The archbishop is right, those who identify as English are too often patronised

Editorial: Remainers should stop dismissing Leave voters as xenophobic or stupid or both – let us reach across the Brexit divide and celebrate what unites us

The Archbishop of York, the Most Reverend Stephen Cottrell (PA)

He means well, bless him. Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York – who is minding the Church of England while Justin Welby, of Canterbury, takes a sabbatical – has criticised the “metropolitan elite” for treating people who are proud to be English as “backwardly xenophobic”.

The Independent may be representative of the metropolitan elite, but we take no offence at that. Indeed, we praise the archbishop for wanting to bring the whole of the United Kingdom together, which does mean, as he says, recognising the lopsidedness of our constitution and the strange status of Englishness within it.

However, we are not convinced that another layer of devolved government, “a strengthened regional government within England”, as he puts it, is the best way of going about it.

The archbishop identifies two linked problems. England outside London has been left behind by devolution; unlike Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London, it has no institution with which to associate its English identity – except Westminster, which has “started to feel like the English government”. This has emphasised the Brexit divide in the country, because “England outside London” was the heart of the Leave vote, and the UK government is now what Dominic Cummings calls a Vote Leave government.

And the archbishop is right to want to build bridges rather than deepen divisions. He is right to say that people who identify primarily as English – one of the traits most associated with voting Leave – are too often patronised. Too many Remainers are given to dismissing Leave voters as xenophobic or stupid or both. This has got to stop.

But we remain sceptical about institutional fixes. The government has just abandoned the idea of English Votes for English Laws (Evel), a complex set of parliamentary rules that amounted to trying to make the House of Commons simultaneously a parliament for the UK and for England. An English parliament would not work for the same reason – because England accounts for five-sixths of the UK population, it would largely duplicate the Commons.

Hence perhaps the archbishop’s vague plan for regional governments, but the demand for them is limited, as John Prescott discovered when he held a referendum on one for the northeast of England in 2004. Nor are stronger regional identities the obvious answer to the question of Englishness.

More promising is the archbishop’s idea of an English anthem: his musings had been prompted by the singing of “Flower of Scotland” by Scottish fans and “God Save the Queen” by English ones when the two teams met in the Euros. This may seem trivial, but the way in which the England team reclaimed Englishness as an inclusive identity in this competition is more significant than any institutional tinkering. We recommend to the archbishop the research carried out by British Future into public attitudes on the subject.

By all means, then, let those of us who live in England be proud to be English. Let us reach across the Brexit divide to celebrate what unites us. We can understand why a Church of England might have a special interest in the national question. But let us shy away from bishops meddling in the constitution.