Double Aspect

The Crowds

Two major events took place in London on Saturday. One was a rally on Whitehall convened by a right-wing rabble-rouser who calls himself Tommy Robinson. The other was the Last Night of the Proms concert in Albert Hall. Two very different occasions drawing two very different crowds. But there are also obvious similarities between them, and it is worth reflecting on what both the connections and the distinctions are.

The Tommy Robinson event was called “Unite the Kingdom” but it was meant to do no such thing. Predictably for a far-right affair, it was very much an us-versus-them thing, all about expelling migrants and fighting back—said Elon Musk, that well-known uniter of Britain—against forces so shadowy their nature cannot possibly be clarified. There was violence: attacks on the police who were trying to keep the 150,000-strong crowd away from a much smaller counter-protest. There was also, of course, a great deal of flag-waving.

The Last Night of the Proms was a rather more genteel affair. The proceedings were led by a Hong Kong-born conductor whom no one wanted to deport. Shadowy forces went unmentioned—indeed, references to them were pointedly excised from some of the songs in the programme. There are no reports of police casualties—even the taste police are content. But there was also—oh was there ever!—a great deal of flag-waving.

For those who don’t know, the Last Night of the Proms is traditionally dedicated, in part, to British patriotic songs including “Land of Hope and Glory”, “Rule Britannia“, and the National Anthem. It is from the latter two that references to foreign tyrants and the King’s enemies are left out. Even so, the whole thing has been known to make people uncomfortable over the years—”Rule Britannia” was left out altogether for a while. The National Anthem is fine and good for football matches and official occasions, but you won’t hear the sort of people who frequent the Albert Hall belting out “Britannia rule the waves” very often.

I rather suspect that you won’t hear them utter a word of approval of the Tommy Robinson crowd either, the shared interest in flag-waving notwithstanding. And I rather suspect too that that crowd would respond to the Albert Hall patrons—even those of the Last Night—with suspicion and resentment if not outright enmity. If they are not part of the shadowy forces, they are rather too cozy with them—or, to pick up a far too popular phrase, they don’t hate them enough.

The Concepts

What is then the difference between these flag-waving crowds? Why do they not like one another? There is, I suspect, as with so much else in Britain, a class dimension to this question, but I don’t think it explains all that much. Neither, for better or for worse, is representative of the class it is drawn from—if indeed either is drawn from any one in particular.

Another answer that inevitably comes to mind is the distinction between patriotism—on display at the Albert Hall—and nationalism on show on Whitehall. Perhaps the pithiest definition belongs to Romain Gary, who said that patriotism is the love of one’s own while nationalism is the hatred of the other. Gary isn’t the only person to have suggested that there is something dark and vile about nationalism, and to have sought to distinguish it from a more benign sentiment. Though quite how benign patriotism itself is has also long been open to question. It is Dr Johnson who said it was the last refuge of the scoundrel. And if you’ve seen the famous picture of Donald Trump hugging the American flag, you know he was right. Then again, Mr Trump self-identifies as a nationalist. Patriotism is not enough for him.

And so I’m not sure these two concepts are all that useful either. I suspect, too, that for a lot of people the difference between them is hazy at best. To classify one crowd as patriotic and the other as nationalist is to impose on them a category that does not necessarily reflect their own thinking. It is also—and no less importantly—to draw between them a distinction that is perhaps a little too sharp, one that absolves the patriotic crowd of Dr Johnson’s worries, and of those that anyone in their right mind ought to have about crowds of all sorts.

Conversely, to suggest that the two crowds were the same would be to flatter the one and insult the other—as well, I suspect, as to anger both. But, though not the same, they are nevertheless moved in part by a shared emotion; call it love of country. Up to a point, this manifests itself in both crowds in the same flag-waving gestures. But only up to a point. Love of country, like other kinds of love, can manifest itself in very different ways, not all of them equally admirable.

The Pathologies

Indeed, it can lead one to very dark places, taking what is supposed to be uplifting and generative and twisting it into something degrading and poisonous. This is all familiar stuff, the fodder of all the arts in every civilisation: jealousy, blindness, exploitation. Love of country is as vulnerable—perhaps more so—to all these distortions as any other sort. Look again at Mr Trump and his followers, or to my present point, to Mr Robinson and his.

