The midnight isles, the Painted Isles, the Frontier Isles are just a few of the unfamiliar names which Norman Davies uses for that part of the world I have always thought of as the British Isles. To add to the confusion, he includes in his list of kings of England the improbable names of Guillaume le B?tard, Edouard I and Henri V. Furthermore, we are reminded that Britain was ruled by the Celts longer than it was ruled by anyone else; that Roman Britain was confined to about 30 per cent of these islands; and that England under the Normans and the Plantagenets was a dependency of France, not the other way round.
At the same time, Norman Davies reminds us that the original Scots were Irish, that the Welsh were Britons and that the English were Danes. These and other examples are presented by Davies in his book The Isles, to illustrate his point, not to entertain. Davies has a deadly serious purpose-and I enthusiastically endorse it. His target is the Anglo-centric reflex which over the years has treated Scotland, Ireland and Wales as appendages of England, refused to acknowledge their histories as an integral part of a history of Britain, and used "England" and the "United Kingdom" as if they were alternative ways of describing the same country. At the same time he is at pains to emphasise that England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland are themselves latter-day creations resulting from the intermingling of races and nations.
Flawed perceptions remain deeply ingrained. On the day after I finished reading The Isles, I was telephoned by a television producer who was making a programme which would compare "our" difficult foreign relations with France under Queen Elizabeth I with "our" difficult foreign relations with France now. I suspect he felt that I was behaving like a pedantic Scot when I reminded him that "our" relations in the 16th century would have included the amicable Auld Alliance between Scotland and France. I recall once successfully curing a Canadian of saying England, when he meant Britain, by calling him an American.
The two central theses of Davies's book are not only of historical importance; they also have contemporary relevance. The two great constitutional issues of our time are the internal and external government of Britain. England's relationship with Scotland and Wales has profoundly changed in the past two years, and that process of change still has some distance to travel. At the same time, the UK's relationship with the EU is ambiguous, to say the least-and will remain so whether or not we join the single currency. These controversies cannot be viewed in isolation from each other, nor without an understanding of the 2,000 years of history which preceded them.
That history has been far more complicated, arbitrary, and fragmented, than most of us were brought up to believe. History used to be taught in a teleological manner which assumed that the UK, the Westminster parliament and the British empire were the natural and inevitable consequences of an unceasing stream of events which created a British state and a British nation not only united in itself, but distinct and different from the rest of Europe.
Davies reminds us that until the Reformation we were an integral part of Europe. We accepted the pope and the Roman Catholic church, and had kings of England who spoke French rather than English until the time of the Tudors, and who for generations had paid homage as vassals of the kings of France. Furthermore, he points out that the only time over the past 2,000 years that the British Isles have been a single state with a single parliament was for 121 years from the Act of Union with Ireland in 1801 until the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922.
Davies frequently reminds his readers of the Irish dimension. He could have made the point (but does not) that his criticisms of the English, for forgetting that they are only one of four partners in the British state, could also be made of the Scots, who are just as likely to ignore Irish or Welsh sensitivities when considering our common history. I was educated entirely north of the border and I cannot remember any time provided in the curriculum for consideration of Irish or Welsh history and its contribution to the UK.
The Isles is stimulating, provocative and instructive, but Davies would have been wise to have concluded it on page 870, with the end of the British empire. Instead we are subjected to a further 180 pages full of trivial anecdote and ill-considered theories as to the likely fate of Britain. The author repeats the familiar claim that with the end of empire the raison d'?tre of the UK has disappeared, and that England, Scotland and Wales could have a happy future as separate states within an expanded EU.
It is true that the creation of the UK and the development of a strong and confident British identity were linked to the growth and consolidation of the British empire. For the English there was a strategic necessity to ensure the security of their country from the ambitions of France or Spain by extending their effective control over Scotland and Ireland. The marriage of Mary Queen of Scots to the French Dauphin had been only the latest of many dynastic and political alliances between the two countries. Ireland, for its part, was always feared as the soft underbelly of England, through which the Spanish or the French could penetrate its defences.
So the Union of the English and Scottish Crowns in 1603, and the securing of the Hanoverian succession by the Union of the Parliaments in 1707, had the great advantage for England of ensuring its security at home while it expanded its colonial possessions in the Americas and elsewhere. For Scotland, the new relationship with England was a necessary condition of expanding its trade with its southern neighbour and its growing colonies. The failure of the Darien scheme to establish a Scottish colony in central America, in which the Scots had invested no less than a quarter of their liquid assets, convinced them that only by full union with England would free trade and access to the English empire be assured.
The consequences of the union of 1707 vindicated these aspirations. The British empire which, at its height, incorporated more than a quarter of the world's population, was truly British, not English. The Scots, primarily, but also the Welsh and the Irish, responded to the new opportunities with enthusiasm. Scottish regiments, Scottish traders and Scottish missionaries were everywhere. Glasgow was known as the second city of the empire. Scottish migrants founded many settlements in the Dominions.
