Who are you?

Well, first and foremost, I'm a name - I'm Billy Bragg. That marks me out as an individual. Then, I'm from Barking, which is a place in East London, which is also in Essex. So, I'm both a Londoner and an Essex man. And Barking's in the East End, so I'm also an East Ender. And West Ham are the local football team, so I'm a West Ham fan. I'm also a Southerner because I now live in Dorset in the south of England, or rather, the south-west of England. So I'm English. Which means I'm British. Which means I'm European. So, these are some of the simple levels of identity that I have.

Now, there are other things that inform my identity that aren't so readily discernible from my postcode or my accent or my CV. My mother's grandfather and grandmother were born in Italy and came to this country at the turn of the 19th century. And even though all my mum has left of her Italian heritage is her Catholicism, it still informed my upbringing and is part of my background. And my great-grandfather on my father's side was involved in the first industrial militancy in the Beckton Gas Works in the 1880s. So, that also informs a little of who I am. But most people wouldn't know me from any of those things. If you said the name "Billy Bragg", they would say "lefty". They know me from my politics. So depending on who I'm talking to, depending on where I am, depending on what the context is, all those things change and interact with each other and inform the position that I'm coming from and other people's perceptions of me. Because I'm all those things at the same time, and others.

You're also male, white and you're also famous. Why didn't you say any of those things?

Well, because I don't feel my racial identity very strongly. As a white person, I live in a white society; it's not an issue. If I were a black person, living in a white society, it would be an issue. If I were gay, I'm sure it would be a strong part of my identity. If I felt I was in a minority, if I was disabled for example, I might feel that strongly. And yeah, I'm famous, but no one's coming up and talking to me, no one's spotted me in here, have they? So, I never really think about that.

There are other things, as well, that are part of my identity - that I don't have to dwell on. I didn't identify myself as working class, either, but I do feel working class. Even though I live in a nice big house by the ocean in Dorset, I still think of myself as working class as that was my upbringing. Perhaps in the old days, distinctions of class would have been much more significant. But now, in the time of rampant individualism, identity moves on to other things. Class becomes less significant and the focus moves to local and national identities. These are the contested identities, now, whether we like it or not. And I happen to not like it. I wish I didn't have to write about this shit, but unfortunately I do.

Why?

Well, because everyone knows, without me having to point it out, that English nationalism is a sleeping dragon that people are scared of. And as a result people say to me, "you shouldn't really talk about these things, because it gives a platform to nationalists, it brings racists out the woodwork." But if we don't discuss the issue of the politics of identity, then it will be the nationalists and the racists, it will be the BNP, that define who does and who doesn't belong in England. And unfortunately, in the past we've been guilty of ignoring the problem in the hope that it will go away. We haven't discussed it. We've left a vacuum. And the far right has filled it. And unfortunately, we have to contest that ground now. And I say "unfortunately", because the far right knows that ground like the back of its hand but we don't. It's unfamiliar to us. We're internationalist, but we need to engage in the debate about national identity, yet we're not used to arguing for it. Just bringing the subject up can alienate people who come from a traditional leftist background. Immediately - just the mere mention of it. So, it's complicated. But the fact is that immigration has now risen up the political agenda, so we have no choice but to engage. It's not enough just to keep saying to people, "well, we're internationalist, we're all in this together, we're all one great, big family." That doesn't wash any more. We have to take on the BNP on their terms, to fight them for our heritage, our English dissident heritage. We have to fight for the culture of dissent that's been the key vehicle for fundamental change in this society, all the way back to Magna Carta.

You have described the idea of the British Empire as being about capitalism.

Empire is always about exploitation. The British didn't conquer India. It was conquered by a private, limited company. Exploitation is the driving force. Therefore, I think, rather than look at the English as a people who went out to conquer the world, to 'civilise' other peoples, I think of them as capitalists who went out to exploit people in order to put stuff in shops.

One of the terms that it's really difficult to talk about these days is 'socialist'. Because if you say you want to live in a socialist society, you've got to explain to people that it's not going to be like totalitarianism, that it's not going to be like Stalinist Russia. Whereas, if you say you want to live in a compassionate society, people understand where you're coming from.

