II. Amorphous peoples will not succeed: a lesson for ‘the north’

POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY, Vol. 12, No. 2, March 1993,156-160

II. Amorphous peoples will not succeed: a lesson for ‘the North’ NEYILLE DOUGLAS Department

of Geography, Queen’s University Be&$

BT7 lNN, UK

Peter Taylor has set before us a polemic written slightly tongue-in-cheek but with sincerity from within ‘the North’. It highlights the many growing strands of inequality within the UK much contibuted to by a centralizing central government and its Thatcherite ideology in the 1980s. With inequality prompting an awareness of separate identity, Taylor asks ‘how long some degree of autonomy can be kept off the political agenda’ (p. 137). There is clearly a need felt by Taylor to put the North-South divide in England onto the political geography agenda. What better way than provoking responses to this paper? The first reaction of this commentator is that the description of the cultural distinctions and ‘feelings’ of the peoples of ‘the North’ is oblique and insubstantial. It sets out how others (especially Southerners) view ‘the North’ and how Northerners react to how others view them. There is little on how Northerners view themselves in the context of England. To relate how Northerners have been excluded is of lesser importance than to establish directly what it is that makes people who live in the north of England Northerners. Only such a direct approach can begin to answer the critical question: what implications do distinctive and inclusive cultural traits and processes have for behavioural dispositions and action? More must be known of what it means to be a Northerner apart from being different from a Southerner. This basic point can be carried further by considering two of Taylor’s (over) statements: ‘The two parts of England are not just different, they are opposites. The South represents the English, the North the Unenglish. ‘The North is the ‘Other’ that defines it own nationalism!’ (p. 146); and ‘. the UK is a multi-national state .’ (p, 148). Thus the UK must comprise not just the Scats, Welsh and Northern Irish but also the (Southern) English and the (Northern) Unenglish. Having established such a multi-national position, the term nation is not used throughout Taylor’s paper, rather ‘the North’ is described as a region or set of regions, The obvious question arises: in the context of this paper how best can ‘nation’ and ‘region’ be defined? Nation and region A nation comprises a people with common and distinctive attributes occupying a more or less definite territory. A nation may be organized as a separate political unit or, it not, if will have a significant desire for political and territorial recognition. The desire may be lying dormant awaiting conditions favourable for its realization. A region comprises a portion of

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the earth’s surface more or less defined by distinctive features. In the political context set out in Taylor’s paper, the region is made distinctive by cultural features, identity and outlook. So then is the region not the nation? The answer must be-‘no’. What distinguishes the nation is the desire for political and territorial recognition and the group security and control which separateness affords. The region can exist with and often happily accept the political status quo, given a degree of administrative recognition, but for the nation autonomy is a strongly-felt need. While this distinction is made, it should be understood that nation and region are not mutually exclusive in the human mind. John Hewitt, a poet from another part of the multi-variate UK, made this clear: I’m an Ulsterman, of planter stock. I was born on the island of Ireland, so secondarily I’m an Irishman. I was born in the British archipelago and English is my native tongue, so I am British. The British archipelago consists of offshore islands in the Continent of Europe, so I’m European. This is my hierarchy of values. anyone who omits one step in that sequence of values is falsifying the situation (Warner, 1981: 6).

Individuals and groups have a hierarchy of cultural values and a range of aspirations which because they are seldom complementary must be set into a frame of political priorities. While these priorities may change, entrenchment of existing values is the norm.

‘The North’-nation

or region?

Hewitt’s statement describes the values that are clearly recognized and sharply prioritized in Northern Ireland as part of the UK. Unionists, for example, with their fine-tuned political antennae, would quickly question Hewitt’s secondary priority. But what of ‘the North’? What are its distinctive values and are its aspirations strongly set in clear political priorities? Is ‘the North’ a nation or a region? To answer we must return to the question posed earlier: how do Northerners view themselves in the context of England? An individual living in the north of England will have a set of values, for example, a resident of Sheffield may have a local loyalty to Hillsborough or Bramall Lane, have a regional loyalty to Yorkshire or perhaps south Yorkshire, a loyalty to ‘the North’ as well as to England, Britain, the UK and Europe. If ‘the North’ is a nation, then it will be such because individuals give priority to Northern values and hold aspirations for Northern territorial and political autonomy. All other loyalties must either fit in or be capable of being jettisoned, permanently or temporarily, when it comes to the crunch. In a state ruled by a government with a centralizing ethos devolution/autonomy will not be granted from above, it can only be forced from below. Thus ‘the North’ must know and recognize itself before its aspirations will be given recognition on wider political agendas. The weaknesses in the North’s case appear both external and internal. Few groups outside ‘the North’ recognize it as a positive and forceful cultural and political unit. Few people within or beyond England would recognize national political distinctions between citizens of Sunderland and Swindon. For the Welsh, to go ‘North’ has more to do with sporting than with political priorities. In Northern Ireland, the term ‘Brit’ - used to describe those born in Great Britain-has come to be widely used, by both Nationalist and Unionist. In its use, no distinction is made between the English North and the English South. There is a perceived lack of distinctive ‘Northern’ traits. It is the Scats who play the pipes and the Welsh who have the language. If the nations of the UK fail to recognize a distinctive ‘North’ what chance Europe? Internal weaknesses are well documented by

