'I love Scots people': What English patriots really make of Scotland

Stuart Millson for the big read.

Then there’s Nick Dutt, quintessentially middle class, reserved and a devotee of Vera Lynn.

Nick Dutt for the big read

Finally, Chris Houghton, the epitome of the plain-speaking northerner. All are avowed monarchists, with a pronounced nostalgia for Britain’s military and imperial past. Collectively, they run the Royal Society of St George.

If you’re a dyed-in-the-wool English patriot, the RSSG is the only organisation to join. It has boasted every monarch since Queen Victoria as its patron.

What better bunch to speak to, today of all days. It’s St George’s Day, after all, the perfect time to take the temperature of Middle England and how it views Scotland in these turbulent times. There are many in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales who might view the RSSG with mixed feelings to say the least. But they’d be pleasantly surprised by these three. While some of their views are certainly not to the tastes of Scottish independence supporters – or many on the progressive left – they’re charming and polite nonetheless.

Park your politics and they’re good company. Stuart Millson has even decked out his study with a St George’s Cross and a Saltire as a gesture of friendship, respect and his love of all things Scottish. Well, all things Scottish except, perhaps, the SNP.

Millson gets a thrill when he sees the two flags side by side as he crosses the Border. He edits the society’s magazine. It’s a literal hymn to Englishness.

The opening page has adverts for the Church of England’s Prayer Book Society, and the Battle of Britain Historical Society.

There are reports on the coming coronation, and “The Beauty of England”; pieces called “In Praise of Suburbia” and “Last of the Dam Busters”; another article takes a gentle swipe at Scottish actor Alan Cumming for returning his OBE; and there’s a profile of Sir Francis Drake.

Racism

One review, of the book Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, might raise hackles. It notes the author will annoy “so-called ‘anti’-racists who belittle achievements by ‘white’ people”. But anyone hoping to pin a charge of racism on the society will struggle. Chairman Nick Dutt’s grandfather was Indian. It’s fair to say he’s desperate to get more ethnic minority people into the society. Millson points out that the latest magazine includes a profile of Peaches Golding, Bristol’s first black female Lord Lieutenant. Her father was a significant figure in America’s civil rights movement. She’s the society’s vice-president.

Amid the culture war, though, Dutt, Millson and Houghton walk a difficult tightrope. Their mission is to promote the “culture and heritage of England”. But they also want to open their doors to people who are young, non-white and, importantly, “not English”. It’s not an impossible dream but in such divided times it’s far from easy. Rightly or wrongly, many may see the two aims as relatively contradictory.

Just expanding the society across Britain seems hard enough. There are more members in Borneo than Scotland.

There are branches across England, and all over the world: Abu Dhabi, Australia, America, Spain, Denmark, Indonesia, Africa and France. “But we’ve nobody really in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland,” Millson says. Today, the society has about 7,500 members. That’s big, but way down on its 60,000 high between the wars.

Independence

All three push one major theme: there’s more that unites people across these islands than divides. Clearly, though, nearly half of Scotland disagrees, given independence polling. Millson, however, saw “the great outpouring of emotion” for the Queen during her Edinburgh funeral procession as proof that the “kingdom we all value deep down is still a viable force”.

Nick Dutt feels slightly aggrieved at the position “Englishness” now takes in Britain. St George’s Day, he feels, doesn’t get anywhere near the recognition it deserves. But the lack of interest in England is “self-inflicted”, he says. “All the other home countries celebrate their national day. Ask people in England, and they’ll know Paddy’s Day, St David’s Day, St Andrew’s Day. They don’t know St George’s Day”.

The discussion later turns to the term “Paddy” being offensive to Irish people. Dutt initially feels that’s “thin-skinned”. He says he doesn’t object when “an Aussie” calls him a “Pom”. But he eventually accepts that sometimes such comments are “motivated by malice”.

Dutt’s big grievance is this: “If you say you’re an English patriot people assume you’re far right.”

It’s fair to say that’s not the case if someone says they’re a Scottish, Welsh or Irish “patriot”.

Dutt, though, makes clear that he believes there’s no such thing as “pure English people”. It’s a mongrel nationality. He genuinely wants to celebrate the “true diversity of English people” and “how we meld together into one culture”.

Identity

THE bottom line is that the trio feel other nations, like Scotland, can celebrate their identities, histories and cultures without being sneered at. To them, it’s a question of fairness. An even playing field is a quintessential English characteristic, after all, they say.

Millson feels that “England came out quite badly from devolution. Scotland got its own parliament. There’s not even an English grand committee. In trying to keep the union together, we’ve sacrificed our own sense of identity”.

Millson isn’t opposed to devolution, however. He wants more of it. He backs a federal UK, with an English parliament, and Westminster kept for defence and foreign policy.

