Iron Britannia

by Anthony Barnett

  31 See Paul Kennedy’s very useful survey, The Realities Behind Diplomacy, London 1981, p. 382.

  32 Correlli Barnett’s The Collapse of British Power, London 1972, although pessimistic, suffers from this fault: the decline which it graphically describes is blamed upon the symptoms, when the cause was a world process that no amount of British power could have reversed.

  33 The Times, 17 November 1964.

  34 Quoted by Tom Nairn, ‘British Nationalism and the EEC, NLR 69, September 1971, p. 4.

  5 Pastoralism and Expatriotism

  WHAT WAS THE nature of the support for the Falklands war in Britain? Was the kingdom really as united behind the task force as the media suggested? Hopefully, studies will appear that will allow a tight answer to this question. At present we may only speculate.* But I would suggest that while there was overwhelming endorsement of the expedition rather than hostility towards it, the depth and character of popular support varied. To a considerable degree it was not much more than passive assent. This is not said to diminish the gravity of majority support for the war, which certainly existed, but it should be distinguished from the hoopla of the Tories. Enthusiasm for the fighting was not as strong as identification with the troops. Many who wanted them to win once they landed on the islands—and hence thought something ‘worth’ fighting for—did not relish the defeat of Argentina with Thatcher’s gusto. For example, on 25 April, a British advance force recaptured South Georgia, a dependency 800 miles from the Falklands which Argentina had seized with a small force. Thatcher appeared on prime TV news to announce the victory. She called upon her compatriots to ‘rejoice’. But few did. Similarly, the headlines were larger than their readers’ emotions.

  Questions about the kind of support that the Armada garnered suggest themselves along lines of region, class and gender. Within the UK it seemed that backing for the war was stronger in England than in Scotland or Wales, in intensity if not in numbers. English nationalism appears to take the form of Great Britishness: The cross of St George does not have enough colour in it for the English, and they need a larger geographical entity than their own nation. This may be most obvious in England’s attachment to Northern Ireland, but the attitude emerged sharply during the Falklands war. For Thatcher especially, a united Kingdom means an expansionist assertion of nationalism, revealed by her claim that she had put the ‘Great’ back into Britain. This feeling is more prevalent in England, which has still to accept its small country status, than in Wales or Scotland. While many Scots and Welsh feel a dual allegiance (even if they feel that they are British first and then Scottish or Welsh), most English will be puzzled if not confounded by the question of identity. For them it is not a dual affiliation: they are both English and British, the latter is really the global expression of the former and completely ‘natural’ to it. The more their Englishness comes into question, however, as it did with the English riots of 1981, the more many will welcome an assertion of their Great Britishness. The Falklands episode may not be the last of such demonstrations, even if it remains the clearest. Yet we can be sure that ‘Great Britishness’ will pass away eventually for it is a claim upon the world and the world has now moved on.

  There seemed to be no class divisions over the Falklands. Support was not only widespread, it cut across political and social divisions. Or did it? Even after a brilliantly executed and cleverly publicized military victory, twenty per cent of the population expressed opposition to the war.1 In overall party terms there was a landslide in favour of the expedition. Nonetheless, one person in five came out against it even when it succeeded, which on consideration seems rather surprising. The press nowhere reflected this kind of hostility to Thatcher’s adventure.2 The most eloquent expression of disgust at the majority approval came, perhaps, from John Fowles. The public do not, or cannot stop murder, he wrote, ‘because they are hog-tied by false assumptions, by apathy, by tradition, by social myth and convention, by inability to think before words like “honour”, “duty”, “pride” and the rest.’3 Against this, Tony Benn has asserted that opposition to the fighting became so considerable that he is not persuaded that the public really supported the war. Another of Benn’s points is more convincing, when he argues, ‘war agitates people in the sense of making them think. There was a lot more serious discussion in those ten weeks than the media allowed us to know about …’.4

  Those who identify with the ruling institutions of Britain, expressed a class fervour in their support for Thatcher. They knew that their position domestically would be strengthened and, indeed, that this was what the battle was really about, as this was where ‘humiliation’ and ‘confidence’ came home to roost. On the other hand, much of the working class and pub support for the fighting was a ‘non-political’ endorsement of the war. Mass patriotism represents itself as, and is felt to be, ‘above’ or ‘aside’ from politics, especially in the party sense. It draws upon the individual’s desire for a cause, for courage, excitement and vicarious risk. Many in Britain are tired of politics, they resent the interminable difficulties and frustrations of party manifestos and economic programmes. The war allowed them to get away from the erosion of morale induced by decline, unemployment and complexities.

