“In their different ways, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have an ambivalent relationship with Britain and Britishness. In each of the smaller territories, the prospect of being swept away by a tide of Englishness masquerading as Britishness concentrates minds.” Alex Massie in “The Times’ today.

Spot on ! I know what being Scottish is (I lived in Scotland for many years). But English can only be defined as British without the Celtic bits. “British” as meaningful disappeared with the Empire. The Celts, especially the Scots, were drivers of imperial ambition. But the “British” role post Empire has indeed been a masquerade.

I went to the 1966 World Cup at a time when we were (just) clutching on to the spoils of Empire, or a few of them. In the crowd the flag of St George was absent. The flag everywhere was the Union Jack. To be English and British was in every respect the same thing. Even the symbols.

The Scots and Welsh have always their own thing and St Andrew and St David have had a prominence St George was denied. The only glue holding Britain together was imperial glue.

Devolution has formalised the distancing that was already underway. Increasingly Britain as nominally constructed has no meaning. It is an anachronism. The U.K. Government’s attempts to hold the United Kingdom together are laughable. It’s already fallen apart.

The cliché of a post Brexit “Little England” is true despite its ubiquitous use. Geographically and economically England is far from “little” – it is indeed, as Alex Massie says, by far the dominant territory in the U.K. But emotionally the littleness of England is everywhere. The xenophobia, the arrogance , the pomposity, the vulgarity and the ignorance of the English is to see all around us.

Post the break up of the United Kingdom the English can put the delusion of Britishness behind us and like the Scots and the Welsh be “a nation again” . If this is approached with humility ( a big “if”) and if we find a way to re-embrace our Europeanness ( an even bigger “if”) the future should be bright.

Four united nations in these islands is in prospect and historically and culturally logical, and certainly achievable. We will have to find a way to describe the islands though as “British” as a concept withers on the vine.

For brainless idiots in their thousands to indulge in misbehaviour and abuse they have to be brainless in the first place and secondly the society in which they operate has to tolerate it. Our dysfunctional society does that. It accepts or ignores the endemic failure of education and at the same time the failure to have put in place checks and balances which stop stupid people doing stupid things. We are close to being ungovernable.

Let’s be clear – we are not talking about a tiny minority of hotheads here. Research points to a cohort , mostly ill-educated white males , for whom drunkenness and disruption is at the core of their behaviour. Football is one of the contexts in which their ignorance plays out. It is aggressive and provocative.

Somewhere along the way in their adolescence these people slipped under the educators’ nets and emerged dimwitted and dangerous. Then peer groups were formed which legitimised behaviour by numbers. One man walking up Wembley Way chanting abuse can be ignored. Hundreds banded together, identified by their dress codes and flags and fuelled by alcohol, cannot.

The gangs have to know what they are against, and they have to have scapegoats – a blame culture lies at the heart of their behaviour. Behaviour which can trip over into a form of mass hysteria. It’s not cerebral of course but it can be used by politicians or others to further their own ends. The “Football Lads Alliance” was less about football and more about far–right politics. They were direct descendants of those who marched for Mosley or Powell.

Football hooliganism is not a modern phenomenon but the modern version we saw at Wembley is part of a wider present day societal malaise. Not all of the recent mobs had any political motivation – many were “just” out of control hooligans. But the lack of education and the lack of social norms and checks and balances lies at the core of the problem. When a drunken mob riots we have to look and our schools and our homes, our families and more generally at our society to help explain why.

The evidence provided by analysis of the 2019 election is clear. Forty-five percent of voters with “Low” education voted Conservative and a further 19% for the Brexit Party. The Tories by absorbing UKIP ( in practice if not in fact) had sewn up the working class voter and since then they’ve absorbed the Brexit Party as well. The Conservatives, now indisputably Hard Right, are utterly dominant in that cohort.

