BRITISH IDENTITY AND THE GERMAN OTHER A Dissertation ...

egionalism in an all-English Parliament. However, as Heffer himself admitted, reactions to
multiculturalism and associations with old Victorian jingoism or boorish soccer hooliganism
would pose major problems for this fantasy of revived English nationalism. 9 Roger Scruton,
more recently, practically yearns for the bad old days of Anglican conformity and class hierarchy.
Extolling sexual repression, especially the Platonic love of boys, as a cardinal English virtue
along with intellectual self-effacement and duty to empire, Scruton laments the passing of
English character in the form of eccentric individualism, fair play, self-mockery, humility and
gentleness. 10 But while Scruton praises the empirical nature of English law and the legitimate
moral authority of English bobbies as bulwarks of liberty against French or German-style
centralization, he also embraces monarchy and hereditary peerage as forces for stability, and he
disturbingly links the erosion of traditional civility and loss of a rural agricultural existence to the
abolition of class privilege. 11 Andrew Marr entertained wholly different conclusions in his
review of conservative reactions to the break-up of Britain predicted in Tom Nairn’s provocative
book of the same name. Marr agreed with Nairn about the artificiality and outmoded imperial
utility of British institutions, citing the role of Crown, Church and Parliament in quelling national
hubris for the sake of accommodating and uniting a multiethnic empire. Marr also welcomed
European integration as a cure for nationalist delusions or a resurgence of English Powellism. 12
9 Ibid., 36, 42, 46-47, 101, 109, 124. One might wonder whether Heffer’s suggestion of
splitting up the BBC (p. 130) would satisfy cultural angst and stave off economic disintegration.
10 England: An Elegy (London; New York: Continuum, 2006), 31-34, 52-53, 55, 59.
11 Ibid., 116-18, 127, 176, 188-90, 244-57.
12 Marr, The Day Britain Died (London: Profile Books, 2000), 43, 230. See also Nairn,
The Break-up of Britain: Crisis and Neonationalism, 2nd expanded ed. (London: NLB and Verso
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