I'm a socialist, and what I mean by that is that I believe that the individual is the most important person in society, but that the rights and the potential of each individual can only be guaranteed and realised by the collective provision of education, healthcare, decent, affordable housing and proper pensions. That is why I define myself as a socialist, because I believe in that passionately. I'm not against the individual; I just don't believe that you should have a society based purely on individualism. One of the many mistakes of the Soviet Union was that they denied that people have spiritual needs and that people have material needs. Whether we like it or not, they do. But what you don't want is a society based purely on theology or a society based purely on consumerism, which is what the US is aiming towards. So, in that sense, creating that fair and equal society is not about suppressing the individual. It's about supporting the individual. But recognising that each individual has a collective responsibility to the other - that we are in this together, whether we be ever so rich or ever so poor, whether we be black or white or Muslim or Christian or whatever. Ultimately, it's our responsibility to one another that is the thing that defines us. And it's that sense of responsibility that's been completely undermined by the marketisation of society, by the cult of the individual, which says, "you're the most important person in the world, this is all for you, get these great things, never mind anybody else, forget all those other people, they're a pain in the arse." That was the message of Thatcherism and shamefully, it has not been dismantled by New Labour.

What place does religion have in your definition of socialism?

To be frank, I don't think that religion is fundamentally, in and of itself, a bad idea. You look at the great revolutionaries in British history - many of them were driven by the Bible, particularly by the New Testament. The Diggers, the Levellers, the Abolitionists - it was a crucial component of what inspired them. But fundamentalists, whether they be religious or political, are always a danger. People who have all the answers, people who have no doubts, are a danger. So, I have faith. But my faith is in humanity. I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable living in a world where faith becomes abolished and where everything is a matter of reason. I would find that a rather troubling world. After all, the Holocaust wasn't perpetrated by religious fanatics. It was perpetrated by people who thought they have reinvented reason in the form of Nazism. Extremists of any kind, whether they're the Spanish Inquisition or the Crusaders or the Nazis, are the real danger. So rather than denying people their religious beliefs, I'm trying to make room for those aspects of Englishness that are both secular and sacred. If you live in a multicultural society, you have to respect some things you don't necessarily adhere to. That includes the Royal Family, that includes Morris dancing and that includes the Church of England.

So interpretation of Englishness or socialism relies on cherry picking certain aspects in favour of others.

Well, isn't identity all about cherry picking? Isn't your identity those things that have happened to you, and the social and familial and local environment that you choose to identify with? Why do you dress like that? Why does that guy over there wear a suit and a tie? Because he chooses to, in order to make a statement. I put this shirt on this morning because I cherry picked this identity to present today. I took into consideration where I was speaking, and I cherry picked the clothes to go with who I would be in that context. In a few nights from now, I'm going on stage with Richard Hawley at the Royal Albert Hall, as a surprise guest. I've got a great black shirt, a country-and-western shirt, with music notes on it. And in that context, I'll be going in with a kind of Johnny Cash vibe. So, I think identity is all about cherry picking. And when you're trying to make a case about patriotism, there are as many different types of patriotism as there are socialism. And so, when I say "I'm a socialist", I need to explain what I mean by that, what I have cherry picked. It's the same with Englishness. Someone said to me, "how can you write a book about Englishness and not mention cricket?" Obviously for that person, their personal notion of English identity is very strongly connected with cricket while mine is not. And that's why, to some people's frustration, the book doesn't define Englishness. Instead, I put forward the idea of a modern Bill of Rights that unites us in our diverse identities. Rather than subscribing to a national identity based on stereotypes, some of which will be unfamiliar to many, a Bill of Rights would provide a universal definition of what it means to be British, based on values that we as a society subscribe to.

Isn't there a risk with a Bill of Rights, however carefully one is put together, that it will force an identity on England? If you think of some aspects of the American Constitution, like the Second Amendment for example, the right to bear arms?

Well, that's absolutely true, but you have to remember that the US Bill of Rights was written at a time when notions of individual rights were just being formulated. The Americans were writing a Constitution for a fledgling State, so the right to bear arms probably made sense to them. They also lived in a very wild country where you could get eaten by a bear, so the idea of carrying a gun was something that most people in that society subscribed to. Now, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is less prescriptive, more universal in its content.

In your book, 'The Progressive Patriot', some of the most moving passages explore your own family tree.

Yeah, I sat down to write the book, and I thought, "well, I can either write an academic overview of English history, which I've not really got the wherewithal to do or I can explore the reasons why I am who I am, and hopefully people will relate to that. I wanted to respond to this terrible thing that happened in my home town: the British National Party won 12 seats on the local borough council. That was a terrible shock to me, in 2005, a real shock. It really made me question who I am. I mean, I finish my gigs - every night, wherever I am in the world - by saying, "my name's Billy Bragg, I'm from Barking, Essex. Thank you very much, good night", so it really undermined my sense of who I was. So, the book became an exploration of how I ended up being born there. I really needed to get to the bottom of that. "Yeah, I am from Barking, but why am I from Barking? What forces - historically, socially, politically, economically - resulted in me being born there?" And were these forces the forces of fascism, or were they the forces of progress? And that's why a lot of it was history, our national history, but also trying to piece together little fragments of my own family history.

