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UK shelves attempt to boost national unity with holiday

The British government has decided that patriotism is no holiday.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government has shelved a proposal for a new public holiday to celebrate Britishness, one of a series of ideas intended to promote social cohesion and combat extremism.

“Britain Day” has been championed by Brown and was proposed in a government-commissioned report earlier this year. But Constitution Minister Michael Wills told lawmakers in a written statement to parliament last week that “there are no plans to introduce a national day at the present time.”

It has been a favorite theme for Brown, who first raised the idea in 2006, when he was the country’s Treasury chief. Brown said Britain lacked a day celebrating “who we are and what we stand for,” and pointed to the Fourth of July and France’s Bastille Day as examples of holidays celebrating their country’s spirit.

Unlike the US and many European countries, the UK has no official national day, although the countries that make up Britain do — Wales marks St David’s Day on March 1, England St George’s Day on April 23, and Scotland St Andrew’s Day on Nov. 30. But these are not widely celebrated, and none is a mandatory public holiday.

Brown’s left-of-center Labour Party has traditionally shied away from displays of flag-waving patriotism. But since the July 7, 2005, London transit bombings, during which British-bred suicide bombers killed 52 commuters, ministers have grappled with ways of encouraging cohesion in an increasingly diverse, sometimes fractious country being reshaped by new waves of immigration.

British unity also has been assailed by increasing cultural assertiveness in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which have gained devolved political power over the last decade. Sports fans, too, usually cheer English, Scottish or Welsh — rather than British — national teams. The Olympics is one of the few international competitions in which Britain fields a united team.

A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said on Monday the idea was still “very much alive.”
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