AS anyone who pays even passing attention to Scottish politics knows, British nationalism is better than any other form of nationalism because it's not nationalist at all. Today the non-nationalist nationalists of British nationalism are outraged. It's not because Black Lives Matter. It's because statues' lives matter.

Or more specifically the statues of the assorted racists, imperialists, colonialists, and robber barons who founded and expanded the British Empire. That would be that exercise in genocide, expropriation, and institutionalised theft that made Britain Great. Great, but in an entirely non-nationalist way, you understand.

It's been noticeable that the Conservatives have seized upon the vandalism suffered by a few statues, almost with relief. It's a convenient distraction that allows them to wrap themselves in the non-nationalist British flag and means that they can talk about something other than how they are responsible for the greatest death toll from the coronavirus epidemic in Europe. There's a great deal that the Conservatives would like to distract us from just now.

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For example there's the way in which they've cocked up their response to the virus at every step along the way. There's how they want to come out of lockdown in as mistimed and chaotic a way as they took the UK into it. There's the damage to the economy and threat of huge job losses.

And above all there's the pig-headed and not remotely nationalist oh no insistence of the British Government to press ahead with the hardest Brexit possible which is only going to compound the damage to the economy that we're already experiencing. But that's only going to benefit the disaster capitalists who fund the Conservative party, it's only little people who will suffer. But hey, statues!

Our part-time Prime Minister has responded with greater speed, urgency, and emotion when there was a threat to some statues of some people whose reputations are at best spotty and at worst up there with those of serial killers, than he did when the looming coronavirus epidemic presented a threat to the lives of living and breathing British citizens. The only thing he seems to care more about than protecting the statues of his imperialists icons is protecting his time off from doing his job and Dominic Cummings' automotive eye tests.

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Johnson's impassioned defence of the monuments has been picked up on with aclarity by the likes of the Britain First and other far-right groups. They have spread the false message that Black Lives Matter protesters wish to pull down war memorials, memorials which also commemorate the sacrifices of black soldiers, sailors, and airmen. There is an intense irony, no doubt lost on those protesting against harm to statues, that monuments to the sacrifices of those who gave their lives in the struggle against fascism are being defended by yer actual fascists.

There is a peculiarly British obsession with defending history. It's an obsession found largely on the right in politics. However what those who gather around statues of racists aiming to protect them really mean by defending history is that they are intent upon defending the interpretations of the past that glorify the British state, that justify current inequalities, and, of course, prove that British nationalism isn't nationalist at all. Any attempt to cast a critical eye over events of the past is regarded as a threat to the present. It's a sign of the fragility of Britishness.

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But then it's hardly surprising that Britishness is such a delicate and fragile creature, it's founded upon lies. It's founded upon the lie that it's not a nationalist philosophy. It's founded on the lie that the British state has been a force for good in the world, the mother of democracy and spreader of values of fair play and decency, when in fact the British Empire was the greatest exercise in theft, robbery, expropriation, and dispossession that the world has ever seen.

It's vital to examine the ugly truth about the British past, because it's that nasty and brutal past which is responsible for the injustices and inequalities which blight the UK today.

It's the Empire which is at the root of the systemic racism faced by people of colour. It's the Empire which is at the root of the UK political system which serves the interests of a narrow group of Oxbridge educated elite. It's the Empire which is at the root of the failure of the British state to accommodate the interests and needs of Scotland. And it's the Empire which created the myth that British nationalism is better than other nationalisms because it's not nationalist at all.

*This article is part of a new digital-only section of our website we are trialling, where we’ll bring you reaction, analysis and opinion pieces by our best writers in real-time, without you having to wait for the newspaper to be printed. Please send any feedback to callum.baird@thenational.scot!