How did you start?

Well, I looked at my grandfather's diary. I never met him: he died before I was born. His father, I discovered, worked in the Beckton Gasworks in east London at the time of great industrial action in the 1880s. And then I also found an ancestor who was a Baptist, refusing to sit in church on Sunday behind the squire, instead attending meetings in barns and open fields. I lighted on those people who, in some way, I felt a sense of strong connection with, or who, in some way, gave me what you might say was a sense of continuity. These ancestors of mine chimed in with my own sense of identity. There may have been others in between who didn't share my politics, but I chose to identify with these two.

But then families construct their own narratives don't they? My missus, her father was Spanish and although she had never lived in Spain - she had been born in Trinidad - she has a strong sense of Spanish identity. Her father had left Spain as a child with his cousins - they were refugees from the Spanish Civil War. When my missus was growing up, the presence of her Spanish grandmother - her abuela - was a very important part of forming who she was. Recently the last of the cousins died, and left a manuscript of the family history. He'd had the prescience not only to write their story down but also to put it on disc.

My missus made copies for her brothers and sisters and when they came to stay with us at New Year, she got the laptop out on the table and her elder brother read the manuscript to us. It was mentioned in passing that their great-grandfather was working in London as a Spanish lawyer, at the turn of the century. This caught my attention. If their ancestors were in London in 1900, there was every chance that they would appear on the 1901 UK census. So without saying anything, I went and got my laptop and as my brother-in-law continued to read from the manuscript, I was searching the 1901 census online for references to their great-grandparents. With an uncommon Spanish name - de Valero - it didn't take me long to find them. There they all were, living in East Ham, on the same page of the London A to Z as my great grandparents. The best thing though, was that the census revealed that their Spanish grandmother had been born in Buckhurst Hill. Their dear abuela was from Essex, just like me.

And my missus and my in-laws could not believe it. So, they rang up their mum, and she said, "oh, yeah - actually, I did know about that!" So, does my missus feel any less Spanish now? Not at all, although she does have to put up with a bit of 'Essex girl' leg pulling from me. The fact is that if you are prepared to do the research, your identity may be a little more ambiguous than you think.

Are there contexts in which it is acceptable to say to somebody, "you're not who you say you are"?

I don't think there are. Identity is a personal construct. It doesn't really become an issue until somebody tries to tell you who you are not, based on your skin colour or accent or religion or allegiances.

Our son has a dual heritage. His mother was born in Trinidad and his father was born in England. During the last World Cup he supported Trinidad and Tobago. He was 12 at the time and noticed that they had a white English guy playing for them. He asked me why and I said "Oh, his mum is from Trinidad." He got excited at this news: "My mum is from Trinidad - I could play for Trinidad and Tobago." The missus just smiled at me, and I was like, "Oh my God, what have I just done?!" But there's no point in me saying to my son, "no, no, no, you can't do that", because it is his right to draw upon any facet of his identity in order to be himself. And if he plays football for Trinidad and Tobago, I'll be just as proud as if he played for England.

Who is excluded from the group that you belong to?

As a socialist, I wouldn't want to see anyone excluded. Yet as someone who wants to redefine what it means to be British around a new Bill of Rights, I am aware that there are some who would exclude non-British passport holders from access to those rights. Rights have to be universal, available to everyone no matter what their colour, creed, or politics, otherwise they are nothing more than privileges. The trick is to strike a balance between liberty to speak your mind and the responsibility not to cause deliberate offence. Because, paradoxically, it is those who wish to exclude others on the basis of race that are the most vociferous in defence of their own rights.

Does this fuel your idea about reclaiming the flag, and other ideas of Englishness?

Well the flag either belongs to all of us, or none of us - just like the rights we inherited from Magna Carta. Each generation has sought to push back the barrier that divides those who do belong from those who do not, to make our society more inclusive. That's what the Chartists were trying to do, to get the right to vote for all men, regardless of their social standing. The Suffragettes sought to do the same thing for women and over the past 50 years as more and more people have come to our country, the definition of society has expanded to accommodate them.