There is no necessary inherent reason why love of country must translate into the kind of jealousy that would deny it to outsiders. Those who love England as “the welcoming land” do not love it less than Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage. Americans from Thomas Jefferson, who scolded the British government for impeding immigration to the then-13 colonies, to Ronald Reagan who spoke of a “shining city” whose “doors were open to anyone with the will and heart to get there”, loved their country no less than Donald Trump and JD Vance. But as Robinson and Farage, Trump and Vance, and countless other names current and historical show, love of country does often veer into this sort of possessiveness—and much like jealousy in interpersonal relationships, it can turn violent with deadly consequences. Not all who feel the love feel this jealousy—many never do—but the line between its occasional pangs and the persistent paranoia is perhaps thinner than many would like to admit.

Similarly, there is no need for love of country to be a sort of blind infatuation. People love their spouses, their parents, their children without pretending that they are perfect. They can rebuke them and ask them to change in at least some respects, and on our better days we respond and try to change for the sake of those who love us and wish us well. But just as love for a person can make one put them on a pedestal, worship them and refuse to see their flaws, so too love of country can become a form of unthinking devotion where criticism is forbidden and disagreement is tantamount to betrayal. Hence we get uncritical support of what one’s country — or, more precisely, its government — does, no matter how contrary to principle and justice. Hence we get airbrushing and rewriting of history. We should be able to—and most people can—love and celebrate a country, as well as a person, of whose perhaps chequered past and present shortcomings they are well aware. But it is easier perhaps to forget about these things, especially if you are not at the receiving end of them, and as with jealousy the temptation is more widespread than one might like to admit.

And if love drives some people to blindness or jealousy, others are only too willing to take advantage of them. It’s not that they have to, of course, and again, most don’t. But some — and more than one would like to admit — will. Just as an abusive partner might tell you that “if you love me, you will”, so too the unscrupulous politician can make citizens sacrifice their life, liberty, or property—and just as often and just as tragically, their integrity—in the name of a supposed love of country that is no more than the abuser’s gaslighting trick. They might bully or they might insinuate; they might use fear to whip up jealousy or flattery to encourage blindness. As Friedrich Dürrenmatt put it, “the state always calls itself fatherland when it is ready for murder”. Again, I do not think it is hard to see these tendencies at work in the Tommy Robinson crowd—not only in the attacks on the police, which after all are the work of a small minority, but more darkly in its attitude towards migrants. They may not be spoiling for a pogrom—though some of them were probably among the people calling for the hotels housing asylum seekers to be attacked—but they are at best indifferent to the loss of life their preferred policies would cause.

Living with It

None of the above is to suggest that people can, or indeed should try to, live without love of country any more than they should or can try to live without love of whatever sort for other people. As I have said throughout, the pathologies are not necessary or inherent to the feelings most people experience. There is nothing wrong with loving your country—and with the occasional flag-waving and singing of nonsense songs about how our king or our purple mountains, or even our wine, women, and song are better than everyone else’s. Indeed, it important to make sure that love of country is not seen as the exclusive preserve of those who do it all wrong. It is good that the Prime Minister has said that he would not “surrender [the flag] to those that use it as a symbol of violence, fear and division” (though here as on other occasions, saying the right thing is not yet doing it). Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, but if scoundrels are the only people seen to be patriotic, what we will have is scoundrel patriotism.

All the same, one needs to be aware that feelings that are not inherently bad can turn very badly wrong, and not only in one’s fellow citizens but also in oneself. I don’t think anyone knows very clearly why some people—including people neither their friends nor themselves expect to—become overcome with jealousy, or blind themselves to the point of staying in abusive relationships, or become abusers themselves. So too no one should be too confident that one’s love of country will not take one to dark places. One has to take one’s chances and run the risk—and stay watchful.

That is what the Tommy Robinson crowd has quite evidently failed to do. As for the audience at the Last Night of the Proms? Well, they—we, if I may include myself, having watched it on the telly—should not be too smug. There but for the grace of God, etc. But I do think there is a real difference.

So, let me end with words that are, understandably, not sung at the Last Night, but are on other, more solemn occasions. They too come from a heartfelt love of country, but one that is a necessary counterpoint to the self-indulgence of “Rule Britannia” and “Land of Hope and Glory”:

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard.
For frantic boast and foolish word—
Thy Mercy on Thy people, Lord!