  Also, perhaps, when people have lost their own nerve and are scared, they like to support those who are daring and take risks. The Falklands was a classic instance of the intimidated identifying with their intimidator, as others became the victims. On a larger scale, although most people in Britain do not believe in imperial structures any longer, at least to the extent that they are unwilling to lay down their lives for them, they are nonetheless frightened at the prospect of their disappearance.

  Thus the British expedition to the Falklands gathered support in all sorts of ways and drew on a strange combination of historic folk-memories. Yet its obviously ludicrous objective, a far-away pimple, was hardly worthy of such passions and the sacrifice of young lives, and many felt that too. The Mitcham and Morden by-election took place on 3 June as British forces were moving towards victory at Port Stanley. The Conservatives won; only three months before this might have seemed inconceivable. Yet in what was a crucial and much publicised electoral event, half of the voters stayed at home. That does not mean that they opposed the war, but it might mean a considerable degree of unease over the way it was being used. At any rate even The Times was obliged to agree that public support was subdued. At the beginning (as we will see) it projected its own fervour onto the British masses, and thought there might be a need to restrain ‘public hysteria’ and stop the mob from ‘burning effigies’. At the end of the war it noted instead that while ‘the spirit of Britain has been rediscovered … it came to individuals not the mass. There were no mass rallies, no shouting, no parades.’5 Indeed, when Thatcher left No 10 Downing Street to go and make her victory statement to the House of Commons, the Guardian reported,

  By all accounts yesterday should have been a red letter day in British history. Yet the small, subdued crowd in Whitehall and Downing Street gave little indication that the crisis in the Falklands was over. Even at its peak, the crowd swelled to no more than 200 as the triumphant Margaret Thatcher emerged …6

  In addition there was evidence that opposition to the British expedition was gathering strength. Anti-war demonstrations, although small, were larger than any pro-war mobilizations. The Easter CND rally in central London was massive and properly hostile to the Falklands war. Furthermore, as Thatcher’s desire for a military confrontation became more obvious, the initial ‘innocence’ of the British position gave way to a more accurate picture. There was indeed some kind of learning process underway and if Britain had become bogged down in a protracted engagement in the Falklands, a serious anti-war movement would certainly have developed.

  It seems to me, therefore, that while Benn is, if anything, far too complacent about ‘public opinion’, Fowles is over pessimistic in his formulation. There was massive support for the war, but it was relatively restrained and much mo
re open to argument than the caricature of unredeemed jingoist sentiment. When a service was held at St Paul’s to commemorate the dead, Thatcher and her accolytes were said to be furious that the Church had successfully stifled any rejoicing at the victory. They wanted instead a triumphalist note to reinforce and legitimize Thatcher’s claims that Britain had proved itself to be once more the country that ruled a quarter of the world. But the absence of this theme did not disturb the families bereaved by the conflict. Indeed, the strident warmongers seemed to be isolated in their outburst and the Church of England’s restraint was justified in popular terms. Thus while Fowles’s denunciation of public apathy, of tradition and myth is particularly welcome, these attributes did not show themselves to be unassailable or unalterable. Labour’s shambolic patriotic opportunism may make its leaders desire to sweep the whole episode under the carpet. But those who were against the war, or even its more primitive manifestations, will do well to keep the issue and arguments alive, and to challenge, as Fowles himself has done, the definition of country and virtue that Parliament has prescribed.

