Everything about British Day totally explained
"British Day" is an umbrella term used for a number of proposals to create a
national day for the
United Kingdom and celebration of "
Britishness". Recently, this suggestion has been associated with one of its main supporters,
Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Current position
The United Kingdom is unusual in having no single
national holiday. It has a number of national days of celebration which go largely uncelebrated, and others which are associated with the
constituent countries of the UK. The latter category includes
St George's Day in
England,
St Andrew's Day in
Scotland,
St Patrick's Day in
Northern Ireland and
St David's Day in
Wales.
At present, the
Queen's Official Birthday is marked as a
de facto national day by British diplomatic missions overseas but not in the UK itself. Another day which could be seen as taking the form of a British national day in recent years, albeit spread out over a weekend and not an annual event, was the
Queen's Golden Jubilee. Jubilees and
Coronations are typically invested with a great deal of
patriotism and participation by some members of the public, as are a number of remembrance events related to Britain's participation in wars throughout history (mentioned below).
Similar ideals to those put forward for a British national holiday led in 2006 to the creation of a
Veteran's Day in the UK.
Candidates for a new national day
Most of the suggested proposals for a national day are already existing holidays or days of celebration in the UK which either are poorly marked by the government and the people, or are not readily associated with Britishness at present. The most significant contenders for this position are:
Opposition
In recent years, surveys have demonstrated a significant increase in the number of people choosing to solely or primarily identify with their
own national identities instead of a
British identity. This is particularly true in
Wales and
Scotland since the introduction of
devolution. In those two countries, and in the
Republican community in
Northern Ireland, the potential opposition to a British Day is considerable. In Wales, for instance, there have been repeated calls for
Saint David's Day to be made an official national holiday, with one poll finding that 87% of the Welsh wanted it to be a
bank holiday, and in the
National Assembly for Wales all 60 AMs voted unanimously for it to be declared so but the
UK government rejected the proposal on the grounds that it wasn't practical to introduce an additional public holiday. The
Scottish Parliament, which has the legal powers to do so, is set to introduce a public holiday for
Saint Andrew's Day in 2008.
The proposal for a 'British Day' was included in a raft of proposals contained in a report entitled
Citizenship: Our Common Bond by former
Attorney General Lord Goldsmith. Goldsmith's report also a number of other suggestions including the involvement of schoolchildren in
citizenship ceremonies as part of
citizenship education, which included requiring school-leavers - and UK citizens as part of a 'British Day' - to swear an oath of alliegance to the British Queen: the ideas have been roundly condemned by a number of leading politicians in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, notably Scottish First Minister
Alex Salmond who described the proposals as "
Monty Pythonesque".
Lord Goldsmith addressed potential opposition to a British Day in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in the report, stating:
» "There were undoubtedly issues raised about how a national day would be received in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. But the important point to stress in this regard is that there ought to be nothing in the framework of the national day to prevent particular areas from creating events that celebrate other shared identities alongside our bond of shared citizenship. People have multiple identities and it would be false for events organised for a national day not to be responsive to that."Further Information
Get more info on 'British Day'.
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