Of course I am not accusing all working class Tory voters of being potential hooligans. Most are law-abiding citizens. However it is reasonable to assume that with the Conservatives now being almost indistinguishable from Nigel Farage’s UKIP (2006 – 2016) this has provided a cover for prejudice, flag-waving nationalism and xenophobia to emerge. Hostility to our once European partners, swingeing reductions in overseas aid and aggressive treatment of refugees, asylum seekers and potential migrants is straight out of the UKIP textbook. As is the forced “repatriation” of residents, often illegally, as highlighted by the Windrush scandal.

This brings me to the other football-related phenomena of these troubled times. The racial abuse directed at black footballers and the booing of opponents’ national anthems and their players at international games. This is intolerance and open prejudice of a quite sinister type. The Prime Minister’s ambivalence on the booing of England players “taking the knee” provided further cover behind which the abusers hid. Priti Patel, the Home Secretary has said that football fans have a right to boo the England team for “taking the knee” – the Home Secretary has called it “gesture politics”.

Authoritarianism is an obvious cause of prejudice and the most vulnerable to authoritarian messages are the less well educated. The dictatorial often binary (“For us or against us” ) political imperative rejects political plurality – it is by its nature intolerant. But it provides a sort of certainty. Symbols enforce this certainty. To adapt Evelyn Waugh: “… a drunk politician should… put out more flags in order to increase his… splendour.”

In The Times newspaper a short while ago Trevor Philips argued that the problem is less race and more class. I would add education and diversity of experience. Those behaving badly, one suspects, are artisan and ill-educated. I apologise if anyone is offended by this assertion but I suspect it’s true. It is a generalisation and there are exceptions – the vile Nick Griffin is a Cambridge graduate. Boris “Piccaninies” Johnson went to Oxford. But liberalism is not the dominant ethos behind the Red Wall.

Bigotry breeds amongst the dim and disadvantaged. If you feel offended by the Black Lives Matter movement you’ll spout the facile and dimwitted “All Lives Matter” response. If you see Black footballers asserting their rights to equality of treatment by taking the knee you’ll boo them.

Football fandom has become a bit gentrified in recent times but it is still overwhelmingly white, male and working-class. Most fans behave decently – but some don’t as we saw at Wembley.

If we educated children better racism would die. But remember xenophobia – racism’s close cousin – is at the heart of our Government of Brexiteers. That’s why there are so many flags and why it has become common for many to denigrate foreigners.

There are signs that decent Tories are rebelling against a government that whatever its fine words is discriminatory at its heart. Chesham and Amersham was an indicator that some have had enough. It’s in our hands to eliminate the scourge of racism not by becoming more politically correct but by improving the quality of our education considerably. Remember if you keep people in the dark and feed them manure they’ll grow up to riot.

The idea that England is a candidate to host the 2030 Football World Cup is being touted by some. What world of fantasy do these people live in? There’s zero chance of it happening, and for good reason.

There is not the slightest chance that Britain, let alone England, will host an international sporting event for decades – if ever again. Next year is the tenth anniversary of the immensely successful London Olympics.

London2012 was the reputational high point and since then the nation has retreated behind nationalist walls, eschewed international cooperation, banned fellow Europeans from working here, deported at random people it doesn’t like, savagely cut international aid, denied the checks and balances of international courts and gratuitously insulted foreigners and nations who dare to criticise it. All this whilst spouting hubristic lies about “Global Britain”.

When given the chance to host the final games of the Euros we booed the opposition, rioted in the streets and tried to break down barriers to get into Wembley. We shone laser lights into the eyes of goalkeepers, insulted anthems and racially abused our own players. You can’t have it both ways – we have chosen insularity and boasted about it. We can’t at the same time be potential good hosts to visitors. We are a pariah nation and the Sporting authorities of the world will ignore us. And who can blame them?

The lazy use of language is everywhere in modern discourse – regular readers will know my hatred of the word “Iconic” which is frequently used , and never correctly. But today I’d like to look at “hero” which, whilst often used correctly, is also all too often used gratuitously and inappropriately.

