Why the crisis will hasten the break-up of Britain.
You are browsing in private mode. To enjoy all the benefits of our website LOG IN or Create an Account In the mid-1930s the British socialist Basil Bunting wrote to his fellow poet and friend, the American fascist Ezra Pound, lamenting the difficulty of achieving radical change in Britain. Bunting told Pound that the nation’s “owners” had “the whole press in their pocket and an opposition led from Eton and Oxford”. At times of crisis, he argued, conservative statesmen could always play “confidence tricks” to maintain the status quo, undermining their opponents and whitewashing their own failings with the help of a servile media. Bunting concluded with weary pessimism that “what seems quite certain is that not only no great change, but not even any substantial alleviation of the lot of the poor in England is going to be possible in future without civil war”. Almost a century later, as Britain struggles to emerge from a global crisis that recalls the social and economic turmoil of the 1930s, it is hard not to agree with Bunting’s gloomy summary. Despite its disastrous handling of coronavirus and its effects, and the onset of a major recession, Boris Johnson’s government maintains a clear lead in the polls – and this after a decade in which the Conservative Party has presided over falling living standards, public-sector decay and countless political emergencies. Whatever tricks our establishment is playing with public confidence, they appear to be working. But for all the sly resilience of British conservatism, Bunting’s claim that nothing ever changes on these islands does not quite cut it. It is true that Britain and its establishment have never been fully overhauled – at least not since the 17th century, following the Civil War and Glorious Revolution. But there is evidence to suggest that times of crisis eventually lead to profound changes in the way our polity is organised, even if they are suppressed or downplayed by the ruling order. Might the upheavals of 2020 give rise to radical adjustments in the geopolitical shape of these islands? Or will we merely fall back into traditionalism and the established forms of governance once the crisis passes? Given the precarious status of the Union prior to the events of this spring and summer, the maintenance of the existing order seems unlikely. As we try to work out how Covid-19 will impact the long-term fate of British nationhood, it is helpful to see what history teaches us about the relationship between crisis and constitutional change. **** In spite of the stereotype that Britain is impervious to disaster, the historical record shows that modern British history has unfolded in response to crises, even if our “owners” – Bunting’s word – tend to suppress signs of rupture. The cliché that Britishness hinges on stability and the maintenance of order emerges from a fundamental misreading of our modern history. The UK is a multinational state without a written constitution but instead a set of legal conventions so numerous and arcane that it is difficult for most citizens to grasp their meaning. In keeping with this “uncodified” identity, we might – as 19th-century Whig historians did – see the development of the UK as an informal, consensual and benign process. In this view, the several nations of the British Isles came together amicably over the centuries on the ground of common endeavour. As Thomas Macaulay put it in his History of England (1848), the national narrative was a story of how, “by wise and resolute good faith, was gradually established a public credit fruitful of marvels which to the statesmen of any former age would have seemed incredible”. In reality, Britain’s development was more chaotic and dependent on the unpredictable violence of short-term events than this upbeat summary suggests. Contrary to liberal clichés about British gradualism, the UK is a Hobbesian affair – the product of centuries of fierce internal conflict, climatic shocks and even viral devastation. The unexpected collapse of Anglo-Saxon England in 1066; the Anglo-Scottish and Anglo-Welsh wars of the 13th and 14th centuries; the Black Death and its weakening of feudal structures; the early-modern cataclysms of the Reformation and the Civil War – all point to a clear conclusion. For several hundred years English life tended to follow a pattern of periodic disaster followed by imperfect recovery. From today’s vantage point, there was an ecological narrative underlying all this. The latter part of the first English millennium – from around the 14th century – was overshadowed by the damaging effects of the Little Ice Age (circa 1300-1850), which depressed agricultural production throughout Europe and created the conditions for recurrent bouts of disease (largely in the form of bubonic plague) and waves of political unrest.
