Reuters:

Schoolchildren should take part in a “coming of age” ceremony at the end of their studies to mark the transition to adult citizenship, former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith said on Tuesday.

The ceremony could include, for example, an oath of allegiance to the Queen…

One suspects that this is just so much typical Labour blather. Still, this response is a bit overheated, and might even be considered a dig out of right field at Americans:

…Civil rights lawyer Baroness Kennedy told BBC radio she had groaned when she heard the proposals.

“I see this as an empty gesture. To ask 16-year-olds to troop into a hall and like Americans put their hands on their heart and take an oath of allegiance is risible.”…

And an ignorant dig at that. But first, it is perhaps worth noting that immigrants seeking British citizenship already have to participate in a “citizenship ceremony”, and it’s curious how that somehow is not decreed to be distasteful. Also whatever the problems American youth face, theirs are not primarily of national allegiance.

For despite what many like Baroness Kennedy seem to believe, the American “Pledge” was not a product of rightist “jingoism”. Its original version was, as U.S. history.org tells us, composed by a socialist:

The Pledge of Allegiance was written in August 1892 by the socialist minister Francis Bellamy (1855-1931). It was originally published in The Youth’s Companion on September 8, 1892. Bellamy had hoped that the pledge would be used by citizens in any country.

In its original form it read:

“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”…

But it became widely accepted and used in the U.S. as a consequence of 19th and early 20th century mass immigration, in a way to try to pull together disparate people under the U.S. flag. (It was slightly altered over time, in ways its composer would likely have not approved.) Britain today faces much the same issue. However, mass public professions of national fealty through a flag are not the British style.

Nor are the comparative immigration issues precisely the same. Just like British retiring to Spain, EU citizens settling in Britain from, say, Poland or Lithuania don’t need to become British citizens to remain here legally. And it’s hard to imagine many Muslim families allowing their children to take an oath of allegiance directly to a Christian queen. Some Roman Catholics might have sectarian issues with doing so as well. Indeed, even some Labourites less than enamored with Her Majesty would likely have trouble with it, too.

But, if not swearing an oath to the Queen, to what then? Even a “pledge” to the flag in the U.S. style would hardly work cleanly. After all, would Scots or Northern Irish (some of whom wouldn’t “pledge” allegiance to the Queen either, of course) swear allegiance to “the Union Jack” of the United Kingdom? When the current Scottish Executive is leading a rebellion every way possible against the union, and even flying the Union Jack over Northern Irish government buildings has been deemed contentious?

What can ever be agreed upon, if anything? It’s impossible to say. Yet presumably less risible to the Baroness than an oath of allegiance is for “British” youth instead to be given no positive directional affirmation whatsoever, and instead allow other “allegiances” to fill the moral void. And then, at some point in the future, many may well once more throw up their hands and undoubtedly cry out for an immediate explanation, “But why!?“