Nation has united behind Southgate’s modern team

Itook my two sons to the World Cup in Germany in 2006, where we had to watch England’s third penalty shoot-out defeat in major competitions since 1990. Then, the talk was of moderate German nationalism being “normalised” by all the flag-waving.

But deep patterns of political behaviour are not changed by single events, and German politics – see Angela Merkel’s extraordinary decision in the refugee crisis – cannot so easily discard history and claim normal nation status. Does this World Cup represent a normalisation of Englishness? The simple answer is no, because it is already normal.

The English flag has been used widely at sporting occasions since Euro 96, and most English people now identify as English (and most British, too) in response to the lesson in UK multi-nationality provided by Scottish nationalism over the past 20 years.

Yet in the same way that Danny Boyle’s 2012 Olympic show reflected how our British national story had evolved into something open and post-chauvinistic, grounded in a sense of specialness not imperial superiority, Gareth Southgate’s team may be doing something similar for the English. “Our country has been through difficult experiences in terms of unity,” the manager said. “And sport, football in particular, has the power to help that.”

There are two reasons why even liberal-minded English people (and a few Celts) can get behind this team. First, it looks like modern urban England, with 11 out of 23 players from African, Caribbean or mixed-race backgrounds. It is, in fact, not right to say, as several commentators have, that the squad “looks like the country we’ve become”. The black and mixed race population of the country is only about 6 per cent compared with almost half of the squad.

What is most striking about the squad is how provincial it is, from urban but not metropolitan England: Sheffield, Bury, Bradford, Doncaster, Stevenage, Cheltenham, Bristol, with just two born in London (Kane and Loftus-cheek). Fifteen out of the 23 are northerners, and six from Yorkshire.

The second reason is the way the squad, the fans and the manager have behaved. Apart from one trashed Ikea, the fans have not been violent, the players and their wives and girlfriends have not been boorish and spoilt, and

‘What is most striking about the squad is how provincial it is, from urban but not metropolitan England’

Southgate has been a gentlemanly and articulate spokesman.

“We’re a team, with our diversity and our youth, that represents modern England… In England, we have spent a bit of time being a bit lost as to what our modern identity is. I think as a team we represent that modern identity and, hopefully, people can connect with us,” he said.

He is right this is a melting-pot team and several of the white players, including captain Kane, are from Irish backgrounds – but it also speaks to white, post-industrial, left-behind places, like Barnsley (John Stones) not usually thought of as “modern”.

Indeed, London, the apotheosis of English modernity is having a quieter World Cup than provincial England. It is striking how few England flags are flying in London, signifying how post-english it has become. I even had my England car flag ripped off in Dollis Hill, which is entirely flag-free.

A friend of mine who runs an inner-city London secondary school found that many of the mainly ethnic minority pupils were supporting teams other than England, even though Raheem Sterling grew up around the corner.

Could this England World Cup run make a dent in that indifference or even hostility towards Englishness? Most ethnic minorities have in the past tended to identify as British, seeing English as a white identity, but that has been slowly eroding. A successful, almost half-black England World Cup team could speed up that switch.

Decent national sentiment is reinforced by what the American Bonnie Honig calls “objects of public love” – such as the NHS and maybe this England football team. These objects of public love make us feel connected to a joint endeavour and allow us, at least temporarily, to set aside our differences and conflicts.

It may not last long: after all, the euphoria of the Olympics was followed not long after by the Brexit vote. Yet, as the political class strains to come up with a form of Brexit that most of the country can unite behind, this celebration of a decent England team, both on and off the pitch, could not have come at a better time.

♦david Goodhart works at Policy Exchange, and is the author of The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics