The decline of the mining industry and the debate about Britishness of the 1990s and early 2000s

This article examines in what sense the decline of the coal industry contributed to the emergence of a debate about the genesis, shape und future of Britishness' in the 1990s and early 2000s. Taking a discourse-analytical approach, it argues that the decline of the coal industry contributed to bringing about the debate in two ways: firstly, by feeding into popular narratives of national decline and renewal, it helped to provide the debate's intellectual background. Secondly, the political cleavages of the 1980s and 1990s between Old Labour, Thatcherism and New Labour elevated the coal industry to a contested symbol for a way of life and a political orientation. These differing interpretations, in return, were associated with a particularly British social reality, a self-conception of the British nation that was embedded in the London-centric political and cultural discourse. Changes to this self-narration required an explanation, which various contributions to the discussion of Britishness' in politics and popular culture sought to provide in the 1990s and early 2000s.