where proper family homes can be built (apply caps if necessary such as no selling or letting within 10 years)
Encourage small building firms to cater for above.
Stamp duty can only be spent locally.
Bring back poll tax.
Make working closer to home more attractive, tax breaks?
Build summer camps near beaches and woodland, for compulsory school trips.
A British bill of rights to protect British born children including no religious indoctrination. Religion participation from the age of 16 only. Remove said classes from schools.
How can I get notification for future Scruton events.
Yes me too – so to speak. This recent Westminster event didn’t appear on my digital horizon at all and I would have liked to go.
Its possible that the publicity for it deliberately targeted non-boomers don’t you think?
Numbers matter. As does contact with place of origin, whether that continues or not. No one really knows how the English language replaced Celtic in the early Middle Ages. It must be taken into account that of many distinct clans and tribes of the 5th century, there is no trace today apart from place names. There’s a clearer understanding of the mechanism by which the Old English language was modified and English names fell out of use in the two centuries after the Norman Conquest. The effect of power on a weaker social structure. No one debated these things. In all those centuries there was no elite that wanted to change society to create a Utopia. Now we have such a one. In all those centuries there was no one like one of Blair’s former advisers Charles Leadbeater who declared, ‘Settled, stable communities are the enemies of innovation, talent, creativity, and experimentation…that kind of community is the enemy of knowledge creation, which is the wellspring of economic growth.’ That conclusion can only be reached by ignoring the centuries of innovation and creativity in England from the Tudors to the Edwardians. There is a great difference between assimilation and integration. The… Read more »
Mr Leadbeater’s declaration is abominable. This explains much about Blair if this guy was his adviser.
Englishness started to dip 2 decades ago. Standards and trust plummeting.
Sub cultures appeared and dragged it down (including in dress and spoken language). It’s cool to be trashy now.We should’ve fought against American cultural influence.
I’ve observed changing accents of middle class young women in the south. Not sure how to describe it, but they talk with a whine, almost defeated tone.
The horrendous housing estate culture grips our society ever harder. A certain percentage of these homes now by default given to welfare recipients, their lifestyles tend to drag everyone else in the area down.
I feel sorry for the next generations, ultimately I think the worse of China society is the future in all the countries where the people were disarmed. Mass immigration makes this a lot easier in the west. I’m surprised the birthrate isn’t way lower. People who chose not to have kids can rightly feel smug now.
To be English means having a UK passport, speaking English, and accepting and adhering to the law of the land. It does not mean people read all about the Tudors and the Plantagenets. It does not mean wearing a Bowler Hat and it does not mean mean waving the Union Jack and supporting the English Football team.
It also means fitting in with cultural and social norms
And having a sense of humour.
An ability to queue.
And being polite?
No I’d be waving the flag of St George NOT the Union Jack (which incidentally is the Naval equivalent of the Union Flag). In fact I’d also be waving the flag of St Edmond who is the patron saint of The English, St George being the patron saint of England. Now that’s being English. You see learning English history does make you more English. Indeed I believe if you want to become a Swiss National it is compulsory to learn Switzerland’s history. It’s all part and parcel of loving one’s country.
The Union Jack is a strange one, isn’t it?
It contains only the flags of England, Scotland and Ireland, which is a separate country now.
Wales & Northern Ireland are not represented at all in the Union Jack.
To be English means answering the following question with “In England”:
Question: “Where were your ancestors 500 years ago? Or 1000 years ago?”
There have been successful integrations of migrant populations – consider Indian, Caribbean and certain East Asian migrations of the 50s and 60s. Those people and their descendants have been some of the most fiercely patriotic over the years and have fully embraced the notion of being English, or British. I have served in the military with such people and would consider them as British as John Bull; they shared and indeed share, many or most of the same values as long-established native peoples. They had the right attitude from the off.
But that has massively slipped now, with more recent immigrants seemingly more keen on establishing outposts of whence they came in the midst of British society and culture, totally ignoring the latter or demanding that it change to accommodate their own views.
