It’s just not cricket

Some people are just dipped in confusion at birth.

Peter Briffa highlights an example of such a person in the form of Yasmin Alibhai Brown who tries, and fails, to spin the prospect (and eventual fact) of English success in the Ashes into something akin to crapness:

If the cricket is won, many more white Britons will give up on Britain and take refuge in England

Eh? The Cricket? Responsible for turning Unionists into English Nationalists?

“Look son, we’ve won the cricket. Burn all the Union Flags in the house.”

It’s not even remotely plausible as a reason for denouncing the Union and to suggest that it is reveals something very strange about Brown’s opinion of Britons. Well, not just Britons but the usual suspects, you know, the English ones.

What is it about the English that forces her into such commentary? Why does devolution in Scotland and in Wales not fill her with the dread that she so obviously feels about the dilution of the Union or a rise in English Nationalism. Devolution is a far bigger threat to the long term health of the Union than the cricket. Is it because those issues lack a certain, oh I don’t know, Englishness.

What’s the word I am looking for?……….Youbetcha!

The fact that devolution has completely ignored the nation of England is a far more believable reason for a gradual rise in English Nationalism than a win at a sporting event.

Alarmingly, she continues:

But this is more than just cricket I sense. It is the agony and ecstasy of Englishness, today in resurgence after years of confusion and surliness. From Orwell to Tebbitt, cricket has been used as a metaphor for English nationalism.

Actually Yasmin, cricket has been used as a metaphor for fairness and balance. Your attitude simply isn’t cricket.

After the mandatory cooldown period I have written the following email to the columnist:

Dear Yasmin,

I am assuming that by making that comment you have a keen desire to see white English keep true to Britain rather than decry the Union in favor of England.

There are a number of issues I would like to take up with you if you can spare the time.

Firstly I don't really see the point you are trying to make by bringing colour into the issue. I am of Greek and Italian descent and quite, quite brown. Indeed it is very likely that I do not have a drop of Anglo Saxon blood in me though I was fortunate enough to be born in London and raised entirely in England.

Why would I be immune from an incentive to 'take refuge in England' when, say, my perfectly lily white neighbour would not be? It's an interesting point I think because it seems to me that you are implying a strong correlation between colour and certain behaviour. How does this differ from stereotyping to the lowest common denominator of a particular ethnic group? For instance, it has been some time since I have seen anyone in the press seek to tarnish black Britons with the belief and behaviour of the supporters of mostly forgotten Black Power movements.

Of more importance, however, is the real crux of the matter. The great local issue of the day and quite possibly the next few decades or so. The real pressure on Britain, the thing that has and is likely to continue to fragment those that once considered themselves as British into English Nationalism, is the question of the unbalanced approach to devolution that this government has taken.

Many Britons have been more than happy to move along through life with little concern regarding the Union but knowing that it effectively consist of a number of nations all generally getting along together rather happily. Devolution has suddenly changed all that because, frankly, people are very slowly beginning to notice that the nation of England has been left out of the deal struck with other nations.

Indeed, the language coming from our leaders has raised the temperature rather than cooled it what with talk about Scotland being different from England because Scotland "is a nation in its own right". The English are suddenly realising that their Nation doesn't exist in any real political terms.

There is great inequality in Britain at present. A political inequality which can only increase the number of people in England who, in your language, would seek to take refuge in England.

That is the real danger to the Union and, I fear, a fragmented and declining Britain will be the inevitable result unless the asymmetry is addressed on a National level.

Write about that and I'll invite you round for tea.

PS. Don't talk Regional Assemblies, they do not represent politics on a National level and, for instance, could have done nothing to address the issue of Student top up fees.

Sincerely,

Posted by John at September 15, 2005 03:40 PM | TrackBack