  The right-wing will doubtless give its assent to the demand that there be ‘No more Falklands’, but will interpret this to mean that there should be a larger Navy so as to ‘deter’ any future aggression, there and elsewhere. In fact it is obvious that those who enjoyed the war will want another like it: a conflict that they can contain and win. In strategic terms, the issue hinges on the Royal Navy. There can be little doubt that if there was one organized and effective lobby which pushed for the war and lined up MPs in its support, it was the Navy lobby rather than the Falklands Association. In its view, the war has proved the need for aircraft carriers and a trans-global maritime strike force. Since the hard-fought decision to abolish carriers, taken in 1966, the Navy has dragged out their existence and pushed through the construction of spuriously designated ‘through-deck cruisers’ like the Invincible, which went into commission in 1980 at a cost of £250 million. As James Bellini argued prior to the Falklands episode, the Navy building programme has been a classic example of an entrenched military bureaucracy frustrating political decisions.7

  There was once a time, during the idealistic high tide of the new left, when it was argued that the proletariat would reach its self-emancipation only when it became properly a conscious class that was fully ‘for-itself’. Whether or not this was ever a suitable ambition for the working class, the Royal Navy has beaten them to it. Today, the British navy is indeed a fleet that exists to express the glory of its own self-conscious existence. The Falklands, population at most 1,800, has proved the ‘need’ for a force of more than 70,000. Each capital ship ‘needs’ a flotilla of support vessels to service and protect it. They in turn ‘need’ supply and fuel ships to keep them going, in the empty, fathomless sea, to ensure them against attack. The imperial, South Atlantic role of the Royal Navy has no strategic purpose in terms of balance of power—there are no other powers there. It diminishes rather than assists the commercial interests of the United Kingdom. But, if it was not there, would Britain then lose another Falklands war? No, this would merely ensure that there would not be a second Falklands war. The Navy is there, quite simply, for itself.

  Another aspect of support for the fighting which was perhaps much joked about but not taken seriously, was the role of women. To what extent. did women and men endorse or oppose the expedition in different ways? The question quickly shifted onto the aura of Margaret Thatcher herself. In an editorial in their August issue, the Spare Rib collective denounced the ‘idiotic and irresponsible patriotic fervour’ of the war and suggested it was an expression of ‘male power’.8 White middle class women who climbed the existing ladder, it continued, tend to reinforce this culture, just as Thatcher has done, rather than combat its domination. Meanwhile Thatcher herself explains her own supremacy through received stereotypes of the woman’s role. In her post-victory interview granted to the Daily Express, she told George Gale of her fears,

  I had the winter at the back of my mind. The winter. What will the winter do? The wind, the cold. Down in South Georgia the ice, what will it do? It beat Napoleon at Moscow.9

  But when Gale asked her whether being a woman made any difference, Thatcher immediately domesticated her Napoleonic obsession with the Falklands, which she admitted ‘became my life, it became my bloodstream’. Instead, ‘it may just be’, she put it, feigning homeliness,

  that many, many women make naturally good managers. You might not think of it that way, George, but each woman who runs a house is a manager and an organizer. We thought forward each day, and we did it in a routine way, and we were on the job 24 hours a day.

  In Thatcher’s view, while men talk, women act. As she presents it her emergence at the helm of the Tory Party is not at all an exceptional achievement. Rather, in a Party of blatherers and windbags, she with her active duster and clear sense of the domestic economy and its priorities, ‘gets on with the job’ and sees it through. She is the matriarch of an iron home.

  In fact, I think it is clear that Thatcher’s womanhood has been crucial to her success so far, even though why this is so remains an open question. It is one that is difficult to address beyond the sniggers which it induces. Yet without her feminine sincerity, would Thatcher have gained the leadership of the Conservative Party? For a start it allowed her to mean what she said without being taken seriously. Take, for example, Thatcher’s love of guns and weapons, and her oft expressed admiration for Britain’s ‘marvellous’ fighting men. Such sentiments advocated by a man would seem to be either the projections of a camp gay or those of an unhinged fanatic. Being a woman allowed Thatcher to combine both elements and thus domesticate Powellism.