And that isn’t on.
I’m not sure I would class Caribbean migration into the UK as a success
Or any Third World Immigration at all.
Depends what you mean by third world and successful
Indians have thrived economically and don’t seem to cause much trouble, for example
But England has as much moral right to want to remain majority English as India does
I suggest that the successful integrations you refer to derive from immigrants from within the British Empire, or if from outside the Empire, from places where Christianity is prevalent. And there’s an alien religious common factor amongst those whom your second paragraph describes.
NO, NO, NO! You sound like Tommy Robinson, when he declared, in deluded enthusiasm to prove that he wasn’t “racist”, that “Sikhs are the Most English of the English!”
This is exactly the sort of headline that frustrates me with the DS. In one headline title, the reader is being sold or instructed to associate the words ‘The right’ with ‘The English Question’ along with an image a village in middle England. So, regardless of the content of the article, the tone, set by the headline and image, is that Middle England is Right Wing and that the Right need to answer a question about what being English means.
Divisive trot, and increasingly, I’m beginning to think intentionally so, the DS is pushing the line that borders on rhetoric designed to get people angry.
Please, Toby et el, consider your headlines more carefully and diplomatically, you will probably find that many people outside this small island drop by here for an update on information. It might be wise to consider how you deliver it
Please, Toby et al, don’t do any such thing!
“The panel tried to answer. The Michaela school was offered up as an example of successful multiculturalism.” Birbalsingh is a talented Headteacher but she runs a benign dictatorship. Rules and standards of behaviour are set by her and “policed” by her so that a melting pot of ethnicities and faiths can co-exist without coming into conflict. It is the only way it can be made to work and is a microcosm of how the Globalists, and those who imported mass immigration into the UK and enforced multiculturalism on their behalf, expect us all to live. They set the Rules; we must adhere to them. Hence the Race Relations Act onwards …. to Hate Speech Laws, the (In)Equality Act and shortly the so-called “Islamophobia” blasphemy law they intend to enforce because they know it is the only way they can prevent violence from clashing cultures/faiths. It is anything BUT English … who believed in “live and let live;” free speech and the right to offend. I long to live in the England I was brought up in during the 60s and 70s but I know it has gone forever. The mix of Celts, Anglo-Saxons and Danes who united and became the… Read more »
NO. It doesn’t need to “be made to work”.
// Is Englishness a club which people can join if they dress and carry themselves in the right way, or is it something else, born of ancestry and a deep sense of belonging to the hills and fields of our land? //
From across the water: It must be both, symbol and soul.
Yes, and England is the Ancestral Homeland of most of the Ethnic Europeans who founded America and built it into a great nation.
Our king sets a poor example, wedded to a multi faith, multicultural Britain. He is incapable of seeing that his job is on the line too.
Those that he and the regressive lefties allow to setting in our country don’t come from countries with a monarchic constitution and will see him and the rest of his family ousted.
Our weak pathetic king needs to understand he’s picked the wrong side. He either stands up for the English or falls.
Yes, everyone forgets that the Nepalese Gurkhas so bizarrely admired by Britons represent the Marxists who Murdered the Entire Nepalese Royal Family, just as the Marxist Bolsheviks Murdered the Russian Royal Family, relatives of the king’s own father Philip.
He is only following in the exact footsteps of his saintly mother, of whom statues are being set up across the land, in a kind of cult worship. There was an article by Robert Hardman in The Spectator that summed up her attitude very well (I read it before it was hidden behind a paywall, and here’s a quote: “One of his first executive decisions was to reattach his country to the Commonwealth. The Queen was elated and a lifelong friendship with Mandela was sealed.”):
Elizabeth II’s devotion to the Commonwealth | The Spectator
Some were hoping that King Charles would boldly carve out his own path, breaking away from the Third World Commonwealth Vestiges of Empire (but not from our own Aussie, Kiwi & Canuck cousins), to focus at long last on the so-called “United” Kingdom of four countries, three of which hate the fourth. But it was not to be.
What a poignantly beautiful photo of England!