ABSTRACT
Patriotism and ideas of national identity have long been the playthings of politicians. Until recently, the claim of conservatives, and in Britain this mainly means the Conservative Party, to patriotism has been seen as much more secure than that of the left. Recently, however, Tony Blair, through the linking of ‘New Labour’ to ‘New Britain’ may be in the process of fundamentally challenging the link between the right and national identity. It has been suggested that the Blair-Brown government has brought an end to the ‘decline debate’ that has raged in Britain since the end of the Second World War, causing a sense of instability in discourse of national identity.1 Yet this challenge itself is not new. Across the century, however, Labour has adapted itself to conservatism, including patriotism.2 This chapter examines the relationship between politics and national identity, arguing that while parties of the right have sought to secure hegemony over ideas of Britishness, the left in British politics has consistently contested this hold. At a number of points in the twentieth century, the political left convincingly repudiated the hold of the right on characterisations of national identity and in those circumstances has performed well in elections. This in turn has made some parts of the left more determined to utilise patriotic ideas. In Britain’s context as a multi-national state, the parties of the left have also sought to challenge the monolithic unionism of the Conservatives by offering a more pluralistic framework for national identities in the United Kingdom. In this sense, it can be argued that party politics has, in the main, acted as a unifying force in Britishness.
