Another England: How to reclaim our national story, by Caroline Lucas

Author: Caroline Lucas. Review by Martina Weitsch

The starting point for this book is its author’s profound sadness at the outcome of the Brexit referendum. Caroline Lucas, of the Green Party, makes a timely attempt to deal with that shocking political decision, in a way that allows those she refers to as ‘progressives’ to move forward. A quote, early on in the book, makes her feelings clear. ‘People have voted the way they did… partly because they were feeling so angry and alienated, and the divisions in this country run so deep.’

The book is a tour de force. Lucas, in searching for the stories that may allow ‘the healing of [these] divisions’, looks to English literature in a way that I did not expect.

One of the fundamental points that she makes is that England does not have a clear national identity. She relates this, at least in part, to the fact that England does not have devolved powers. Brexit was, primarily, an English decision, and alienation and anger were at the root of it. She envisages a future in which England will stand alone, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales having gone their own way. In such a scenario, an English identity is even more important, and it can’t be left to those on the right.

Lucas focuses on the many successful uprisings that could point to a progressive English identity. I loved learning about the ‘Charter of the Forest’. This was a response to William the Conqueror turning large tracts of the commons into royal forests, which were then closed to ordinary people. It undermined the lives and livelihoods of commoners and left them very much poorer.

The connection of people to the land, to nature, and to access to both, are hugely important. We still need to fight for them, and in this book we learn from literature and from history how and when and why our forebears ‘took control’ in a necessary and positive way. There are chapters featuring the Robin Hood story, and the book also references some well-known writers of detective fiction, as well as Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Dickens, and a slew of poets. One chapter looks at the English abroad, with reference to the patriotic Royal Society of St. George, whose namesake probably never set foot on these shores.

I did find the book difficult reading at times. I have an inbuilt aversion to anything that sounds like nationalism. Many of the positives in the stories, presented in an English context, sound to me more universal than that. The assertion that the progressive left has to embrace national identity is something that I understand, but it doesn’t chime with me.

England (or the English regions) must take a political role in the constitution of the country. And, to use a word from the EU playbook, we need subsidiarity not just at a national level but at a regional and local level, too. Is that about identity or about making decisions closer to the people who are affected?

The book is intended to open a conversation about who we are, and who we could be at our best. It certainly does that. Friends would do well to engage with it.

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