Sport is perhaps the main culprit. If a footballer is one of our own he becomes a hero – by playing football. That’s it. Period. He doesn’t have to win. Many years ago Stephen Pile published a book that was a salute to the “Not Terribly Good Club of Great Britain” – to the concept of “Heroic Failure”.

But whether heroism is ironically about failure (The Charge of the Light Brigade. The retreat from Dunkirk) or about sporting “heroism” (including the heroic failure of losing a Cup Final) we are in danger of obscuring the true meaning of heroism. Boris Johnson, never a man to miss a chance for populist rhetoric, said after England lost to Italy “This England team deserve to be lauded as heroes.” Well of course he did.

My father was for more than three years a prisoner of the Japanese on the Burma railway. In some people’s eyes that fact alone makes him a “Hero”. I don’t think that, and nor did he. My researches tells me that as a POW my Dad did, actually, do some brave things. He hid part of the Camp radio in his boot for example. This was certainly courageous but “heroic” ? Not really.

The problem is this. There are true acts of heroism from time to time – the sort of things that win a Victoria or George Cross. The workers of the New York Fire Department on 9/11 for example. If we ascribe the descriptor of “hero” to Harry Kane what have we left for the firemen?

The NHS is one of the worlds biggest enterprises and us such it requires adequate and complete funding security. This can only come from an appropriate means of collecting income from the Service’s beneficiaries – we the citizens of the United Kingdom.

At present that income comes primarily from The Treasury whose principal means of raising revenue are taxes and borrowings. Taxes ultimately we pay. Similarly the cost of borrowing – servicing debt. Some taxes are progressive – the wealthier the taxpayer is the more they pay. Some taxes are regressive, the poor pay the same as the rich.

This means as far as the NHS is concerned the poorer you are the higher the percentage of your income you pay for the service. If we maintain the principle that the NHS is “free” at the point of consumption, but maintain the current structure of funding, then we are implicitly accepting that indirectly the poor pay more for healthcare than the rich.

The element of regressive indirect taxation in the Treasury’s income ensures that this is the case. This is, of course, true of all national expenditure, not just the Health Service. It is possible to devise a model in which healthcare funding is progressive – income and/or wealth related. This would be more than creative accounting – it would be socially just.

One way to do this would be to introduce a Healthcare tax separate from Income tax but far more progressive. This would help make NHS costs explicit and improve their management. To make this work there would have to be no cross funding from general taxation. So, for example, if the cost of the NHS was increasing more than general inflation Government would seek buy in from the public at large to increase the Healthcare tax appropriately.

If this Healthcare tax is truly progressive the wealthier taxpayers would fund budget increases more than the poorer – potentially much more. The social merits of this are obvious and whilst it discriminates against one section of the community there is a natural justice in this.

But let’s be clear. This proposal does not mean lack of controls on NHS spending. Rather the reverse. By making NHS costs very explicit, and by making a direct link to funding, debate would be facilitated. “Yes we can do that , but it would mean a 1% rise in the Healthcare Tax” is a constructive debate – surely an improvement on the current lack of debate and polarisation of positions.

James Marriott muses on patriotism in The Times today. Really he’s reflecting on the time when we Brits stopped knowing who we were. About the time sex was invented on these islands and the Beatles released their first LP.

We’d noticed the decline of Empire obviously but we didn’t realise that this also meant the decline of Britain. Some of us still don’t. Only the Empire defined Britain. Back here we had a couple of centuries during which the component part countries did what they had always done and their peoples remained resolutely English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish.

The English used “English” and “British” interchangeably and preferred their Englishness to be signalled with the Union Flag rather than the flag of St George. The Celts stayed robustly independent, celebrated their patron saints (whilst the English ignored theirs) and only became British when they were abroad on some Imperial adventure. The Scots were particularly good at this being proudly British when ruling the natives in some colonial outpost but distinctively Scottish back home.

But once the Empire was dead or dying there was no need really for the artificial construct that was “Britishness”. We were told to find a post Imperial “role” and it was suggested to us, not unreasonably, that that should be in Europe. We did, and now we don’t.

