Gareth Southgate, Raheem Sterling, Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka, Jordan Henderson … how could you not love the current England squad? As well as their footballing prowess, they’ve shown moral leadership and social awareness, taking positions on poverty, racism, LGBT rights and multiculturalism. I will be delighted for each of them individually if they achieve their dreams on Sunday night.
But they’re not playing as individuals, of course. They’re part of a team, and that team represents England. And here I have a problem.
Over the past few weeks, and over the coming weekend, many words will be written about how this team has changed the nation: a glowing role-model of inclusion for us all to feel warm about. From now on we’ll all love our fellow men and women, whatever their background.
Please, don’t be deluded: over the decades I’ve heard this so many times at major sporting occasions, and every time it falls flat as soon as the celebrations and/or commiserations are over.
I first remember it being said in the 1980s, when the mixed-race decathlete Daley Thompson, a photogenic double gold medal-winner, was said to be a shining example of how Britain’s races could come together. The 1998 French World Cup-winning football team, Les Bleus, featuring players from across Africa and the Caribbean, were held up as a shining light of integration. Within four years, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s far-right National Front party made the presidential run-off for the first time.
In 2012, London had its Olympics moment: Jessica Ennis-Hill, Mo Farah. There was even a slot in the opening ceremony to celebrate the Empire Windrush. Oh, the words then about what a wonderful, inclusive nation we are.
What the commentators in all these cases fail to recognise is that discrimination and inequality are so embedded within our society that the buzz of a global sports tournament cannot hope to remove or even reduce them. The medals for Mo Farah did nothing to stop Muslims being vilified daily in our media; the gold for Jessica Ennis-Hill did nothing to stop Black people being denied jobs, or stopped and searched in the street.
So what happened to that multicultural nation “at ease with itself” in 2012? Well, as we now know, while all that gushing was going on, in the real world Britain’s hostile environment was denying those very same Windrush arrivals their citizenship, benefits, healthcare, liberty and, for some, life itself. Within two years, Ukip had topped the poll at the European elections, and David Cameron had pledged the momentous Brexit referendum.
In the intervening years, not only did Ukip transform Britain’s relationship with Europe but its influence has gone on to transform the Conservatives, which is now a party Nigel Farage could feel entirely comfortable within. It clamps down on immigration; it cuts international aid; it denies the existence of racism, despite the plethora of evidence about discrimination in employment, education, and law enforcement. And instead it stokes white resentment, especially among the working class – many of whom will literally lay their lives down for Boris Johnson, given their backing for his dismal record on the pandemic and the tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths.
The government’s response when challenged on its many policy failures is to invoke culture wars. It threatens institutions that want to remove statues of brutal racists from their premises. It has a sinister policy that treats Muslims who question British foreign policy as potential terror threats – yet claims the only threat to free speech comes from “woke” people. And, in many ways the most glaring example, it deliberately misportrays supporters of Black Lives Matter as Marxists who want to scrap the police. This is how it responded to the shocking images of George Floyd’s life being slowly snuffed out. Taking the knee was dismissed as “gesture politics” by the home secretary, and when fans started mass booing England players who adopted this silent protest, ministers refused to condemn them.
Johnson is a successful politician, and there’s a reason he’s doing all this: because underneath it all he knows appealing to people’s worst instincts will be good for him. If tolerance, fairness and redressing the inequalities of the past were vote winners he would align himself with those values. Instead, he wins new supporters by playing the politics of English nationalism.
For many countries, nationalism is a story of underdogs surviving against the odds: resisting colonialism and existential threats to bounce back strongly. For England, the reverse is true: its nationalism lauds invasion, dominance and suppression. And even when faced with its unforgivable role in the darkest aspects of human history, such as three centuries of slavery, it tells itself a story of heroism and liberation at deciding to end the crime (less told is that Britain compensated the slaveowners so much it took more than 180 years to pay back the debt: those who had been enslaved received nothing).
Already, on social media, those sentiments are appearing: we’re out of Europe, and now we rule Europe. I dread to think what will happen if England actually win on Sunday. For decades, football has been the one major corrective to England’s over-inflated opinion of itself: how can we be so good if we keep losing to the Germans (or those other great military foes, Argentina)? Without that, nationalist demons will be set free; there’ll be little to hold back the feelings of supremacy and superiority that are so much embedded in Britain’s history.
Progressive words from Southgate and the team will not be able to stem this. In fact, seeing the cringeworthy photo of Johnson outside No 10 standing on a giant cross of St George, and given his record of claiming responsibility for anything positive (the world-leading vaccine? No, it was a German/Turkish production), how long before this becomes a victory for Boris, all part of the great Brexit dividend?
Gareth, Raheem, Marcus: I totally love what you’re doing and what you stand for. But England just isn’t ready for you.
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Joseph Harker is the Guardian’s deputy Opinion editor