Many Scots, particularly in the 19th century, saw the British empire as an imperial partnership whereby England and Scotland fulfilled their destiny. In A Partnership for Good? Richard Finlay writes that "support for empire was one of the few issues that commanded a general consensus in Scottish intellectual and political circles. The Scots regarded themselves as a 'mother nation' of the empire... They rejoiced in their self-proclaimed status as a 'race of empire builders.'"
Just as the empire helped to create and strengthen the concept of a British nation, so the dissolution of that empire over the past 50 years has had a profound effect on the unity of the kingdom. We live in an age when the smaller nations of Europe and the world have been asserting themselves to an unprecedented degree. A UN which began with fewer than 50 members now has more than 180-and is still growing. The Soviet Union has disintegrated into 16 states, Yugoslavia into five, and Indonesia is starting to follow. No nation has felt itself fulfilled without its own parliament; the UK has not been immune from that process.
It has become fashionable to assume that the end result will be the dissolution of the British state and the emergence of England and Scotland at least, and possibly of Wales, as independent states, perhaps sharing a monarch, perhaps not. Davies says that this is the logical consequence of the devolution which has already been introduced. I disagree.
The claim is that, with the end of empire, the alternative framework of the EU and the new institutions of the Scottish parliament and the Welsh assembly, Britain will wither away. I have no doubt that these developments-particularly the devolved parliaments-will have a profound effect. They will lead to a different, quasi-federal kingdom, but the British are not about to disappear from history.
Nations break up when their constituent peoples cease to feel a common identity. This has not yet happened in Britain. It is said that many Scots now consider themselves Scottish first and British second, whereas in the past it was the other way round. A minority of Scots (about a quarter) would like to sever the link with England and opt for a Scottish state. But these are a minority-and there is no convincing evidence that they will become a majority in the foreseeable future. In Wales, the possibility of full independence is even more improbable.
This should not surprise us. The empire as a source of cohesion has disappeared, but powerful common interests and a common identity persist, which bind together the British people.
The first of these factors is that the English, Scots and Welsh share a small island off the northwest coast of continental Europe. Being an island does not ensure a single nation or state, but it makes it much more likely. (Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines and Madagascar come to mind as among the largest of the world's island territories. Those which are divided, such as Hispaniola-between Haiti and the Dominican Republic-New Guinea, or Timor, owe their divisions to the arbitrary effects of their colonial past.)
An island creates a psychological and political assumption among its inhabitants that they should share political institutions. Why else did the southern Irish lay claim to Northern Ireland for 70 years? If both territories had been part of mainland Europe, it is doubtful that emotions would have been so powerful or sustained for so long.
Much of Britain's present difficulties with the EU derive from a belief that the latter exists primarily to meet the needs of continental Europe. Britain's unique history-its role as a naval power, its overseas empire, its freedom from invasion or occupation for centuries-have all led to a conviction that our interests and priorities are different from those of our continental neighbours. Such assumptions are as prevalent in Wales or in Scotland as they are in England, and serve to create a common international identity.
The second factor which binds Britain together is the English language. English may be fast becoming the global language, but there is not a single country in continental Europe which uses English as its first tongue. In Britain, however, 100 per cent of the English (apart from some first-generation immigrants), 98 per cent of Scots and more than 80 per cent of the Welsh speak English at home, and almost all the remainder can do so when they wish. Britain is therefore quite different from Belgium, Canada or the original Pakistan, where language has been an intense political issue which has gravely weakened national unity.
We are told-by some in hope and by others in despair-that the existence of thriving nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales make it only a matter of time before they succeed in their aims and destroy the unity of the kingdom. It is undoubtedly true that such parties exist and that they command significant, enthusiastic support in some quarters. But if the existence of large and enthusiastic communist parties in France and Italy for almost 50 years did not make communism triumphant, why should the SNP or Plaid Cymru expect any greater success? Neither nationalist party is dominant in Edinburgh or Cardiff. Even if they were, secession would be no more inevitable than it has been in Catalonia, where the nationalists have controlled the parliament for four successive elections but Catalonia has remained as Spanish as ever.
Part of the explanation is in the nature of nationalism in Scotland or Wales. In many parts of the world, nationalist movements are born of a sense of oppression by the dominant power. That was what gave rise to African nationalism in South Africa and to Irish nationalism in the 19th century. Scottish nationalism, however, was not the result of any oppression by England, but of irritation with England. Irritation is not the stuff of which martyrs are made. That is why other countries produced Mandela, Gandhi or Parnell, but Scotland has had to make do with Alex Salmond. It is a different kind of nationalism, with different consequences.
