They include the terrible tragedy of the Chinese cockle pickers drowned in Morecambe Bay by the inrushing tide; the manslaughter of a Polish settler in the aftermath of the Brexit vote wrongly – but widely – attributed to post-Brexit antagonism towards foreigners; the East End imam who stood up to a ghastly racist who came to kill Muslims at his mosque; the quiet dignity of the people of Wootton Bassett as they marked the repatriation of British servicemen killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Cowley sees in these a common thread that evinces a new patriotism; but while his choice of stories is interesting, and there is a certain Orwellian (in the best sense) curiosity and insightfulness, I was not persuaded that they knitted together into a coherent narrative of who we are now. He is also searching for an answer as to why Labour has failed so miserably to retain its old working-class base as much as anything else, not least because Jeremy Corbyn was perceived to dislike his own country.
Cowley is the editor of the New Statesman, which he has revived into the most important voice on the political Left. For him and many other Blairites, coming to terms with Labour’s decline and the causes of Brexit is proving hard. He returns to his roots in Harlow, Essex, which relatives remember as being a beacon of Socialist welfare-state utopianism in the 1960s, but which has today lost the working-class community spirit that once held it together. That was itself a hangover from the old London East End, from where many residents of the new town originally came.
But the fundamental difference between then and now is the greater ethnic and cultural diversity of the population brought about by mass immigration. Cowley’s stories signal that he recognises that this has been the most important development of the past 50 years and one that began in 1997. Before Tony Blair, net immigration was about 50,000 a year; since the mid-2000s it has fluctuated between 150,000 and 300,000, by far the greatest in our history. This was bound to have a significant impact on what it is to be British, if not English, since many newcomers associate with the former though not the latter.
Moreover, even if their country has changed as a result, the English do not all live in areas that have been impacted by immigration. The “We” of the title also includes people in the Yorkshire Dales or a Dorset market town, as in Harlow or Rochdale.
Maybe if England had its own parliament and other political institutions – Cowley points out it is the largest country in Europe not to possess them – defining Englishness might be easier. It is a conundrum. As Orwell said, England “like all living things has the power to change out of recognition and yet remain the same”.
Who Are We Now? Stories of Modern England by Jason Cowley is published by Picador at £20. To order your copy for £16.99, call 0844 871 1514 or visit Telegraph Books
