Mr Tony Blair reopened Britain's devolution debate yesterday, offering a redefinition of Britishness based on "shared values" rather than sentimental attachment to "unchanging institutions". The Prime Minister linked his domestic programme of modernisation and reform to the search for peace in Northern Ireland and a policy of engagement with Europe as evidence of a new politics "prepared to change to overcome the problems of the past and rise to the challenges of a changing world".
In a keynote speech to the annual Newspaper Conference lunch in London Mr Blair challenged those who assumed the death of the nation state, while insisting "it is not pro-British to be anti-Europe".
Yet, while Labour's "outward-looking vision" believed Britain's place to be in Europe, Mr Blair said it would always be more than that - as "a pivotal nation, a bridge between east and west, between the United States and the EU".
On Northern Ireland, Mr Blair repeated that his government valued the Union. However, his attempts to reassure unionists in the North may have been undermined by confusing references in his published script to "Ireland" and the "Irish" in the context of arguments about devolution and constitutional change in the UK.
Attacking Conservative proposals for "English votes for English laws", Mr Blair said: "They propose to exclude the Scots, Welsh and Irish from any discussion of laws defined as English." Rejecting the idea that "the rest of Britain's MPs" could become second-class citizens at Westminster, voting on some but not all issues, the Prime Minister said: "England can if it chooses outvote Scotland, Ireland and Wales at any point."
Attacking Conservative and nationalist critics of his devolution programme, Mr Blair insisted it was in fact "quintessentially British . . . one of our distinguishing characteristics as a people, that we have always been willing to adapt our institutions to changing circumstances".
Mr Blair said the qualities that helped forge the British identity included creativity based on tolerance and openness; work and self-improvement; strong communities and families, and fair play, rights and responsibilities "and an outward-looking approach to the world that all flow from our unique island geography and history".
The traditional Tory critique was that before devolution and House of Lords reform political institutions had been an important part of British identity. Mr Blair asserted: "Of course they have been historically significant, but they have never been anything more than a reflection of the needs of the British people at any one time. They are not eternal expressions of the British character. To change them does not mean that something quintessentially British has been destroyed, that part of Britain has gone."