I've been in Brussels for the past few days, for a bit of Xmas shopping and to visit SNP colleagues at the European Parliament. Given that Belgium has, as of today, been run by a caretaker government for precisely six months, I must report that it seems to be coping remarkably well. The shops are busy, the Grand Place is packed with tourists, the restaurants are full - and all this at the beginning of a week when the European Parliament is about to up sticks to Strasbourg.
The only hint you might get that something might be up is the (modest) number of Belgian flags hanging from windows in the capital. This is primarily a demonstration from the Francophone administrative elite - and not really a gesture to be found repeated in the Flemish speaking areas outside of Brussels.
I've spent most of the last couple of days in the company of Lachie Muir - a friend since we were in the SNP Students together in the mid-nineties. Lachie's been working in Brussels for variously the SNP and the European Free Alliance, for nigh-on six years now, and a shrewder observer of the Scottish and European political scenes you would struggle to find. His take on it all is that we're unlikely to see Belgium dissolve into its constituent parts any time soon, but that the problems of how to deal with Brussels notwithstanding, it is still happening slowly.
What does a state coming apart feel like? I have to confess, I'm not all that sure. Disagreements between the central and devolved governments are par for the course around the world, as are disagreements over policy and resources - what matters more is how they are dealt with. There'd also likely be, or have been, some major change in the circumstances which gave rise to the existence of the state. There would be low grade bickering over politics and proxy matters like sport, which would occasionally bubble over to take on a significance which they scarcely deserve. I suspect you'd also start to see a greater assertion of the sub-state identity, counterbalanced with demonstrations of support for the status quo.
Belgium ticks most of these boxes, as indeed increasingly does the UK. In fact, today saw the Daily Telegraph carry a lengthy interview with Conservative leader David Cameron, to mark the launch of its campaign to 'Call Yourself British'. Very sensibly, he points out to the Telegraph's largely English readership that the union provides Scotland with no financial pot of gold, and urges caution amongst those south of the border who would rail against perceived Scottish advantages. However, he shied away from any concrete proposal to resolve the West Lothian Question, and when asked to set out what the Union meant to him, chose not to look forward, but instead fell back on the imagery of WWII.
Rather insultingly, the Telegraph editorial disparages English nationalism. Yet its definition of Britishness was also backward looking and full of bombast. In a sign that it just didn't get it at all, it hinted that what had put the Union under threat was the temerity of the Scots in opting for self-government, our support for whoever was playing England in sport (not guilty-never have been), and in our 'apparently favourable' financial treatment.
According to the paper, us Brits possess a shared temper and outlook, which 'many across the world find admirable, even enviable'. And our Britishness is rooted also in 'our shared institutions and values - the sovereignty of Parliament (what happened to sovereignty of the people?), the primacy of the law and the independence of the judiciary (as opposed to all those lawless foreign Johnnies you find over the Channel, I suppose), the proud traditions of our regiments (even those recently disbanded, you presume), and the freedom and vigour of our media (ha!).
In fairness, I think I'd find difficulty in coming up with a list of things which made someone distinctively Scottish. However, even John Major would have struggled to express it in a more spirit crushing and hackneyed way than the Telegraph has managed. Fundamentally, I'm attracted by the civic notion that anyone can be Scottish no matter where they come from, providing that they want to be. I'm uncomfortable instinctively with the notion that to be Scottish or English is to be in an ethnic state of mind, and that we can only be inclusive toward others when we see ourselves as British.
That to me seems to be holding out a second-class identity to those who choose to make their lives here - that an immigrant who comes to London from overseas can become British, but can never be English. Englishness is there, it is latent, it is tangible. If Britishness is on the way out the door, it strikes me that the process is not going to be reversed by trying to suppress people's sense of Englishness.
At present, Englishness is being ceded by default to a ragbag on the political right. It needs to be reclaimed, and to become synonymous with some of the virtues being claimed currently for Britishness. I'm happy getting on with building a new and more confident Scotland, but a more reflective Englishness, shorn of the baggage of Britain, would have an invigorating part to play in helping people on both sides of the border decide both who they are and what they want to become.
