ADVERTISING THE END OF BRITAIN

Edward Heathcoat Amory says Mr Blair's `rebranding,

and the Tories' rising English nationalism, are among forces leading to the end of the United Kingdom

WHAT a pity that they lowered the lights. The Queen and Commonwealth leaders clustered round a giant, circular television screen in Edinburgh to watch a video depicting Tony Blair's New Britain. But the monarch's reaction to New Labour's nayschoo/, 'through the round window' vision of her nation will remain a mystery. When we could see the royal party once *again, Prince Philip appeared to be trying lunch free a particularly stubborn piece of mnch from between two back teeth. And Her Majesty looked as though the pudding had disagreed with her. Or perhaps it was the video- A modernised national anthem preceded a series of breathless images of British suc- cess, interspersed by fashionably blurred glimpses of the Union Jack, Three powerful forces threaten Britain's !uture. The first is political, as an increas- ingly powerful Brussels threatens to devour a nation split into bite-sized sections by devolution in Scotland and Wales. The sec- ond is economic, as globalisation makes markets the masters of governments, and encourages increasingly multinational com- panies to abandon the trappings of national Identity. Finally, and most insidiously, there is the march of history as depicted by an influen- tial group of historians. They argue that Britain was an artificial creation of four nations, initially cemented together by the Protestant religion, the Empire and war. As those fade into historical record, they claim, Britain is coming apart at its man- made seams.

The great Blairite rebranding is, accord- ing to the advertising savant Lord Saatchi, a logical response to these problems, and the Edinburgh video was 'nothing if not strategic'. Lord Saatchi told me that Mr Blair knows that 'people are going to be anxious about all these changes, so he is offering a new anchor, rebranding as a new spirit of a new age'.

It is perhaps not surprising that New Labour, the first British political party to be created by marketing, should turn to the advertising industry when faced with funda- mental political problems. But although `Cool Britannia' may work for a while, the forces undermining the nation state found- ed with the union of England and Scotland in 1707 may be well beyond the reach of even the most exciting marketing 'concept'. It is instructive that the Conservatives, faced by the same concerns, are coming up with far more daring solutions than any- thing contemplated by Mr Blair.

For a generation the Tories have been grappling with the problems posed by the European Union. Today, they remain as divided as ever. William Cash, Conserva- tive MP for Stone, still argues that the Maastricht Treaty is about 'the transfer of the levers of government to a new state called Europe'. Brussels, say Mr Cash and many like him, is the principal threat to our national identity.

Pro-Europeans in his party think differ- ently. John Stevens, Conservative Euro- MP, argues that Europe is necessary to `sustain the nation state'. By clubbing together, he suggests, `governments are able to go on persuading their people they are still sovereign', and not subject to the 'brutality of the global economy'. Regardless of whether Mr Cash or Mr Stevens is right, both approach- es accept, as Labour does not, that the United Kingdom's response to Europe will decide whether Britain survives in its current form.

The resulting constitutional muddle is widely expected to be unsustainable. If a Scottish parliament does not provoke Scot- tish nationalism, argue the critics, it will lead to an English nationalist retaliation. The Conservative constitutional spokes- man, Bernard Jenkin MP, says that to argue that devolution will strengthen the Union is 'looking-glass mad. If Mr Blair goes ahead with his project, he is going to destroy himself, as he is archetypally British, and Britain will not survive'.

But if Mr Blair is under threat from his own plans, so is the Conservative party. At least two members of the shadow Cabinet now speak privately in favour of English independence. One Conservative front- bench spokesman admits that, when his constituency party met recently, the flag of St George was on the wall and the talk was of England striking out on her own.

Others believe that a federal system, with a separate English parliament, is the only solution. The dwindling band of Unionists within the party of the Union are isolated, forced to support Mr Blair's constitutional settlement for fear of getting something worse. But unlike New Labour, the Tories are taking the constitutional threat seriously.

And they take nothing more seriously than monetary union, which bridges the political and the economic threats to the United Kingdom. As the Chancellor admit- ted this week, joining EMU would repre- sent 'a major pooling of economic sovereignty'. But Labour, he said, could live with this constitutional slippage if there were real economic benefits to be gained from entry. Mr Brown and other support- ers of EMU argue that global markets are now so strong that Britain no longer has any real control over its monetary policy. Pointing to the forced exit from the ERM in 1992, they suggest that joining EMU is a logical response to national political impo- tence.

