Why does England vote Tory

An article written 18 months ago was recently brought to my attention. As someone who has never voted Tory in my life, but who is also English I have also thought long and hard about this over the past 30 years or so myself.

The article (written by Adam Ramsay) who appears to be an extreme progressive (ie someone in the realm of being a communist) raised some fairly reasonable issues that could describe the phenomena but it also missed exploring an area far more important and that is the reason England tends towards Tory is fluid rather than an immovable object.

Reasons change.

So let's break this down.

"Progressives will never dominate English politics without confronting Churchillism"

As a subheading it's not looking promising. While growing up Churchill was always presented to me as a war-time leader who made a stand against an evil that threatened the very existence of the Western World.

Do note. Britain voted Churchill out of office before the War had officially ended. But let's move on.

"As Anthony Barnett warned before the referendum, Brexit was driven by England, and can only really be understood as an English cry for help."

Not so much a cry for help, more of a cry to be heard.

"Perhaps more significant, though, are two other differences. The first is that English voters overwhelmingly think that the empire was a good thing"

No, even the poll you reference states a number of 46% I would be far fairer to suggest that England remains indifferent as some of the other findings in your poll suggests. How you managed to garner such an opinion seems rather strange

Organised enthusiasm for the Windsors is also much weaker in Scotland. During the 2012 Queen’s Jubilee, there were 9,500 street parties in England and Wales, but only 60 in Scotland.

Disingenuous at best. While the stats do suggest much stronger support for monarchy in England and Wales. You do realise that roughly 67,000,000 people live in England & Wales and only around 5,400,000 live in Scotland. In fact, I know you do, are you just gaslighting?

If we want to understand why England votes Tory, this basket of issues seems to point to the answer

No, it really does not

But as long as the idea of Britishness is tied to the monarch – and therefore the class system – and Empire – and therefore racism – the Tories were always going to win the struggle to represent it. 

And now you're drifting towards fantasy land. While the monarch may represent an idea of britishness, it is a tiny fraction of that idea. Empire as an example of britishness is so far wide of the mark that I struggle to see the mark at all. But you did mention one thing that does have relevance, racism. But, linking Britishness to racism is warped thinking and I'll cover that later.

"The deep desire to make Britain ‘Great again’ which drives this nationalism takes form in a whole collection of policies: Brexit and the desire to return to imperial glories is the most obvious"

No, that's not it at all. Not only have you concluded that England enjoys a bit of racism, you've tacked on an English desire to resurrect Empire. It is completely and utterly the opposite of that.

But the double helix in the DNA of these issues is sentimentality about the empire, and support for the monarchy

I am fairly sure there are some people may think that. But I have not met a single person in my life that honestly believes that and i come from a very much working class background and I've been on this planet for quite a few decades now.

"It’s this feeling that makes England Conservative (even if not generally conservative): the Tories are the party of Anglo-British nationalism and Empire, the party of the ruling class. And the underlying message in much of Anglo-British nationalism is that posh people – and the monarchy first of all – ought to be in charge. That is, after all, who ran things when Britain was ‘great’."

Double down all you like. Even tripling down will not change the fact that these conclusions you're making are demonstrably wrong.

"In the 2019 election, Corbyn came unstuck on two issues whose dominance can only really be understood when we think about the character of Anglo-British nationalism."

It was many more than than 2 reasons but go on

"With Brexit, this is perhaps obvious. With antisemitism, less so"

The man was trying to overturn a democratic vote. I personally voted to remain in the EU, but I accepted it, I knew the reasons why, none of which you have touched on.

"What’s fascinating about all of this isn’t that it’s true. After all, nationalism is as much the dominant political ideology of our age as capitalism is the dominant economic system. We live in a world of nation states, to which billions of people feel loyal. What’s interesting is that ‘the British’ never talk about it."

We're English, we don't need to brag about our Englishness, nor our "Britishness" Why do you feel we need to?

"Over the last half decade, this has begun to change. The Scottish independence referendum forced Englishness and Britishness to mumble their own names. The Brexit referendum helped some of England’s liberals to better understand the country they live in. The decline of Anglo-Britain has meant that Anglo-Britishness has started to become visible, no longer such an overwhelming force that it blends into the background"

Not really. even 18 months into the future from this article we're still face with a Labour party that might just get a small minority government. Empirical evidence suggests they should be miles ahead.

"And in the past couple of weeks, it’s taken another few steps towards the spotlight. As well as being a flash of artistic genius and magnificent act of liberation, the toppling of the Colston statue unleashed a vast process of pedagogy."

It's not how I would describe it. As a controversial statue it should have been placed in a museum years ago. But what you see as a genius act of liberation, I see an act of criminality and so does a huge swathe of the population.

"By shifting the focus of British audiences watching Black Lives Matter protests from America-watching to self introspection, it jolted millions of people into an unprecedented process of teaching and learning."

No, what started out in the early 2000's has now become common parlance throughout the country. Britain is racist, white privilege is rampant, Empire was evil and the white man needs to sit down, shut up and listen.

