Nairn and the Break-up of Britain
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1978.tb01527.x |
| Date | 01 March 1978 |
| Published date | 01 March 1978 |
| Author | R. W. Johnson |
| Subject Matter | Review Articles |
REVIEW ARTICLES
NAIRN AND
THE
BREAK-UP
OF
BRITAIN*
R.
W.
JOHNSON
Magdalen College, Oxford
FOR
a long time now anyone who wanted to know what was ‘wrong’ with British
politics had only to glance at much that was written on the subject to realize that this
literature was part
of
the problem, not part
of
the solution. Not only were many
of
the
best general works written by foreigners (McKenzie, Rose, Hechter, Beer) but
so
were
not a few of the more detailed works (Stokes, Eckstein, Wilson, Roth). The best
of
the
natives were generally interested in Abroad (especially France), Sociology, or the latest
euphemism for poor countries. What there was of
a
literature indighe
hovered
uncomfortably in
a
stodgy nether-world peopled by the ghosts of Burke, Bagehot, and
Jennings. The best empirical work was generally done in biography or contemporary
history; beyond that topics often appeared to
be
chosen on the grounds of their truly
heart-breaking triviality and boredom-the organization
of
the civil service, local
government, ombudsmen, the Commons’ committee system, or the world
of
the lobby
correspondent. The world passed such writing by and most students, thank heavens,
passed it up.
It is in part this dismal context which makes Tom Nairn’s book
so
refreshing. This
is true despite the fact that the book is in fact a collection
of
essays, none
of
which are
brand new. For Nairn argues with power and sophistication, situates all he says in
historical context and broaches the large question of the decline
of
the British state.
He writes with the polemical thrust and analytical sophistication one has come to
expect
of
editors
of
New
Lefr
Review
but with something more as well. Mr. Nairn lives
in Scotland these days and has clearly received
a
large intellectual and emotional jolt
from the rise of Celtic nationalism. The result is
a
mood
of
chastened and rather
angry
realism, with marxist theory more frequently than not found wanting. This is not
a
book
which ends by charting the true path to revolution. Indeed, Nairn clearly neither hopes
for nor expects the fulfilment
of
his (past?) socialist hopes but he is altogether more
interesting than the usual socialist renegade. What Nairn has clearly broken from (and
with some force) is not socialism
so
much as from a metropolitan intelligentsia which
is in part socialist. The basic position
of
such an intelligentsia, he writes,
‘
. . .
is one
of frustration at home, they have found it difficult not to make
a
mythology
of
anti-
imperialism.
.
.
history has forced most of them to
be
content with home-movies
of
the world revolution’
(248).
In particular such intellectuals have found themselves
acting simultaneously
as
cheer-leaders
of
‘progressive’ Third World nationalisms while
deprecating any dim echo
of
domestic nationalism. Vietnamese patriotism (for example)
is splendid, heroic; British (or Welsh or Scots or English) patriotism is ludicrous, even
monstrous.
Nairn is keen, above all, to reestablish the relevance of the ‘national question’. For
all that rnarxism may have provided the nearest means to understanding the phenomenon
*Tom
Nairn,
The Break-Up
of
Britain. Crisis and Neo-Nationalism.
(London,
New
Left
Books
1977).
368
pp.,
f7.50.
Political
Studies,
Vol.
XXVI,
No.
l(119-122).
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