Meanwhile in the UK… plans for ‘Britishness’ day and a ‘Britons first’ labour policy.

Whilst debate rages in France about the new ministry of immigration and national identity I discover to my horror that a very similar process is afoot in the UK. According to the BBC Ruth Kelly, Communities secretary and Liam Byrne, Immigration Minister (a junior post in the Home Office, not a cabinet position for any curious French readers) are planning to introduce a national ‘Britain day’ (and more details from the Guardian). The whole thing makes my skin creep – no prizes for guessing who the most enthusiastic flag-wavers will be if this is introduced… I’ve written previously about the reasons why I think this is a totally wrong-headed approach, especially when completely arbitrary (there isn’t even any consensus about which day it should be and if they choose a day linked to ‘the’ war, which they might, I hereby declare that I will… well I don’t know what but I’ll do think of something dramatic to do anyway). That’s not to suggest that all the floated policy proposals are foolish; I’m in favour of anything that encourages community participation, as long as the same conditions apply to everyone, regardless of their origins or nationality. But the problem – as in France – is the explicit association between immigration and national identity.

Meanwhile Gordon Brown is promising a ‘Britons first’ policy for the job market: from the Independent:

“We are about to sign agreements for the Olympics and the construction trade so that the jobs in London go to people who are trained up here in Britain to get the jobs that are available,” he said.

“I want to extend it too to the hospitality trade, to construction and to the financial services. I want… these jobs to go to British workers with skills that are given by us to enable them to get the jobs that are available,” he said.

Mr Brown also promised that he would give priority to growing concern about crime and anti-social behaviour. “People are worried about what is happening to the British way of life.”

Brown is talking about favouring British workers over members of other EU states – a total nonsense since this would be illegal anyway. The unions apparently fear an influx of Polish workers who will undercut UK salaries. But instead of encouraging xenophobic bile with an argument lifted straight from the BNP (Britain for the British, la France aux francais etc.), Brown should be 1) campaigning to ensure that all the other member states also open their borders (I’m not sure where we are with this, am I right in thinking that the exemption for eastern European workers that applies almost everywhere apart from Britian and Ireland is about to expire anyway? Which will certainly take some of the pressure off) 2) making the case for Europe as the source of greater prosperity for all in the long term 3) working to ensure decent wages and conditions for all regardless of their nationality so that the opportunity to undercut salaries is diminished and that no one, British, Polish or who knows, Chinese, is viciously exploited. Moreover, one of the reasons there are so many foreign workers in the construction industry is because there is a lack of skilled labour in the UK workforce. Brown is conjuring up phantom Britons – there simply are not long queues of unemployed British plumbers, electricians etc. – in order to pander to the racists. If he wants to address this, he should be looking to find ways to continue vocational training reform, not attacking the most vulnerable.

And what is this ‘British way of life’ business anyway? I am sick – and frightened – of this cheap, misleading populism.

Jonathan Freedland has some intelligent comment in the Guardian. He remarks:

Ministers have watched Nicolas Sarkozy’s victory in France and concluded that either the left “owns” the tangle of issues around immigration and diversity, or the right wins.

But what’s the point if the left ‘owns’ the argument with the values of the (far-)right? The political left should be distinguishing itself with a politics of humanity, social justice and an ‘ethical’ foreign policy (even if the term has been so widely abused). It disgusts me that it is so keen to chase the right on these issues. Yes, this approach is harder to ’sell’, but rarely has it been more important that politicians do the right thing, not just that which is popular. He continues:

In fairness to Kelly and Byrne, fighting extremism is not their sole motive. They describe a Britishness under multiple pressures – from the rise of online, virtual communities to the greater proportion of people in the workforce. Britons are retreating into niches, rather than spending time with those around them, the way they once did. Now a 14-year-old can play World of Warcraft with a pal in Seattle as easily as kicking a football with the kids next door. It’s not so much Britishness which is fraying, but the very idea of a society defined by the place where we live.

Let’s say that persuades you to accept there is a problem. Do Kelly and Byrne have the solution? The notion of new hoops for migrants to jump through is a dispiriting place to start, if only because it implies that immigration is the source of what is clearly a wider worry. The ministers reply that their aim is simply to make us all value Britishness more, and that means raising the status of citizenship itself. “It shouldn’t be downloadable off the internet, it should be precious,” Byrne told me yesterday.

I share that sentiment, but still fear this could be the wrong approach. It smacks too much of the wagging finger, scolding newcomers to this country, rather than seducing them. For seduction is what’s needed here, persuading migrants that joining this society, becoming a British citizen, is a prize to be yearned for.

The argument that globalization calls national boundaries into question is not new. The idea that globalized and virtual communities engender a retreat from ‘real’ life does not however appear to be based on any empirical evidence (although I am open to correction). Or put this another way: I am a British citizen, living in France. I engage electronically with a worldwide virtual community, both via this blog and through social networking sites. I also volunteer in my neighbourhood, and hope to maintain the very real friendships I have made here, probably through the internet when I return to the UK. Ruth Kelly: are my cross-channel virtual connections (not to mention my cross-Mediterranean affiliations from the time I lived in Tunisia) a threat to national identity? Maybe, in your view, but I’m guessing you probably wouldn’t say so… So why would it be so different if I were Muslim and my friends and family were in Pakistan? Moreover, ever time the flag gets waved in my face I feel less not more British, as if my personal choices – to embrace a European citizenship, to value all forms of transnational solidarity – were being devalued. Kelly and Byrne are building a country in which I relish the prospect of living less and less. And it is not pride they engender but shame.

At the meeting I attended on Friday the question of whether there were groups campaigning elsewhere in Europe against the increasingly common negative association between immigration and national identity (and state measures such as these). No one had any answers. But please, if anyont out there knows of a British group of any sort I could contact, join and put in touch with their French counterparts let me know.

UPDATE

As I increasingly find the Indepedent strikes the most sensible note:

The proposals are, by turns, patronising, bossy, arrogant, gimmicky and deluded.

[...]

The problem is that Mr Byrne and Ms Kelly appear to regard our national culture as something that can be altered by pulling a few levers in Whitehall.

[...]

But underneath all this nonsense there is a serious issue: national cohesion. Its disintegration has been grossly exaggerated. But it is not as robust as it ought to be. And there are things the Government could do to foster a national sense of shared purpose. It could address the creeping social segregation in certain cities by demanding reform of local housing policies. The Government could bring back the free English lessons for migrants that it so shamefully – and hypocritically – scrapped. Ministers should do more to counter the lies of the reactionary press about immigrants and stress the economic benefits they bring (and have historically brought) to the country. They might mention that the NHS could not function without migrant workers.

What it should not be doing is chauvinistically demanding “British workers for British jobs”, as Gordon Brown did yesterday, and spreading the toxic impression that all migrants need a thorough education in “our values” before they are permitted to settle here.

Ministers could ’stress the economic benefits [immigrants] bring (and have historically brought) to the country.’ Now where have I heard that before…? And is it true that the government scrapped free English lessons? When and on what grounds?

UPDATE #2

The Fabian society report is available here.

And the in fact much more measured full report of the Commission on Integration and Cohesion – published 14 June 2007 – is available here.

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