Cry God for a new England and St George

England is festooned with flags and bunting; the red cross is worn on chests, heads and bags, even socks. It isn't clear, though, what version of Englishness is being celebrated with St George's Day today. Is it little Englishness or expansive Englishness? Is it an ethnic definition or does it include all who live within this geographical entity?

There is an England that pitches itself resentfully against others - the Scots, Europeans, migrants - and another England that embraces difference more ardently than any other tribe in Europe. For St George was a Christian Palestinian with Roman blood. Indeed, African battalions brought over by the Romans were posted at Hadrian's Wall. In 1764, a gentleman's magazine noted there were 20,000 black people in London. Within 50 years they had been absorbed into the population.

Such blending holds only terror for those who believe St George had blue eyes and England was forever Stanley Baldwin's idyllic green land tended by hearts of oak. Thankfully, from Daniel Defoe to the present, other true-born Englishmen and women have relished the mix that made them.

The pride of England is raised by contradictory traditions; it is about argument. Perhaps argumentativeness is a particularly English characteristic - and it is alive and kicking today. Reactionaries and racists who used to control St George's Day and its meaning have lost ground to those who are happy that England is an open and cosmopolitan nation, with more mixed blood and cultural hybridity than the other three nations of the UK. At the same time, though, the BNP is gaining support and hostility to the EU and immigration is rising. Many native Englanders now prefer that label to British - too messy, too diverse, too full of bloody foreigners.

So I am happy to join in today but will I be accepted or rejected? Is the sight of a young Sikh boy sporting a red cross an insult or an honour for England? That is the question. My daughter, who has my colouring and whose father is English, is the answer. The future is hers and in England or at least London. So I wish us all a very merry day and raise a glass - to England and the swarthy St George.