Believers in the power of the markets and their contempt for national borders acquired fresh ammunition this week. Troubles over the level of the Hong Kong dollar forced a fall in the stock market there, triggering a sympathetic drop in London, and then a huge fall on Wall Street. Meanwhile, nothing fundamental has changed in Britain's own economic cir- cumstances.

Political response to such tangible evi- dence of globalisation reflects the preju- dices of the politicians involved. Mr Blair calls for 'education, education and educa- tion', and fixes up a deal with Bill Gates to put computers into British schools. Bill Cash reflects on the British 'merchant ven- turer' tradition, and warns against closer ties with an 'uncompetitive and sclerotic European system'. A slightly different Tory line is taken by the Conservative MP David Willetts, who has argued that 'the threat of globalisation has been exaggerated'. Multi- national corporations, suggests Mr Willetts, `are not multicultural, they keep an identity which is often closely related to the country where they have their main base'.

However, according to an influential recent pamphlet from the Blairite think- tank Demos, companies do not wish to be identified with Britain. Its author, Mark Leonard, points to firms like British Tele- com and British Airways which have been gradually attempting to distance themselves from Britain, seen around the world as a low-tech 'theme park of royal pageantry'. British connections, says Mr Leonard, are no longer an asset to business.

This analysis has clearly been crucial in persuading Mr Blair of the need to revamp the national brand. Geoff Mulgan, who founded Demos, is now a key member of Mr Blair's policy unit. But is such pes- simism justified? Although the Demos pamphlet speaks of the need 'to attract more tourists to Britain, it proudly admits that in 1996 14 million tourists visited Lon- don, more than any other European city. And although Mr Leonard claims that companies around the globe see Britain as `bogged down by tradition, riven by class and threatened by industrial disputes', he also notes that, after the United States, we are the most popular destination for international inward investment. And British brands such as Rolls-Royce are sought-after commercial assets.

Try a more gentle spring on his cat flap.' But even if Britain manages to rise to the challenge of globalisation and find a work- able constitutional fudge, it faces another, more serious threat. In her modish book, Britons, the historian Linda Colley argued that the United Kingdom was an artificial creation, where 'men and women became patriotic' because they expected to profit from that patriotism. A combination of the economic opportunities available from the Empire, the need to combine against exter- nal enemies and a mutual commitment to the Protestant cause bonded together three disparate nations.

Ms Colley and her supporters now argue that since Protestantism is on the wane, Britain is at peace and the Empire has passed, contentiously, into history, the glue that held the United Kingdom together has dissolved. Today, she writes, we may be facing 'an imminent process of British dis- solution'.

Not everyone is convinced. The Conser- vative historian Noel Malcolm accuses her of belonging to the 'constructionist tradi- tion'. Constructionists, he told me, claim a `superior insight into the artificiality of things', and believe that once they have demonstrated the ways in which an institu- tion was created, it becomes 'somehow invalid'. Dr Malcolm points out that although Britain was an 18th-century cre- ation, it has over the years acquired a set of shared stories that give it an existence inde- pendent of its original purpose. This island nation has, in other words, a future as well as a past.

Britain, then, faces a tripartite threat to its existence. But perhaps the most impor- tant determinant of its ability to survive is the reaction of its politicians. Labour is now the unionist party, committed for rea- sons of electoral self-interest to a multi- national state. But so far, Mr Blair's only response to this realisation is the rebrand- ing exercise. This may, as Lord Saatchi argues, work for a short period.

But in the longer term, Blair has no clear sense of what form a new national identity should take. The snapshots of modernity on display in the Edinburgh video may be more up to date than Baldwin's corncrake on a dewy morning, or Major's old maids cycling to church. But they do not consti- tute a compelling vision of the British soul. Instead, as the Conservative MP Damian Green has pointed out, there is a danger of Tony Blair's smiling face becoming our national trademark, in a final and sinister development of presidential politics. But the Tories will also be to blame if Britain does dissolve into narrow national- ist enclaves. Their response to the Euro- pean challenge has been divided, their reaction to devolution confused and half- hearted, and in all too many cases they are opting for easy and populist English nationalism in their attempt to redefine both their party and their country. If the United Kingdom is to survive, it will need better friends than this.