Dr Daniel Pitt is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Buckingham.
British politics lacks an informed discourse about our constitution and its traditions. This is unfortunate as we govern through discourse.
We even have Reform UK politicians calling themselves ‘Shadow Chancellor’ and ‘Shadow Home Secretary’, which is outright nonsense, and it also lacks constitutional morality.
Sadly, our constitutional edifice is strewn with New Labour’s carbuncles. We need the policies to make both precise incisions to drain the carbuncles and a course of antibiotics.
So, it was a breath of fresh air to watch Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, in a video of him visiting Runnymede during his trip to Britain. The video is simply but sublimely titled ‘Our ancient English liberty’.
Poilievre’s video is powerful with imagery of place, a story of a shared common constitutional tradition, and it also provides Canadians with a sense of self that stretches across time and an ocean. The best of all, it succeeded in showing that our constitutional tradition lives and breathes whilst embedding it within the Canadian national identity.
One can nitpick about some of the details in the video, such as the claim that the Magna Carta was ‘signed’ by King John; in fact, his seal was appended to the charter.
Indeed, the Magna Carta myth has become a fundamental part of our self-image, especially during the nineteenth century, but the myth is fading away.
But which Magna Carta? The 1215 version had a very brief lifespan indeed, as Pope Innocent III repudiated it. The 1216 version is far more conservative than its more radical 1215 counterpart, because the radical elements were removed by Henry III’s man. It was reissued again in 1217, and the provisions in relation to the forests were put in a separate charter called The Charter of the Forest. It was again reissued in 1225.
It took until 1297 to have statutory form with the title The Great Charter of The Liberties of England, and of The Liberties of The Forest.
The charter was not about universal rights or freedom but about power politics and averting a civil war. It unintentionally, through an invisible hand, created a legal order that was established by solving specific conflicts. Of course, the charter itself was just a political solution to a political struggle.
There is chaos and contingency in actual history, yet great men and women can change it. A stateman’s narrative must be and is a much simpler one than a historian’s.
Statemen can be more romantic and mythologise; they can try to shape the political culture in which they operate. Their oratory should use powerful imagery to tell a national story with a swift-moving narrative that provides an interpretation of who we are and where we are going.
Yes, myth will be part of their story, our story. The best conservative orators, from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, such as Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill, employed these skills. It is the role of the Conservative statesmen to provide good myths, as Benjamin Disraeli knew all too well.
The reason for this is that our national identity is driven by the moral imagination of great people and their interpretations of great events.
Our national story can reveal itself in the form of myth and symbols. Myths are not necessarily falsehoods; on the contrary, they are essential truths that are packaged in a story. This style of communication is impactful because human beings are narrative-driven creatures and love a good story. This is a backwards-looking process which creates our nation’s story, which we then tell ourselves and pass on to our children and grandchildren.
Our civic national identity is closely connected with our sense of sharing a common tradition and a set of manners. This involves an awareness of our common history and the great continuity of this history. Both our constitution and our culture, which are mutually reinforcing, show elements of this continuity. However, we have to treat those carbuncles.
Critical events and documents, such as Magna Carta, provide us with an opportunity to renew and reclaim our national story that has a deep meaning and which makes sense to us today. Poilievre did this as easily as eating an apple. We need to learn from it.
As George Orwell indicates, “myths which are believed in tend to become true”. Why? According to Orwell, this is because we will try to live them.
These myths facilitate a bond of sympathy between us, creating a national spirit, which is unmistakable in our constitutional traditions. New Labour’s carbuncles are a repudiation of this tradition, and the Conservatives must reaffirm our impressive constitutional tradition. This idea of belonging to a historical constitutional tradition leads us to believe that we are part of a collective national identity, and that is why constitutional reform matters.
These national myths, including the Magna Carta myth, are a powerful way of recruiting loyalty to our constitutional tradition and to our country. The stories and myths that we tell ourselves are a product of a shared loyalty. Poilievre’s video on Magna Carta is an exemplar for us to learn from.
Wrapping up policy proposals within a grand narrative of their historical importance and situating them within a long national story has powerful imagery that can move the conservative soul.