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Taylor himself. The use of the term ‘region’ rather than ‘nation’, the recognition of sub-regional competitiveness within ‘the North’, the problem of a capital-city location, all attest to the politically debilitating division of value priorities. The fact that Taylor ends his paper by focusing on the North East suggests that should greater autonomy come to ‘the North’, for whatever reason, it would result in an autonomy of regions rather than an autonomous region. In essence, this pessimistic conclusion-despite Taylor’s affirmative leaps of faith-answers the critical question. The conclusion is that in ‘the North’ cultural traits and processes and place identity appear to provide no strong, sharp focus for political action. More research may prove the contrary but without it ‘the more amorphous “peoples” that might have been’ (p. 137) will remain a neglected theme. While a fully-informed answer must await research, comparison with other threatened or aspirant nations will suggest the road ‘the North’ must follow in its quest for autonomy. Amorphous (i.e. belonging to no type; uncrystallized-Oxford English Dictionary) peoples will not succeed. The Northern Ireland Unionist’s simplistic but clear sloganized philosophies such as ‘Not an inch’, ‘Who is not for us is against us’, and ‘This we will maintain’ point to the clarity, determination and absence of subtlety that is needed to make secure a threatened constitutional position. The single-mindedness and stubbornness of, for example, Latvians, Lithuanians, Croats and Slovaks suggest some of the values needed to achieve constitutional change. Does ‘the North’ have the qualities, the endurance and even the necessary vitriol to overcome the status quo of the devil we know? The scenarios

(i) A British state future: ~~~~e Britain The doubt cast on the viability of this scenario in the foregoing discussion, together with Taylor’s own pessimistic conclusion, permits a rapid advance to the second scenario. (ii) An Englhb nationalfuture:

Heritage North asprovince

This possibility is based upon the initial belief that ‘it is too late to save the UK as a state with territory on both main islands of the British archipelago’ (p. 149). With Northern Ireland cast adrift, it is argued, the Scats and Welsh will follow, leaving the separate English nation with its Northern Heritage province. ‘The North’ thus becomes peripheral and colonial to the core English ‘South’. If the break up of the UK is to be triggered by and dependent upon the removal of Northern Ireland, then it is necessary to examine the vital issue of who is going to sever the constitutional knot. The Unionists will not, unless, faced with the reunification of Ireland, they opt for UDI. While ‘the North’ may complain that it is not Siberia, Northern Ireland has to protest that it is not on another planet-yet a large majority of its population holds fast to the UK constitutional link. The Irish Republic will not force re-unification; while it remains an unmet aspiration, re-unification functions as a valuable pipedream pillar of the state, to be used as a diversion when internal problems threaten the government of the day. No re-unification until a majority in Northern Ireland desire it is not an obstacle to unity; it is a protection against it. Recent surveys of political attitudes in the Irish Republic consistently show that reunification is less than a burning issue. The Survey and Research Unit of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, inJune 1992 found that 51 percent of the population in the Irish Republic would accept the status quo in Northern Ireland provided devolved