As a major, active and commited European nation the U.K. might have held together. But once we chucked that away there really was nothing to hold us together. British cultural icons from the flag to the anthem – even to the Monarch – just look like antiquated symbols of history.

The Empire was the glue and without it there’s nothing to unite us. Devolved governments in Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff formalised the dissolution of the Kingdom and now all that is left is to complete the job. The Irish, if they can stop bickering, will all rediscover their Irishness where (in the North) they need to. The Scots have a return to proper independent statehood within their grasp. And the Welsh , arguably the most culturally distinctive of them all with a strong foundation provided by their language, should have few problems in restoring their independence.

The United Kingdom has outlived its usefulness. The Commonwealth is another hangover from Empire that will fade away. As, no doubt, will the preposterous anachronism of free and independent countries that were once Imperial possessions having the British monarch as Head of State.

There can be no new Pax Brittanica in these islands. The Kingdom is not United. History is often decided by accidents rather than by design. Brexit was the accident that pushed us apart and there is no going back. The prospects for Celts to regain their historic identity as well as being modern and European is too attractive to them – they won’t let it slip from their grasp. And then it will be for Little England to put its Union Flags away and decide what it wants to be.

Matthew Parris yearns for a new “moderate leadership” in The Times today. Without major political change from the Opposition parties I fear that he will be disappointed. When Britain voted for Brexit (not even mentioned in his article) the die of extremism was cast.

When Theresa May failed to even attempt to get a soft Brexit or to aim for a confirmatory referendum we were launched down the slope from moderation towards unprecedented division in politics and society. We are still there sliding further from tolerance and the slightest vestige of togetherness.

The pandemic, unconnected to Brexit, has shown that the virus of division has spread from the Europe disagreements to other areas. The streets fill with lockdown deniers and anti vaccers , preposterous fools whose only achievement is to tie up police forces who surely have better things to do than attend their dimwitted protest marches or defend civil servants from attacks.

England is irreparably split, Scotland wants out and Northern Ireland on the cusp of another disaster. There are no votes to be garnered by the peacemakers generally – though Chesham and Amersham and Batley and Spen may just be hopeful signs. But pessimistic me sees false dawns unless dramatic change happens.jn

Looking at the G7 leaders one could only have pity that six nations have sane leaders whilst we have a buffoon. Boris Johnson creates every opportunity to hang out the flags because he has nothing else. The recourse of the scoundrel is of course patriotism – utterly contrived and populist in the Prime Minister’s case.

Johnson’s Cabinet must be the most intelleftually deficient in living memory and when a rare vacancy occurs he appoints someone who pronounces policy before he’s even visited his office, let alone been briefed on the subject by experts. When Michael Gove railed about experts he knew what he was doing. It was part of the Brexiteers campaign. The experts were 99% against leaving the EU, so Gove insulted them.

Keir Starmer is a decent and moderate man, but labelled insultingly as a “centrist” by the mad Corbynites of the Hard Left. His choice is to segue towards them or to be true to Labour’s solidly social democratic tradition. If he does the former he’s finished, if the latter he’ll maybe struggle.

A moderate message hasn’t won many votes for some time in our divided nation – until the two recent by-elections. Can Starmer break the fetid mould of extremism? If he works with the LibDems and the Greens he has a chance. We urgently need a “Progressive Alliance” to combat the extremists of both sides – one of which happens to be in Government.

Angela Merkel is damned with faint praise in an article in the Times today that attempts, unsuccessfully , to link her with Boris Johnson. “Merkel’s and Johnson’s approaches” writes James Forsyth, “have more in common than people realise. They share the same political strategy: to sprawl across the centre ground and deny opponents oxygen.” Ho Ho !!

Merkel is a Christian Democrat and her core beliefs are consistent with the pragmatic, free enterprise economic liberalism that party has always endorsed. If you ask her what she believes in you will get a rational, internally consistent explanation of the benefits of free trade (etc.) decoupled from ideology.