He’s no Little Englander. He feels England is sometimes left out in the cold culturally. We see “BBC Scotland” or “BBC Wales” at the end of TV programmes, but only “BBC English Regions”.

“It’s not good enough,” Millson adds. “England has to be acknowledged in its own right. I’m passionate for all the peoples of these islands.

“I love my country and I don’t just mean England. We’ve had some bad times across these islands, and misunderstandings. But it’s time to look forward. We’ve got a new monarch and new times await. Let’s work together to make a better common life.”

He accepts, however, that only a federal system can save the union.

Deputy chairman Chris Houghton, who is a successful businessman, has taken direct measures to revivify St George’s Day.

It’s not a bank holiday in England, like St Andrew’s Day is in Scotland. So, Houghton gives all his staff a day off on April 23. “The reason is to force home the idea that we’re equal to the other nations within the union,” he says. “It’s not that I want distinction from anyone else, I just want to celebrate like everyone else.”

England flags decorate houses in Sheffield, northern England, on July 9, 2018 the birthplace of England's Kyle Walker, Harry Maguire and Jamie Vardy, three members of the England national football squad that will play against Croatia on July 11 for a

History

DUTT feels that part of the problem when it comes to English identity is that English history “is being quietly destroyed”. He’s not a fan of what he calls “the woke and the cancel culture”. It has damaged “pride in our country. There are certain elements now busy trying to undermine everything we’ve done and achieved”.

Isn’t it right, though, that every nation, including England and Scotland, confront their past – especially if the past involves slavery and colonialism? Dutt says that on his mother’s side, his family can be traced back to the 1500s when “pretty much everyone working the land were slaves”.

In terms of Britain’s role in the slave trade – which involved Scotland as much as England – Dutt feels “we’re judging our entire history on a very narrow part”. Britain “stopped the slave trade”, he adds. He feels the teaching of history isn’t “balanced”, and the “good” parts of history are being “cut out”.

But isn’t it balanced to discuss both how Britain was an active participant in slavery, and also abolished it? Both are true.

Empire

HOUGHTON says sarcastically: “I suppose we should do the same for the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire. I want reparations from the Romans. Listen, I’m born in 1965, I can’t be judged on stuff that happened before.”

Yet if we take credit for our ancestors fighting in the Second World War when we weren’t born, shouldn’t we also take responsibility for what our ancestors did during the empire when we weren’t born?

Millson feels that “the history of the empire is being traduced and pulled to pieces” by a “jaundiced view of history which takes three or four things that are perhaps bad but ignores 30 or 40 things that are perhaps good”.

“So many young people today are being starved of this wonderful nourishment of our history,” he says. Millson is enamoured of the past, citing “the Great War”, Churchill and “Wolfe of Quebec” as the emotional foundations of his Englishness. But he’s equally besotted by the poetry of Chaucer and AE Housman, Dickens’s novels, and the music of Elgar and Benjamin Britten. “There’s a wonderful edifice of civilisation that we have in England which we share with the rest of the country and the world,” he adds. “We worry about the way so much of what’s perceived to be English may even be sneered at.”

Many Sikh and Indian soldiers fought in the First World War, Millson points out. “The country must have done something good, somewhere somehow, to get that level of support from around the world.” Genghis Khan had an empire, Zulus had an empire, Spain, Portugal, Ancient Greece and Persia all had empires, says Millson. To try to “cancel” the past “is to try to cancel reality”.

Cancellation

YET it’s not about cancellation, surely? It’s about striking a balance so the past is fully understood: the good and bad. Dutt adds: “I think that’s right. It needs to be more balanced. There’s no harm telling people what happened.”

As long as it’s fair and measured, Dutt accepts the “warts and all” view of history. Houghton makes clear Scotland must have the same approach. “Look at Glasgow,” he says, alluding to the city’s links to slavery.

Scotland was devoted to the empire until quite recently, says Millson. There’s footage of a trip by the Queen to Glasgow in 1977 where “the whole city is waving union flags. It could be the Mall in London”.

That sense of “British patriotism”,

he believes, “has been diminished somewhat by some of the voices in Scottish politics”.

Many would argue, though, that it was during the 1970s, when England embraced Thatcherism, that divisions began. The topic is avoided. Instead, Dutt adds that the RSSG is changing. Once, the society was for those “English born and bred”.

Now it’s “inclusive … We want to represent the country of the future. We can’t look back with rose-tinted spectacles all the time at this wonderful history of ours.

We’ve got to look ahead. The nature of being such a diverse country is that we’re continuing to evolve as our population changes.”

Far right

DUTT’S Indian heritage undercuts many negative assumptions about the RSSG. But he admits that the society comes with baggage. When tells anyone he’s “chairman of the premier English patriot society, the immediate thought is ‘hang on, that’s political, it’s far right”.

