The better team won the Euros but England won the political contest
In general on sporting occasions I’m an Anyone But England person. That’s not because I deny great sporting achievements made by English women and men. On the contrary they can be celebrated, as can those of other teams.
However I am international socialist and my flag is not that of England or Scotland (I’m a Scottish North Londoner who lives partly in Wales) but the red flag.
English sporting teams are mostly much better representations of the nation they represent than they once were and that is positive. The reality is however that one only needed to look at newspaper headlines around Sunday’s Euro final to see that English sporting success encourages racism and reactionary attitudes.
I have been and remain however fully behind Gareth Southgate and the England teams taking the knee against racism before each game. The claim it was not political has been rather surpassed after Sunday’s game with the racism shown to some of England’s players, the defence of them, and the criticism of Boris Johnson and Priti Patel made by Tyrone Mings.
Johnson cancelled plans for a reception for the players suggesting the criticism had hit home. The political impact of this on a Government that has been all too keen to use racism to stoke Culture Wars cant be ignored.
Fighting racism is an international question and England weren’t the only team to take the knee at the Euros at the final. Italy joined them at the final as Scotland had in an earlier game.
David Olusoga has written a piece on the link between the England team and the better aspects of Englishness. I don’t think E P Thompson was a big football fan (it gets a couple of mentions in the Making of the English Class) but he might agree. He however always saw it as a contradictory thing. His retort about why English socialists had not arguably produced the body of theory that their European counterparts had was because they had had ‘so bloody much to oppose’ meaning English and indeed British imperialism.
These are matters which socialists should be engaged in discussing and debating not just amongst themselves but in workplaces and pubs.
Good article.
Slight correction need ” England weren’t the only team to take the Euros at the final” needs a knee
Andy S