There is another weakness in the argument about the inevitability of Britain's demise. Such argument makes much of the fact that Britain is an artificial creation: the result of England's desire to expand its power and control. Its supporters point to the different cultural traditions and historic experiences of England and Scotland; to the tensions which surface from time to time; and to the fact that the UK has existed for fewer than 300 years. The end of empire, and the alternative which now exists in the EU, make it certain (they say) that Britain will disintegrate and England, Scotland and Wales will emerge as separate states.
But if this reasoning is valid, why should the process cease with the disappearance of the UK? England, as Davies reminds us, is itself a relatively recent creation. Like Britain, there have been various nations (the Saxons, Celts, Normans and Danes) which have contributed to England's emergence. Cornwall has a distinct national identity which it does not share with the rest of England. The northeast, in many respects, feels closer to Scotland than to Surrey. And in Scotland the reconciliation of highlands and lowlands is a relatively recent phenomenon, too. The highlands were Gaelic-speaking, the lowlands spoke Lallans, while the Northern Isles were Norse. Even today, people in Orkney or Shetland talk of going to Scotland, thinking of themselves as quite distinct. Wales, too, has deep divisions between the English-speaking south, the Welsh-speaking north and an anglicised Pembrokeshire.
The political fragmentation of Scotland, England or Wales might seem far-fetched today, but so would the fragmentation of the UK have seemed, a few short years ago. I do not believe that either will happen; but with Kosovo, Chechnya and Montenegro aspiring to statehood, nothing is impossible. But if we believe that the fragmentation of Europe would be destabilising and undesirable, then we should champion the UK as the most successful example of how old enemies over the generations have become free and equal citizens of a united kingdom. What hope would there be for a united Europe if even the English and the Scots felt that they no longer had enough common interests, identity or values which made them wish to share their political institutions?
Any study of the debates over the Act of Union in 1707 shows that what the Scots would have preferred at that time was a union with England which allowed some kind of Scottish parliament to continue. That is what now exists; and most Scots seem content with the current division of powers between Holyrood and Westminster. There is no evident desire by the Welsh to split from England (although it is only a matter of time before the Welsh assembly is given legislative powers) and Northern Ireland is not going to leave the UK in the foreseeable future.
That leaves England. It is conceivable that the English could become alienated from the union-rather as the Czechs became frustrated with Slovak demands and decided to concede independence before it was demanded. But although some of our chattering classes like to speculate on such a possibility, it is unlikely. The Conservative party (which might be thought to have a political advantage in the departure of Scotland from the union) has rejected such an option in uncompromising terms. Where there will be vigorous debate will be in completing the process of devolution by ensuring that purely English issues are dealt with at Westminster in a manner that is fair to the English-the so-called West Lothian question.
There is no reason why the Scots and Northern Irish, with legislative parliaments of their own, should wish to vote on domestic English issues. A parliamentary convention that they should not do so would be far preferable to options such as an English parliament or regional English assemblies, for which there is no demand. As we would not want to create two classes of MPs, the best procedure would be to ensure that when the Speaker certified that a Bill was only relevant to England, its second reading would take place in a new English Grand Committee which would consist of all English MPs. There would evolve a strong convention that the government would not seek to impose a Bill on England, which had been rejected by English MPs, by using votes from the other parts of the kingdom. This would ensure that England was not the only part of the UK which did not enjoy devolution.
There is a foolish belief in some quarters that with a Scottish parliament there is now little for Scottish MPs to do at Westminster. This is untrue. The economy, taxation, social security, Europe, pensions, defence, foreign affairs have not been devolved. More than two thirds of the Bills in the Queen's Speech for the next session will apply throughout the UK, not just to England. Westminster remains mainly a British parliament.
The other flaw in Davies's conclusions is with regard to the EU and its likely evolution. He says, correctly, that small states can flourish in Europe. Ireland is the best example from an economic point of view. But Ireland's international irrelevance, until it joined the EU, was its own choice. It remained neutral during the second world war; it declined to join Nato or the Western European Union; it made a virtue of neutrality and isolation. Thankfully this has now changed, but it did not need the EU for this to happen.
Nor is it realistic to present Europe as an alternative to Britain for most English, Scots or Welsh. I am no hardline Eurosceptic, but few people in Britain think of themselves as having a European nationality. None of our political parties operate as European parties and our elections (including those for the European parliament) are fought on domestic issues and on British manifestos. This might change one day, but only when Scots feel, on most things that matter, that they have more in common with the Portuguese, Greeks or Germans than they do with the English or Welsh. We are light years from such a situation.
The Isles is a splendid, refreshing book. It is a timely reminder of the diversity and interdependent history of the various peoples of our country. As long as the author dwells on what has been, he is a powerful and convincing advocate. When he is tempted to switch from historian to prophet, I bid him farewell. The future may not be what it used to be, but the British people are not about to disappear.