He blames the National Front hijacking the St George’s flag in the 1970s. Clearly, he says, with the monarch as patron, the organisation isn’t going to espouse extremism. However, “the very nature of who we are means we do attract some [extremists]. We manage those very carefully. We’ve had the odd case”.

Any hint of racism deeply troubles Millson. “We’ve got Asian members,” he says. “There are two Asian members in [my] branch … I want to counter the idea that St George is somehow the symbol of a nativism that’s slightly sour.”

Houghton says the St George’s Day celebrations in Bolton that he’s attending today will have “Scottish, Irish, Welsh, English, Hindustan, Pakistan, India, Maltese ... everybody”. They may not speak like hip millennials, au fait with the niceties of language, but beneath their traditional ways, there’s no malice. Quite the reverse.

Anglophobia

Dutt says discrimination can run both ways, however. His son, who is in the Navy, was refused service in a Campbeltown bar because he’s English. “That’s unusual but a shame.” He and his members “aren’t anti anyone, we’re pro-English”.

To Dutt, Scotland and England’s shared military history alone is enough to keep the union together. “We’re one nation in a lot of ways,” he adds. “We’ve more in common than we have differences.” However, the society has been accused of “just celebrating battles”. He wants to recalibrate so arts, inventions and exploration get equal prominence.

Millson feels England “wallows” in wartime nostalgia more than the rest of Britain, but believes the Scots, Irish, and English share a melancholic “hankering” for a “mythical” past, “looking backwards to old glories”. He would define “English values” as “fair play, a live and let live attitude, the bullishness of Churchill defending the lone island”. The English sentimentalise the Battle of Britain, the way Scots sentimentalise the Jacobites, he adds.

Houghton defines “English values” as “looking after your fellow man, being honest and true, and love of God”. To Dutt, it’s “rooting for the underdog” and “stoicism”.

That stocism explains “why the Queen was loved so much”, and, to him, why “Harry has fallen foul”.

Royalty

MILLSON brims with royalist pride. The positive comments by Sinn Fein’s Northern Ireland leader Michelle O’Neill on the Queen’s death were “a remarkable litmus test of how far-reaching the monarch’s influence really is”, he adds.

Dutt chips in: “Even [French president] Macron said ‘to you she’s your queen, to us she’s The Queen’.”

Millson accepts that royalism runs stronger in England and Northern Ireland than Scotland. He believes that “we can turn things around in this country for monarchial values through the new King”.

He laughs when it’s pointed out that this comment perhaps portrays another English value: optimism. Dutt believes that the monarchy “represents our values”.

Rightly or wrongly, there’s a view from overseas that England, rather than Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, is quite bombastic.

“We’re not trying to be better than anybody else,” says Houghton. “We’re just trying to be ourselves, and live [within the union] as equal partners.”

He flies the St George’s flag outside his home “24-7”, and doesn’t understand why expressions of English patriotism are seen differently to expressions of Scottish patriotism. “I’m not anti-anyone.”

Anthems

DUTT wants a new national anthem for England, maybe Jerusalem, Land Of Hope And Glory, or I Vow To Thee My Country. Playing God Save The King should be reserved for UK-wide events, so that British and English identities don’t get confused when England and Scotland play each other at sport. The national anthem should be “uniting”, he says, not “divisive”.

Dutt notes the anti-English sentiments of Flower Of Scotland. When it’s pointed out that one verse of God Save The King talks of crushing “rebellious Scots”, he adds: “That’s why we don’t sing [that verse] now.” Millson suggests that His Majesty The King might sponsor a new composer to write a modern English anthem.

“We’ve got to look to the future or this society will die,” Dutt adds. “You’ve got to remember and celebrate history, and learn from it where appropriate, and remember those who sacrificed for it, but you’ve got to look ahead as well.”

Does it hurt when Scots talk of breaking away from England? “Yes,” says Dutt.

Millson feels that it’s “the political class [in Scotland] rather than ordinary people who have this ‘down feeling’ about Britain”.

“The last thing we want is a border,” he adds. “Heavens, look at the issue with the border down the Irish Sea.”

Brexit

ALTHOUGH Brexit was clearly a majority English decision, not a Scottish one, and it damaged the union, the trio seem sure that the UK will survive. Millson accepts “without question the principle of self-determination, so another referendum is up to you, the Scottish people”.

However, he does note that in 2014 “all sides” agreed it would be a once-in-a-generation vote. He also questions how Scotland leaving the union and re-entering Europe can be seen as true independence.

It would genuinely upset Millson if the union ended. “I’d leave this island and go to our Borneo branch and live in the jungle. I’d be profoundly distressed that this marvellous association of kindred peoples could ever dissolve. I’d be very unhappy.”

Scotland has no reason to feel dominated by England, he believes, given the many accomplishments of the nation throughout history.

“Scotland is a great country, I want to be united with it,” he adds.

“I love the people of Scotland and dream of renewing the union as an Englishman.”