There are those who wish to turn back the clock of course, to exclude these people, but we have more in common with recent immigrants that many give credit for. Basically, what all these people who come here want is to work hard, get paid for it, and have a better lifestyle for their children. And that's the reason why my ancestors came to Barking: one from Essex, the other one from Italy, but both for exactly the same reason.

How has your exploration as an artist, as a singer-songwriter, informed your sense of identity?

It's been very, very important. My first ever feelings of Englishness were engendered by Simon and Garfunkel singing "Scarborough Fair" when I was 12 years old. That song awoke something in me that I hadn't experienced before: it was a very deep sense of timelessness and a connection to place, and that was something that was overwhelming when I first felt it. Now, how two Jewish geezers from Queens playing with Bob Dylan's backing band in New York can make me feel more English, as a 12-year-old...well I don't know - go figure! At the time, Martin Carthy, who taught "Scarborough Fair" to Paul Simon, was doing gigs in London, in the city of my birth, my countryman, performing songs from my culture. Yet I never heard the songs of my ancestors from him, I heard them courtesy of CBS Records in New York.

So what is this process, whereby foreigners take your culture away, reanimate it and then send it back for you to connect with? This is the key thing The Beatles did. Think about it: what would The Beatles have sounded like if they had grown up listening only to English music? Just think about it - it would have been awful. Everyone knows they were inspired to write songs by listening to the music of black America, which, conversely, led them to write perhaps the most English music of the 20th century. So, there's a historical process at work here, a constant exchange between cultures, which we generate.

This seemingly modern idea of multiculturalism is in fact the driving force in popular music. And when you've lived through such a fundamental coming together as punk rock and reggae, in 1977, then you can't fail to be aware of these things. Of course the knock-on effect of that coming together was Rock Against Racism, which provided me with my first experience of political activism and attuned my radar to the politics of identity.

On the other hand, as a writer - because I try to write songs that are quite personal - I have often used the architecture of the English tradition in some of my songs. Although, sometimes it has all been a little bit inside-out. For instance, it's ironic that the Billy Bragg, who made a career talking about politics, and writing at great length on identity, should be most famously known for a song that says, "I don't want to change the world, I'm not looking for a new England, I'm just looking for another girl."

Where did that lyric come from?

Well, really you've got to see that lyric in the context of when I wrote it. It was right at the end of punk, when everything had fallen apart, and I was like, "well, we tried our hardest to change the world, it didn't happen. England is as it was before punk. So I just need a shag. I can't do this any more. I just need someone to hold. I can't do this any more."

And has it been the resurgence of the BNP that made you think, "actually, it's worth trying again"?

To be honest, as early as 2000, you could smell 'em - they were out there again spreading their cynicism and hatred. I guess if your entire political life has been built around fighting against racism and fascism, if that's what first brought you into political discourse, your antenna will be highly tuned into that sort of thing, so you will quickly pick it up when the language of racism and exclusion starts creeping back.

As a political artist you have to make a choice to either make art that panders to your audience's convictions, or to use your platform to challenge them. And I've always wanted to try and offer a different perspective to the mainstream one, so I decided to challenge them.

How do I do that? By writing songs about subjects that are taboo on the left, like national identity. When that was well received, I sought to take things a step further by introducing the symbols of Englishness into my performance. On St George's Day in Wolverhampton I brought the flag of St George onstage and held it up. And there was an audible gasp from the audience, and a silence. But I said, "look, if we're serious about reclaiming Englishness from the neo-Nazis, we've got to get used to seeing this. We've got to be able to hold it. It's not kryptonite." And I kept that flag on the entire tour and I did it every night. It's a tough one, because some argue that 'Englishness' cannot be 'reclaimed' (its a debate with a lot of inverted commas). But I'm not trying to make everyone salute the flag of St George on 23 April. I'm trying to encourage a broad debate about identity and belonging; about other ideas of what it means to be English, so that those who feel excluded might actually realise that it is their right to be English if they so choose and that no one can take that away from them.

Can you envisage any circumstances in which you would actually renounce your Englishness?

Oh, yeah - I mean, there are aspects of it that I renounce anyway. There are plenty of things that I'm ashamed of that England did. And there are plenty of things that we do now that I'm ashamed of. But to renounce that part of my identity which I define as English would be to surrender to the bigots on the right and to the cynics of the left. Instead, I'm determined to engage with both sides and to challenge their perceptions of what it means to be English. I guess that's what makes me a patriot.

This interview by Chris Wilkinson first appeared in 'Identity and Identification', which was published to coincide with the exhibition 'Identity: Eight rooms, nine lives'.