The football World Cup is often seen as an opportunity to bring different groups within a nation together as they celebrate their team’s achievements. And while the performance of the England side’s young and dynamic squad may not have taken them to the final, there remains something to celebrate.
Thomas Tuchel’s squad has offered a vision of England that stands in stark contrast to Downton Abbey-type cultural representations that often feel nostalgic and parochial. And it challenges, head on, claims that have been made recently regarding Englishness and ethnicity.
Selected by a German manager, the 26-man squad featured 20 players who had the option to play for another country. This is because the heritage rules of football’s governing body Fifa allow players to represent the nation of their parents’ or grandparents’ birth.
But those options – Jamaica, Nigeria, Ghana, Ireland and Kenya, to name just some – are not a happy accident. They represent a rollcall of England’s (and subsequently Britain’s) imperial engagements. To quote Sri Lankan novelist A Sivanandan: “They are here, because you were there.”
These representatives of the English nation have generated huge, broad support and excitement. Viewer data indicates that the team’s progress has been watched by record audiences and the beer-throwing antics of fans across the country have been dominating social media.
And yet the exploits of a team led by the grandson of Irish immigrants in Harry Kane and driven forward by the son of Kenyan and Irish immigrants in Jude Bellingham might seem like an anomaly given the nation’s political climate. The rise of rightwing populists has seen heritage and country of birth thrust into the spotlight.
English or British?
The team also seems to represent a vision of Englishness at odds with wider public attitudes. On one hand, official polling data has consistently shown that identifying as English is much less attractive to ethnic minorities than categorising themselves as British. This may be because, outside football, Englishness for many minorities represented a more exclusive identity that focuses on ethnic rather than civic forms of belonging.
And on the other hand, these questions of identity are also exemplified by those who lean right politically. These groups are much more likely to define themselves as more English than British.
Both sets of data link to my work on national hierarchies of belonging. These put forward the argument that there are some groups within a nation who are seen to belong more than others. It is those who unquestioningly believe and are treated as if they “really” belong who position themselves as the rightful arbiters and managers of the nation.
This not only gives them an important sense of agency, in an era where growing numbers of people feel disenfranchised, but also informs powerful claims to key social, economic and cultural resources. There is a strong link between belonging and entitlement, so that “I belong more than you” can also come to mean “I deserve more than you”.
The struggles between groups within the same nation are not new. But they have been supercharged by growing inequality and the undermining of collective institutions, including those associated with politics and the media. The rise of nativist views and policies, which prioritise the rights of people born in a country over those of immigrants, is a feature of these processes.
EPA/JAMES COOK
A new England?
But it could be possible for England to address these issues. It’s worth noting that ethnic minorities in both Wales and Scotland are much more likely to identify as Welsh or Scottish. This is because these national categories are primarily defined in relation to the dominant group in the UK (that is, the English).
In other words, the “English question” (the debate over whether MPs from the other home nations should be allowed to vote on English-only affairs) still needs to be answered. This was first raised more than 40 years ago with the prospect, and then the reality, of devolved politics in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Increased devolution to the English regions may go some way to addressing grievances in the south-west, the Midlands and the north. And specific English cultural institutions – why not have an English national museum, library and broadcaster, for example – could generate new forms of belonging.
But above all, England and the English need to start telling some more convincing – and relevant – stories about who they are. These can move beyond the past and an obsession with former “glories”.
One of those stories may well involve this English football team. After all, it may ultimately not have won this World Cup, but it still offers a different, and highly visible, inclusive representation of the nation.
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