Our different identities are what makes the UK work

Last week Alex Salmond told a New York audience  that he had no territorial ambitions in the North of England. Although there may be a few Geordies who would prefer a left leaning Scotland to an England run by a Tory-led coalition the vast majority of my constituents tell me they are looking forward, desperately, to a Labour United Kingdom.

Growing up in the North of England I’ve written previously for LabourList of how I had to move to France in order to feel really English for the first time – it sounded so very posh and colonial , and we were neither.

But neither were we Scottish. I remember as a child Scots would come to Tynemouth and Whitley Bay for their summer holidays – they fly to sunnier climes now and the resorts suffer as a consequence. But there, whilst of course they were fellow Brits, there was no sense of them being fellow Geordies.

Northumbria has a surfeit of castles  –  it was not until I moved south that I realised it was possible to go to the coast and not trip over one. Of course they were built for sea defence, just as we were taught at school that Hadrian’s Wall was built to keep the Scots out.

So despite a shared political ‘leftness’ there was no sense that we were Scottish. Which really did only leave English as a national identity, although that was not exactly celebrated. The Queen, Great Britain, the Armed Forces were all subjects of celebration by various communities but what really united us was – and is – ‘geordiness’. Despite internal bickering the North East retains a strong sense of regional identity. That is one reason why our regional development agency, 1NE, attracted near universal support from private, public  and third sectors and why its abolition was felt so keenly.

The fact we voted against a regional assembly reflected disillusionment with the prospect of another layer of Government without any significant power to go with it, not a lack of distinct identity. Labour’s recent commitment to regional ministers has been widely welcomed.

And Englishness? When Newcastle United played Benfica in Lisbon last year I overheard one compatriot explaining earnestly to a Portuguese family “We’re not English we’re Geordie.”

But in some ways Hadrian’s Wall was an artificial division, for long stretches of time after the Romans it was not considered a border.  As Conservative MP Rory Stewart recently described in his television series Border Country – The Story Of Britain’s Lost Middleland how Northumbria encompassed parts of both England and Scotland. When in the 7^th century St Cuthbert travelled from Melrose to Holy Island he passed gorgeous countryside but not a national frontier.  Northumbria stretched from Edinburgh to the Humber.

As far as I am aware, though, the  argument for restoring the ancient kingdom of Northumbria has played little part in the current debate on Englishness. The Tories have always wrapped themselves in the Union Jack but there  has long been a problem with the Cross of St George. So when the BNP and National Front claimed it we seemed to leave them to it.

Well I for one am glad that the Cross of St George is being reclaimed from the fascists. Englishness is an identity which deserves better champions than the English Defence League. We should do more than lay claim to it, we should celebrate it.

It was undoubtedly very English that Nadhim Zahawi and I ended up debating the 2011 St Georges Day Bill. He of Kurdish heritage, myself a proud member of the Geordie nation and the Nigerian diaspora.

I agree with little that David Cameron says, and particularly not about being evangelical about religion, but I believe there is an argument for Geordies being more evangelical about our values  – collective action, individual responsibility, international solidarity – in the context of English identity.

I certainly hope that  the United Kingdom remains united. I do believe we are better together. This is not a time to be further fragmentation.

This is a time to recognise the strength, creativity and innovation that stems from  differences united and to build upon them. That is as true of identity as it is of nationhood.