We should not flinch from talking about the people of England, Scotland, Wales, etc, and hailing people in such terms even if we have less to say about particular aspects of national identity. It helps people to understand what we are saying about the need for workers to unite by using language people understand. Recall the GMB stunt at the church of a private equity pirate, they turned up at Mass one Sunday with a camel to confront him with some Biblical truth that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven…

No doubt comrades in Scottish Water resisting any proposals of privatising this public utility would invoke a particular notion of Scottishness that has developed in recent years in order to build popular opposition; the struggle for, and realisation of, institutions of national self-government in Scotland has led to an inclusive national identity becoming hegemonic, it would be foolish not to tap into this sentiment in a struggle to defend workers’ rights and a good service to consumers.

In England, we have a particular problem in this regard. Very often we find in place of specifically English institutions what are in fact British institutions, which confuses identity somewhat. But if it is possible to articulate a sense of Englishness based not on race or religion but on participation in political and economic affairs, a very clear majority emerges: working people and their families.

So with people who proclaim the primacy of national identity, such as BNP supporters (as distinguished from actual fascists, with whom discourse is pointless) the discussion usually goes like this:

“You say there are too many immigrants, that they take ‘our’ jobs, but how is this?”

“The government lets them come in [insert myths about lavish benefits, claims about irreconcilable cultural differences, etc.]”

“But whose policy is it? Who benefits from an endless supply of low cost labour?”

“Those that employ them [etc]”

“I am descended from immigrants brought over for the same purpose from Ireland. Would you deny that I’m English? We become English by living and working together here in England. We shouldn’t blame other ordinary people for the problems created in a society run for the benefit of a super-rich minority. We must unite with workers of all nationalities to struggle against capitalists and their system, to make a better England, one in which the interests of working people, the majority, are put first.” And so on.

So, you see, my strategy is first to deny (for want of a better word) “bourgeois” notions of national identity promoted in the capitalist press, and then to affirm a national-popular identity framed in terms of class struggle and the battle for democracy. This is about refining common sense ideas into a “good sense”, a process which Gramsci says is not about “introducing from scratch a scientific form of thought into everyone’s individual life, but of renovating and making ‘critical’ an already existing activity”.

So, right now people think in terms of nationality and this is liable to play a part in disputes. In the Lindsay oil refinery dispute, contractors who had been working on the site were denied an opportunity to apply for work on a new project. The employer tried to union-bust and undercut wages by bringing in workers from Portugal and Italy. The workers responded by using Gordon Brown’s slogan (stolen from the fascists) “British jobs for British workers”.

The strike was quickly painted as being xenophobic and obviously a class analysis of the situation wasn’t forthcoming from the mass media – quite the opposite, class analysis was stymied. The worst example was one striker whose on camera interview was edited to make him look like a total bigot. He unfortunately used what might be considered a derogatory term in describing the Italian workers, but his point was that the employer was segregating the workforce and he could sympathise with the position of the Italian workers – he too wanted a chance to work.

Amongst themselves the workers debated how best to realise their demands. One of those involved in the strike was a militant and his comrades in the Socialist Party leafleted the workers with suggestions as to how to proceed – they didn’t jump to conclusions. The strikers decided that they should change their emphasis in response to media misrepresentation and attempts by fascists to push their bigotry. Since they were not out to do down other workers, but to get fair access to apply for new jobs, slogans were changed and a partial victory was eventually won as solidarity was built on internationally.

Now, a lot of comrades were wary about this strike – it took a few days for some to get the critical information and realise the extent of the media misrepresentation of the dispute.

It’s fortunate that we have mass media controlled by the masses – through blogs and websites people could discuss the real issues raised by the strike and the laws the bosses were using to divide workers and thus boost profits. Many of us have never experienced a major economy crisis as is happening, and we’ll have more situations like this that will require us to appeal to the good sense of workers in struggle using the common sense ideas we all understand.

A propos of absolutely nothing, I also need to confirm that I have joined, at Harpymarx’s urging, the Facebook group for Sectarian, Unpleasant, Hectoring and Bitter Marxists. I feel at home there.

But no, I’m definitely not aping Professor Hobsbawm, whom I don’t place amongst the first rank of historians. Though, saying that, his Ages’ series sits on my shelf, including the excremental fourth volume on the shorter twentieth century.

Charlie, I’m surprised you didn’t have more to say in defence of the concept of a national identity.

I’ve always started, in my head, the modern political and philosophical process, including coonceptions about what it is to be an indiviudual in society, in the midalte 18th Century, with the dawn of the Enlightenment etc and neve really sought to root the present further back than that, but I’m open to persuasion that I’m being a bit shortsighted.

Your project puts me very much in mind of Eric Hobshawm’ Ages series. Is that deliberate?

It can no longer be said that the aspirations of affluent workers match the capitalists’ – if New Labour doesn’t learn this lesson, the Tories will. Look at how quickly Cameron U-turned on his pledge not to join in with the banker-bashing?

The neoliberalism of the past few decades, and its ideological justifications, are being shaken by the crisis of capitalism. It’s not uncommon to read calls for bank nationalisation in papers that would have previously eschewed such talk as Marxist ranting. Tory-supporting TV chefs whose businesses have gone under are joining calls for state intervention, car companies are begging for help – truly the dogmas of non-intervention in the “free market” are coming under serious pressure.