Englishness Politicised?: Unpicking the Normative Implications of the McKay Commission
| Author | Michael Kenny |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-856X.12041 |
| Published date | 01 February 2015 |
| Date | 01 February 2015 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Englishness Politicised?: Unpicking the
Normative Implications of the
McKay Commission
Michael Kenny
Research Highlights and Abstract
This article
• Analyses a major shift in elite-political perceptions of the national identity of the
English and current debates on Englishness.
• Is the first major evaluation of the arguments and implications of the McKay
Commission.
• Gives a distinctive overview of academic and political debates about Englishness
which assesses both sociological and political-science contributions and data, and
argues the case for their better integration.
• Provides an original assessment of the implications of debates about Englishness for
constitutional debates about the UK and normative arguments about national rep-
resentation within the UK legislature
This article draws attention to signs of an emerging consensus within British politics about the
significance of recent shifts in the national identity favoured by the English. It focuses on the nature
and assumptions of this emergent perspective, and critically evaluates the prevalent understanding
of the ‘politicisation’ of Englishness and the different kinds of constitutional and normative
argument that have become prominent in response to the resurgence of this form of identity.
Drawing upon a bevy of recent social-scientific studies of the qualitative dimensions of Englishness,
I make the case for a different, interpretive approach to ‘politicisation’, which reflects a richer and
broader understanding of the causes and implications of the renewal of English nationhood. The
article then explores the findings and underpinning arguments of one particular expression of this
new consensus about the politicisation of English identity—the report published by the McKay
Commission in March 2013. Attention is drawn to the particular blend of arguments that under-
gird its proposals for reform in relation to the West Lothian issue. Tensions between some of its
main normative claims are, it is suggested, symptomatic of a deeper set of dilemmas facing the UK
policy community.
Keywords: Englishness; McKay Commission; West Lothian; constitution
Introduction
This article draws attention to signs of an emerging consensus within British politics
about the significance of recent shifts in the pattern of national identity favoured by
the English. It focuses on the nature and assumptions of this emergent perspective,
and evaluates the different kinds of constitutional and normative arguments that
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doi: 10.1111/1467-856X.12041 BJPIR: 2015 VOL 17, 152–170
© 2014 The Author.British Journal of Politics and International Relations © 2014
Political Studies Association
have developed from it. It then explores the findings and underpinning arguments
of one particularly important manifestation of this gathering consensus—the report
published by the government-appointed McKay Commission in March 2013. Treat-
ing this text as, in some respects, illustrative of this emerging perspective, I draw
attention to the particular blend of arguments that inform the justificatory reason-
ing that underpin its proposals for reform in relation to the West Lothian issue.
Tensions between some of its main normative claims are symptomatic of a deeper
set of dilemmas facing the UK policy community. Above all, the report touches on,
but is unable to resolve, the increasingly pressing question of whether ‘the English
question’ is to be seen as a problem of representation and governance rooted in
constitutional structures—and defined, as much commentary suggests, by the place
of England within the Union following the introduction of an asymmetrical model
of devolution in the late 1990s—or if it needs to be understood in relation to a
broader range of causal dynamics, including a deepening disenchantment with
representative politics, a rising sense of cultural anxiety and a growing demand for
‘recognition’ in political life.
Reappraising the English and their Question
The prediction that a backlash against the asymmetrical model of devolution intro-
duced by the first New Labour government would take hold among the English has
been a familiar accompaniment to much of the academic and policy debate directed
at devolution in the United Kingdom. But while this notion has been a mainstay of
commentary in this area, in the years following these reforms few informed observ-
ers have argued that this expectation has been realised (Curtice 2009, 2010). Using
the longitudinal data supplied by the British Social Attitudes Survey [henceforth
BSA], John Curtice (2009) for instance, insisted that the English remained unin-
terested in emulating devolution and indifferent to its effects throughout this period
(also see Condor 2010). He showed (2009) that while a small proportion came to
feel more strongly that they were English, as opposed to British, in the immediate
aftermath of devolution, no significant shift in terms of national identification, or in
attitudes towards the union, was discernible a decade after it was introduced.
Together with his collaborator Rachel Ormston, he did, however, observe, during
the mid-2000s, a growing sense of irritation among the English directed at the
so-called West Lothian question (whereby MPs from non-English territories are
able to vote on issues affecting England, but English MPs cannot reciprocate in kind
on a number of important issues, as a result of the varying degrees of constrained
autonomy granted to governments in each of these territories) and the distribution
of public expenditure across the territories of the UK (Ormston and Curtice 2010).
Both of these issues figured increasingly prominently in the press—both tabloid and
broadsheet—from 2005 onwards (Skey 2011, 109–111).
Within the political world, the refusal of successive Labour governments to accept
that devolution represented any kind of inequity for the English ensured that this
issue remained confined to the political margins (Kenny and Lodge 2009). This
argument reflected a strong degree of partisanship—shaped by the presumption
that reforms which strengthened the hand of English MPs represented a significant
potential disadvantage for a Labour administration, but not a Conservative
ENGLISHNESS POLITICISED? 153
© 2014 The Author.British Journal of Politics and International Relations © 2014 Political Studies Association
BJPIR, 2015, 17(1)
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