Just flagging this up...

Patriotism isn't a coat of paint to add sparkle. Voters know that.

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There was always going to come a time when I was going to have to talk about the soft left and patriotism. I’m not sure I expected it to come quite so soon but it was always coming. So I am going to try and unpack the different parts of this week’s row about Labour and flags and really give a sense of where we are at the moment (tl:dr - a mess) where I feel we ought to be (tl:dr - not a mess), and how we get there (tl:dr - not through a superficial branding exercise).

(I’m going to talk about the dressing smartly and the way some Labour voices mistake this for snobbery another day. There is a lot to be said about class and class signifiers in Labour but one thing at a time.)

First of all, let’s be clear that the story is based on a report that has been leaked to the Guardian. The leak has clearly come from someone who doesn’t agree with the conclusions. So I am responding here to the direct quotes that come from the report in the Guadian’s reporting and the response to it.

I grew up straddling the 1970s and 1980s in the East End of London. We had actual fascist parties contesting elections and marching on the streets. People openly wore badges proclaiming that “there ain’t no black in the Union Jack”. The cross of St George and the Union flag felt owned by these people and they would wave them as they chanted their vile slogans in our streets. As a result, good lefties like my parents rejected such symbolism. They were in a minority in the country, but it was a fairly standard view from a lot of the left at that time. It wouldn’t have been seen as kooky among their peers.

Things have moved on considerably since then. While we are a long way from curing the ills of racism and fascism they now come mostly (and I am thinking of my friend Jo Cox as I type this, so I know it is only mostly) in more veiled forms. The 90s saw a concerted effort, led not by politicians but by cultural leaders, to reclaim the flag and patriotism. There was David Baddiel and Frank Skinner getting the whole of England singing Three Lions. There was Noel’s union flag guitar and Liam and Patsy’s bedsheets. Britannia was cool and it was OK to say so. Patriotism was no longer the preserve of little Englanders and that was a good thing.

Things have moved on considerably since then of course. The Blair government who had been embraced by the Cool Britannia set proved themselves to be deeply uncool in their embrace of George W Bush and his unmitigated disastrous war in Iraq. What was once cool always - inevitably - becomes seen by the next generation as naff. So too the fad for flag waving patriotism among the Primrose Hill set.

Somewhere along the way, I discovered my own patriotism. Not one of overt flag waving, but not one that is embarrassed by that either. I love my country. Why else would I spend so much of my time, energy and effort in trying to make it the best it could be? I believe my socialism to be a deeply patriotic value. I don’t see a clash between my patriotism and my internationalism. Far from being a citizen of nowhere, I am blessed with the multiple identities of being a Londoner, English, British, European and a world traveller. I love to go abroad and experience different countries and cultures. And I love coming out of the tube station and smelling that utterly British waft of vinegar coming from the local chippy.

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I have this love of country in common with the vast, vast majority of citizens and voters of all classes, races and politics. (That latter part is especially important). Most people are instinctively patriotic. As humans, we have a developed need to belong. For most people that belonging is expressed through their attachment to their country either of birth or adoption. This doesn’t make them racist, nationalist, exceptionalist or exclusionary - it makes them human. For left wing politics to succeed it has to work with the grain of our humanity not against it.

The right have tried to own and define patriotism as a value. They are the ones who have made it seem like a small and insular value. And for far too long, too many on the left have agreed with them and allowed them to own what is an almost universal value.

Patriotism is too equated with racism and nationalism on the left. It is seen as aligned with insular values and a failure to engage with the world. It is seen as only possible if you whitewash our history of violent imperialism and slavery. The left disavows patriotism as defined by the right, which is perfectly fair. But this has led to them disavowing patriotism altogether.

This is a mistake. Being patriotic is the entry fee to being allowed to govern a county. We shouldn’t - therefore - allow the right to define what is meant by that but offer a competing vision of patriotism.

But that is not going to be done with a simple coating of red, white and blue paint on a Labour lectern. If reclaiming patriotism is seen as a branding exercise it will be as shallow and as fleeting as Cool Britannia. If Labour simply remains the same but with some flags tacked on they won’t do the hard work of understanding the patriotic instinct, why some have rejected it, how the vast majority feel about both the country and that rejection and how to bring these groups together in a way that is authentic and real.

The soft left’s role should be to present a vision of patriotism that is about understanding that there are ills in our history but balancing that with pride in the good, and a patriotic, socialist vision of the future. That is the fertile ground we refuse ourselves both when we reject symbolism or when we adopt it only as an electoral posture.

What I’ve been up to

This week I wrote about the difference - as I see it - between political correctness and being ‘woke’ for the Telegraph.

I also recorded a new episode of The Zeitgeist Tapes, dissecting 1936 Jen Renoir film The Crime of Monsieur Lange and another edition of Midatlantic where we discuss some of the issues raised in this newsletter.

I also set up a Ko-Fi link so if you fancy buying me a coffee (or at least sending me a few quid so I can keep the wolves from the door while I prattle on for free about the soft left) please do!

Reading list

This wonderful piece on the complexities of kindness by Sarah Ditum was what inspired me to finally set out my feelings about wokeness and PC.

This interesting piece by Stephen Bush is more nuanced than other places have given it credit for but is well worth reading for the challenges Labour and Keir Starmer face.

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Questions, comments and arguments are very welcome. Insults will get you summarily blocked on every platform that no longer hosts Donald Trump. I’m at emmaburnell@gmail.com or on Twitter (far too often) at @EmmaBurnell_.