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power-sharing was in place (MacGreil, 1992). An Ztib Times poll published in April 1991 found that 82 percent of the population of the Irish Republic were prepared to postpone Irish unity to help bring about an internal settlement in Northern Ireland (Irish Times, 23 April 1991). For many demographic and economic reasons, the Irish Republic has become more concerned with Brussels than with Belfast. This leads to the conclusion, therefore, that only the British government could effect the severance of Northern Ireland. While there may be temptations to follow such a path-with 55 percent of the population of Great Britain in favour of the reunification of Ireland (Jowell et al., 1990)-there are also considerable economic and political disincentives. In Taylor’s own words ‘Left to their own devices, the powers-that-be in the existing political core are hardly likely to pursue their own destruction’ (pp. 149-150). As for Heritage North as a province, it is possible to agree with Taylor’s scenario. As a future condition, however, it is more likely to occur as part of the British rather than as part of an English state. To a growing degree, there exist already Heritage Wales, Heritage Scotland and even Heritage Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Tourist Board recently aroused the ire of local politicians by publicizing the conflict in the Province as a tourist anaction. As a working but relatively safe laboratory of traditional national conflict, its practice of alternative values holds many attractions for visitors, so why not sell its conflict heritage alongside the natural scenery? The problem with ‘the North’ is that while its industrial achievements and traditions provide a worthy heritage, they are all too recent-even too contemporary-to provide a believable base for heritage satisfaction. Yet an ingrained, long-standing and valued distinctive cultural heritage is a vital part of any national identity and a significant element in a self-recognized regional consciousness. The Celts of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland can put their distinctiveness to economic use and at the same time preserve and even reinforce cultural and, for some, national identities. ‘The North’ has yet to suffer the period of inequalities which leads to the strong recognition of difference before it can move to the stage when such differences have positive impacts on the political agenda. Taylor’s view of Heritage North is, in essence, a crie de coeUY against the unequal human environmental and spatial consequences of state and international capitalism. The crux of the matter is: what do the people of ‘the North’ wish to do about it?

(iii) A European

regionalfuture:

a region in waiting?

This is a more positive scenario containing the seeds of a limited solution. A ‘Europe of the regions’ could well lead to recognition of ‘the North’ as a unit with distinct problems and a distinct voice. Recognition, however, would come more willingly from Brussels than from London. Subsidiarity in theory is much applauded by Conservative leaders but, given the governmental record and rise of the ‘Golden Rule’ (p. 152), in practice it will be strictly from the ‘teeth out’. What advantages would ‘the North’ gain from regional recognition? A focused voice in a wider assembly and an outlet for frustration would be one outcome, but substantial economic benefits would be doubtful. Should subsidiarity in the EC occur, as seems likely, within a state rather than a regional framework, then little will change. Reluctant application of additional&y and exclusion from the 58 bn cohesion fund agreed at Maastricht will leave slim economic pickings for poor regions outside the poorest EC states. For example, Northern Ireland, the only Objective 1 region in the UK, received over A550 m. in EC structural funds at the last negotiations in 1989. By comparison, it receives over dt2000 m. per annum from the British Exchequer. In this context, the call for Northern

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Ireland to rejoin the Irish Republic and so receive the full benefit due to the poorest countries of the EC holds little attraction. So it must be with ‘the North’ in the EC regional context. Regional autonomy would provide a voice, but limited public funds. Since its creation in 1973, the ERDF has at best managed only to slow down the increase in regional inequality (Williams, 1991). For ‘the North’, the status quo will therefore remain the safest economic option.

Conclusion So where lies the political and constitutional future of ‘the North’? It is unarguable that the status quo will be hard to change-certainly more difficult than Taylor suggests. When it is recognized that constitutional change will not come from the beneficence and altruism of ‘others’ but from forces within, then ‘the North’ in its search for change could learn much from the troubled history of Northern Ireland within the UK. Singularly prioritized political values, tunnel vision focused on the constitutional objective and a willingness to act in unpopular ways have long been understood as fundamentally necessary if objectives are to be maintained and/or achieved. The focus must not slip in the face of criticism and ridicule-only such resolve over extended periods of time can safeguard existing or achieve newly-desired political goals. This is simply to illustrate the basic requirements placed upon a people who desire constitutional or even administrative change from entrenched political positions. Does ‘the North’ have the resolve to force such change? The case is not proven in Taylor’s paper, but the need for its greater consideration is clearly established. In the final analysis, the potential for recognition-political, economic, constitutional-lies not with Westminster or Brussels but with ‘the North’ itself. References JOWFIL,R., WITHERSPOON, S ANDBROOK,L., VTTHTAYLOR, B. (1990). RritishSocialAttitudes, 7th RepOrt.London, Gower. MACGREIL, M. (1992). Irish Political Attitudes and Opinions. Maynooth: St Patrick’s College. WARNER, A. (1981). The Selected/oh Hewitt. Belfast: Blackstaff Press. WILLIAMS, A.M. (1991). 7’heEuropean Community. Oxford: Blackwell.