Attempts to create a stronger sense of Britishness risk 'swimming against the tide' of a cultural resurgence of Englishness, historian Tristram Hunt told a Fabian fringe meeting in Manchester Town Hall during the Labour party conference.

'I understand why politicians are concerned to bolster our sense of society and the collective ties we share. But the problem with asserting a new and stronger Britishness could be that it is swimming against the tide. Culturally, it is Englishness which is on the rise', said Hunt, speaking at the event The New Britishness: Renewing Citizenship, chaired by Culture Minister David Lammy and kindly supported by Camelot.

Tristram Hunt spoke about how the Manchester Town Hall venue itself symbolised 'battles over Englishness and Britishness' and the triumphalism of a bourgeous idea of both local and national identities, although one which was confident in its internationalist links and allegiances.

Sunder Katwala, General Secretary of the Fabian Society, said that the idea that Britishness did not have to win a battle of loyalty against other identities. A positive feature of Britishness is that it is inherently plural – it was better understood not as a national identity but as a civic identity to underpin a multinational state. The central feature of a liberal and open society was the opportunity to combine plural identities, which were more or less relevant in different contexts. But politicians should pay more attention to Britishness than our many other identities – because it defines the shared content of our citizenship. The test was whether there was a strong enough sense of a shared Britishness to make us feel that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

David Lammy, chairing the debate, said that a core tension for politicians who believed the Britishness debate matters was how to open up public space for the debate, without seeking a 'top down' definition from above which would seek to predetermine the outcome. Another central issue was whether a universalist account of a set of rights and responsibilities were the best way to define a shared citizenship in a diverse society, because anything else risked excluding some, or whether these rights also needed to be rooted in a narrative which explained their place in that particular society, so underpinning them with an account with more emotional resonance. The latter approach, would in Britain seek to draw on British history, to explain the roots of our complex and diverse society, he said.

The need for a stronger sense of our shared history was a continual theme among both panellist and audience contributions. Jude Kelly argued that the debate about Britishness could draw on the experience of the post-war Festival of Britain, and highlighted the contribution which immigrants and refugees had made to the Festival. The story which we wanted to tell the rest of the world about ourselves, when hosting the 2012 Olympic Games, needed to be built from the bottom up: 'If we were to again send a boat around Britain, and get people to tell their stories about who we are, then I wonder what we would find?' she asked. This was also reflected in discussion of the symbols which represented a modern Britishness – as well as the NHS and the BBC, the Eden project, the heritage lottery fund, the London Assembly and the Scottish and Welsh parliaments were all nominated as institutions of a 'new Britishness'.

Panellists agreed that history in schools needed more of a sense of narrative, rather than a pick and mix approach of different modules, but that the content of this needed to be driven by historians, not by politicans. An account of British history around a 'golden thread' of liberty would not be credible. But the story of 'global Britain' and Britain as a 'global island', of the rise and fall of Empire and of the struggles for democracy and representation at home, was needed – it was the only way in which we could understand the roots of our diversity and how the rights which we enjoy had been secured.

Sunder Katwala argued that it was important for the political left to continue to develop the Britishness agenda. 'This has focused too much on questions of flags. Symbols do matter. But this is about more than symbols. For the left, this debate should be about how we make our political ambitions possible. I don't think the main goal of the Labour Party is to create a stronger sense of Britishness – I want to see Labour help to end child poverty in Britain. But national cohesion is a vital means to those ends.You can't end child poverty if people say 'well, what have they got to do with me?'. If you want there to be collective missions and projects in this society, then we need to ensure there is a strong enough sense of 'us' for any talk about collective missions for our society to make sense', he said.

Jude Kelly also argued that the argument for a collective 'us' was important but also that 'the problem with 'us' is that it has always been about 'us and them', she said, commending a distinction made by Leeds poet Tony Harrison's between the exclusive "us" and a more inclusive "uz" – it was this latter sense, containing "all of uz", which could define a common citizenship positively in a diverse society, rather than against the other.

Katwala argued that cynicism about Gordon Brown's interest in Britishness underestimated its importance it would have in policy terms: 'This is often said to be the agenda of a Scot in pursuit of the premiership. That is to miss how Britishness ties together several of the themes which would be central to a Brown premiership: how we respond to globalisation; Britain in the world between Europe and America; the causes such as poverty reduction at home and abroad which we want our society to stand for'

The Fabian fringe event The New Britishness: Renewing Citizenship, held on Tuesday 27th September in Manchester Town Hall during the Labour party conference. The fringe was chaired by Culture Minister David Lammy, with Tristram Hunt, Jude Kelly and Sunder Katwala speaking. The Fabian Society is grateful to Camelot for their kind support of the event.