In a magnificent little book first published in 1947 entitled The Irish, Sean O'Faolain observed that Ireland's prime challenge was what to do with its past. His argument was that obsession with an idealised past was obstructing the emergence of a successful modern Irish State. Every nation has a need to come to terms with its past, even if this is not always a conscious priority. There are times, however, when circumstances encourage us to reflect more passionately than usual on who we are, where we have come from, and where we are headed. Andrew Marr's book argues that contemporary Britain has reached such a juncture.
The Day Britain Died is a dramatic title well-suited to the accompanying TV documentary screened earlier this month. Its author intones that the Britain into which he was born has died. This is not a unique phenomenon. The Ireland of 1900, which I wrote about in a recent book, has certainly faded away, even if certain trace elements remain. At that time, there was an intense debate about Ireland's identity and destiny, similar to what Marr argues is now being experienced in Britain.
I was born a few years before Andrew Marr, but could safely draw the same conclusion about Ireland, that he draws about Britain: it's not one that troubles me. Can it be said that the Ireland of 1972, the year we voted to join the then EEC, still exists, or even the country of the late 1980s, before the onset of our current economic boom? In truth, all societies are forever dying and being reborn in the minds (or perhaps hearts) of their inhabitants. Most of the time this process is imperceptible and painless. Marr argues that there is a painful disintegration of national self-confidence under way in Britain at present. The challenge to the old order comes from several quarters. The emergence of parliamentary devolution within the UK, the drift of sovereignty towards the EU, American cultural hegemony, including its takeover of the English language, and the impact of economic globalisation are among factors seen as undermining the erstwhile certainties of British identity.
Throughout his book Marr seeks, not always successfully, to pin down what precisely is under threat. There is no single calamity of collapsing identity, but a series of symptoms which combine to endanger the political/cultural space into which he was born. Traditional indices of Britishness great and small are seen to have vanished or to be on the wane. The list includes the Empire, old class allegiances, British-owned traditional industries, high street shopping, the Church of England, the supremacy of Parliament, the monarchy and even the use of Imperial weights and measures. As he charts the decline of Britishness, Marr sees the looming spectre of a separate English self-consciousness about which, as a London-based Scot, he has considerable misgivings. Analysing the "English question" has become a commentators' growth industry. Marr evokes G.K. Chesterton's phrase about the English being "the people who have not spoken". He tries to parse their silence. There are fears that Scotland will go, and that Northern Ireland will increasingly see its future in a closer relationship within an economically buoyant Ireland. Caught between a rose-tinted Imperial past and an uncomfortable European future, the English are presented as feeling "put upon and besieged". Marr's is no reactionary blueprint aimed at restoring lost imperial certainties. Instead he argues for regional parliaments in England and for a federal Britain resolutely fighting its corner within the European Union.
In the end, I was left unconvinced by Marr's overall thesis. He talks a good crisis, but I wonder if there is anything exceptional in what he detects. Is this not primarily the impact of modernisation, a swathe of economic and social change that is generating unease the world over? It may be that larger States, possessed of an epic sense of their own sovereignty, feel more profoundly threatened by the seeming loss of national control inherent in economic globalisation. The identity of smaller nations does not depend on the State's perceived ability to master its external environment. This may be why there is no one currently writing about The Day Ireland Died! Still, for all its fretting over questionable losses, Andrew Marr's very readable book makes an intelligent contribution to a debate that looks set for a long innings.
Daniel Mulhall's book A New Day Dawning: a portrait of Ireland in 1900 was published last autumn by Collins Press. He is currently Ireland's Consul General in Scotland.