Think of who you're telling that to. White, working class Britain is being castigated not only by some sections of the media and the state sponsored BBC, but also by the very party that claims to represent it. In a nutshell

"You're privileged, you're racist, the whole system was built for your benefit, we're going to bash you over the head with this for a decade or so. Oh, and please vote for us. Yours sincerely, The Labour Party.

Oddly enough, that argument didn't persuade me, I can't understand why. And the majority of people voting for Brexit kinda proved that argument didn't work for them either.

The saddest part is, other than honest reflection, Labour have just doubled down on the rhetoric. Yet amazingly, the message still hasn't got through.

"Reni Eddo-Lodge’s brilliant history of recent British race politics – Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race – became (astonishingly) the first book by a Black British author to top the best-seller charts, with the next four slots also filled by Black authors’ books about race in Britain, representing the front carriages in a long pedagogical train sweeping the country."

Here's a hint, most working class people don't go out buying the latest books particularly political ones telling them how racist they are. 

The people that buy books like this are people that already agree with the argument they want to make. Books that preach to a choir are hardly grounds of a claim that something is sweeping the country. This is not something the working class people are interested in.

"But the opposite of being controversial is being ignored, and once the thesis and antithesis are thrashed out, a new uneasy synthesis will emerge, England will have a better understanding of itself. And politically, that’s a good thing."

England already has a good understanding of itself. What it doesn't understand however is why academics feel obliged to tell them what they are (racists) who they are (gammons) and why they need to take a look at themselves (Do your own research you racist gammon)

"I write all of this because last week, I published an excellent essay"

Oh really? Do you know a few days ago I proved to everyone that I was brilliant? My oh my am I bloody awesome!

Let's skip forwards a bit shall we

"When I tweeted it, a number of progressives, including Observer columnist Nick Cohen and the brilliant anti-austerity economist Simon Wren Lewis, responded to the effect that this was falling into a trap. The right is desperate to turn an awkward conversation about race, racism and Empire into a flame war over Churchill"

Well, all these amazing thinkers are also very wrong, all this talk about race, racism and Empire may sound wonderfully clever in these niche circles. But they have little no impact on the wider public.

"Churchill is the founding father of modern Anglo-Britain"

No he's not. He's an important historical figure as controversial then as he is now.

Margaret Thatcher is the mother of modern Britain whether we like it or not. Churchill is a figure we look back on as a necessary voice in a terrifying time. A magnificent writer and orator who inspired, cajoled and left us a legacy of easy quotes to fondly remember.

That is who he is. A spirit to conjure up feelings of nationalism yes, but someone who is revered as something akin to a God? Only someone with a warped perspective would come to such a conclusion

"His personal story is the story of modern British nationalism – the gassing of Kurds, the starving of Bengalis, the Mau Mau concentration camps; and the defeating of European fascism, the post-war rebuilding, the famous qualified defence of democracy."

OK, I get it, you dislike the man. Many at the time would agree, many do so now. But to boil down his personal story to this paragraph is pretty shameful to be honest.

"While Thatcher is recent enough that the battles about her time in office are well remembered, Churchill – equally controversial in his era – has been turned into the guard dog of Anglo-British nationalism, the hero in the mythical national story. "

Wrong again. He may be portrayed as that by certain parts of the media, but he is also demonised in other parts. 

Churchill is the anti-hero, that's how most people I have ever met see him and how most people I know today see him

"While the pandemic may finally move Britain on from Thatcherism, steps taken away from what Anthony Barnett has called Churchillism are just as big a prize. And that’s impossible without addressing the man himself, for his myth is the national myth, the memory of him is the false memory of ourselves."

I disagree, but you seem like a rather fluffy little poodle that won't let go of this bone, let's move on, let's move much, much further on.

"over decades, the right has always summoned it in time for a potentially close election: 1983 and the flag-waving of the Falklands War, 1992 and the Gulf War, 2010 and Gordon Brown being too Scottish, 2015 and Ed Miliband being too willing to listen to Scottish people, 2019 and Brexit. This is the grip that the papers have on England, the cross-series plot which keeps the nation in thrall and in line."

You really need to check on how many people actually bother reading papers these days, the numbers would surprise you I think

"The statement that Black Lives Matter. Most people have progressive instincts, and facing the truth about the imperial past, believe it to be foul. And, for the first time in centuries, most British people alive today were born after the fall of the Empire."

You must be joking here? OK we're 18 months further on than this article

The statement that Black Lives Matter pointed in one direction and one direction only...Marxism. Now unless you think communism is a great idea, then forgive me while I laugh.

"There can be no better time than this for a long overdue process of national learning about England, Britain and Empire. There is no other way to do this than through the polarised process of online argument and this means there is no way to avoid the subject of Churchill. It may be awkward but it is also deeply rewarding: whether or not you agree that Churchill must fall, we must surely agree that we have to end the silence about what he really stood for."

You've failed on almost every point so far and this penultimate paragraph is no different

England is not obsessed with Empire, neither are they obsessed with Churchill. England, that is working class England does not take kindly to being demonised. That is not what we stand for, and it isn't something we have ever stood for.

Brexit wasn't an English "cry for help" 

It was an English "fuck off and stop treating us like lepers"

Yet still, you can't understand the message.