This is a pretty common thought process among those on the centre/left when confronted with the need to cater to identity, but regrettably I feel it's a thoroughly wrong one. https://twitter.com/carolinejmolloy/status/1390216821291245572

Firstly - this feels like an overly intellectual interpretation of what patriotism means to voters. Added to that, compliance with and embracement of national identity doesn't equate to breast beating jingoism. Or rather, if you think it does, it shouldn't. 1/x

The associations of national identity with jingoism, shouting boo to Johnny Foreigner and some such tropes is the reality of a left leaving the pitch, refusing to engage and cater to that ever present feeling and need of identity among a great swathe of voters. 2/x

It's also an academic interpretation of what non academic electors are thinking. Those who identify in polls as patriotic don't do so because they're distressed at foreign voices on trains (sure, the likelihood at finding those types is higher, but it's not a majority 3/x

sentiment) or much that is concrete and necessarily can be categorised. They do so because they regard it as their "community identity," their equivalent to community pride, for more often than note their communities have been absent an identity for nearly 40 years.
4/x

If an election was fought between a patriotic party and a party seen as the anthesis to patriotism, that patriotic party will win every time.

To be a bit facile: patriotism means different things to different people. Labour attempting a reconnect with voters outside its 5/x

2019 core will need to bear that in mind, that the party needs to, *at the very least*, not be seen as in revulsion of it.

The campaign's been interesting for this. Almost every Con local election leaflet or stakeboard I've come across has borne in some form the Union Jack.
6/x

Of the Labour leaflets I've seen, meanwhile, the flag's absent, but curiously, in its stead in some situs (South Yorks, Lancashire, Liverpool) they've featured local identifiers (white rose, red rose (grr), etc) that local campaigners *know* is of some significance to voters.
7/8

They know it matters, and that it needs to be catered for - that candidates need to associate with it, and appear genuine in doing so. There's a reason Bootle keeps giving Labour huge wins *in spite of* its demographics...

So why not do that with national identity, too?
8/8