  But however domesticated, the stridency of Thatcher’s nationalism is abnormal for a Prime Minister. Many in the British upper classes found it rather foreign, as the St Paul’s service showed. It was not the deployment of the fleet they found disturbing, but Thatcher’s evident desire for a purifying conflict, her adamantine rejection of reasonable compromise, the strutting insistence upon global ‘principles’, that appeared ‘un-British’. Those with experience knew perfectly well that all the talk about ‘self-determination’ was so much prattle, even when they shared a feeling of national humiliation, and wanted to rectify the country’s ‘honour’. It was a splendid risk to send the Armada and a great relief when the troops were put ashore so triumphantly. British skill had been demonstrated and pride had been restored in the old lion. But then it was time to settle rather than press on and commit the UK to a conflict with Argentina in perpetuity. There was and is nothing ‘wet’ about such an attitude, which is realistic and practical. Earlier, I noted how the fight for the Falklands seems incongruous when compared to Britain’s handover of territories many times its own size all around the world. Thatcher has sought to reverse this constitutive aspect of imperial pragmatism, just as she has massively exacerbated unemployment and challenged the state’s commitment to social security. Her use of Churchillian rhetoric to assault the legacy of Churchillism has even led her to defy Washington, which is sure to try and repair its relations with Agentina. Suppose when the next US administration comes into office in two years time, it has garnered the considerable Hispanic votes in such key states as New York and California and so is pledged to a more hemispheric orientation. The Falklands never sat comfortably with the Monroe doctrine; it would be folly for Britain to cross America because of them. Firmness and resolution today have to be tempered by policies which allow for the imperatives of tomorrow.

  All this seems obvious enough, so how was Thatcher able to defy the post-war traditions of Britain in the name of old England with such ease? In truth, ‘Britain’ is oddly uncomfortable in its own skin. How many countries is the United Kingdom? Can the British be nationalists when the word ‘nationalism’ applied to the UK only recently meant the activities of extremist groups in the Celtic fringe? Can the ordinary ‘Briton’ be loyal to both Europe and the Queen? The stuttered self-co
rrection by Sir Bernard Braine, should not be forgotten: is it the blood of the English that boils especially fast? And if so, what has happened to that national trait for which the English pride themselves across the world, sangfroid? How can the self-composure of the gentleman and the dry tenacity of the working man, whose combination in officers and other ranks constitutes the national image of the British army, be represented by a newspaper (the Sun) that headlines GOTCHA! when the Belgrano is sunk with over 300 dead?

  When Dr Johnson wrote his pamphlet on the Falklands in 1770 he assailed those who wanted war with Spain over the islands. ‘Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel’, he declared. The word ‘patriot’ had a more radical sense at that time then it does today, and Johnson was arguing on behalf of the government who paid him. The word now tends to mean love of one’s country, in a beneficent way, but in the UK it shades rapidly into an assertion of historic domination overseas and a valorization of the special kinds of class rule Britain suffers at home.

  Take, for example, a widespread English response to the Junta’s seizure of the Falklands: ‘We cannot allow ourselves to be bullied’. Many supported the Armada with this sentiment. A worker uses the collective pronoun ‘we’, which belongs in its full sense to the sovereign class and those who consciously identify with it. The worker extends it not only to him-(or her-) self, a member of a class with quite different interests, but also to ‘the country as a whole’, something that all classes do indeed share in their antagonistic way. But then, in addition, the ‘we’ is stretched 8,000 miles to territory none had spared a thought for until that moment. And this was an instinctive reaction for many. It was not merely a passive response to the Parliamentary debate, a kind of docking of the forelock to the wisdom of MPs! Nor, either, was the feeling the result of instant manipulation by the press and television although that helped. Rather, the reaction stemmed from inherited presumptions momentarily and vividly encouraged. Was the attitude thus expressed one of patriotism —the defence of a common identity from aggression? Or was it nationalism—the assertion of one’s country’s greatness compared to others? Or was it imperialism—the imposition of national dominance overseas?