Merkel’s early years were in East Germany and her rejection of State control is based on experience. She is no ideologue , she just knows from experience what works – and what doesn’t. That Europe at a high level of abstraction follows the German example is no coincidence. Frau Merkel has moulded the EU in her own image. Not out of ego but, again, because it works.

The contrast with Boris Johnson could not be greater. He is also no ideologue, but there the similarities end. If you ask Boris what he believes in you’ll get waffle. The attempt to portray Johnson as “sprawling across the centre ground” is comical. He sprawls alright, but anywhere he hangs his hat (left, right in his lady’s chamber) is home.

Boris once wrote amusing political sketches but he never wrote, nor contributed to, any sort of high level political manifesto. He doesn’t do detail or gravitas. Johnson reminds me of Rex Mottram in “Brideshead Revisited”. Mottram has to convert to Catholicism to marry Lady Julia. Under instruction he is asked by the Priest “Does our Lord have more than one nature?” To that, Rex replies, “Just as many as you say, Father.” So it is with Boris who will say not what he believes but what he sees as being to his advantage.

In an age when the old realities of Right and Left have disappeared Boris is in his element. That’s why it’s the polls and focus groups that tell him what to do. Johnson is to an extent trapped by his class but it doesn’t really matter. The Old Etonian Bullingdon Boy defeated “ men of the people” Ken Livingstone and Jeremy Corbyn not because of the clarity of his arguments but by conveying an image the focus groups told him the voters like. He doesn’t need the common touch and isn’t embarrassed about not having it. Merkel is classless partly because modern Germany is a meritocracy and partly because her upbringing was based on intelligence and hard work rather than privilege. She and Johnson have nothing in common.

The Union is dead. Brexit killed it. It may be a while before the formal funeral but to all intents and purposes the United Kingdom is no more. The clue is in the name. The nation isn’t “united” any more – in fact its barely a nation.

When a new Gibbon describes the Rise and Fall of the British Empire the final chapter will be about England’s failure, having lost everything else, to even hold on to its Celtic fringe. Little England will be forced to retreat behind its historic borders. Sans Empire. Sans Europe. Sans Scots, Irish and Welsh. Sans everything.

North Britain will go away comparatively peacefully. They only have to look at their Irish cousins to see the viability of an English speaking independent state of five million people. And our once friends in Europe will welcome them with open arms and a sackful of cash to smooth the way.

The Welsh will do the same – their road signs have long signalled their cultural distinctiveness . In a uniting Europe that already has small nations like Malta as credible members the Welsh will be as welcome as the Scots.

Ireland is more problematic – for most of the Irish people reunification will finally end their subservience and John Bull will lose his grip on a small part of his “other island”. The Orange folk of the North will protest and will need to be bought off . It won’t be cheap but the prize of a united Ireland, a reborn Scotland and a resurgent Wales in Europe, alongside twenty-seven other sovereign states, is a big one. The EU27 won’t miss the chance to welcome the Celts, and to embarrass the English.

And what of the English when they are forced back behind Offa’s Dyke and below Hadrian’s Wall? Well England is on its own a wealthy country of 56 million people – if we were still in the EU we’d be the fourth most populous country in the Union. Globally on its own England would be comfortably in the worlds top ten national economies. But that is clearly under threat after Brexit.

The Financial Services sector, based in the City of London, drives the British economy and decline is underway as jobs move to locations like Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam which enjoy the four freedoms that Britain has abandoned. To say that the City is too big to fail is complacent – Global financial institutions don’t do sentimentality.

So the future of the British Isles and the tribes that occupy them is clear. Scotland and Wales will become small but authentic and viable sovereign European states. Ireland will reunite and if they can, in the North, put sectarian strife behind them they will prosper. And England will increasingly struggle. Having not just lost an Empire Perfidious Albion will now have to put the Union Flag in the trash bin and try to make a success of being the only nation, Belarus aside, in the European mega-Region with no friends and no meaningful alliances. Good luck with that John Bull.