Group says party must be as strong in celebrating English patriotism as it is in championing Scottish and Welsh issues

Labour lags behind among voters who identify as English rather than British, according to a group of MPs, councillors and activists who say their party must urgently attract voters across England.

The group, which includes the former cabinet secretary John Denham and MPs Jon Cruddas, Liam Byrne and Shabana Mahmood, are launching the English Labour Network to try to address what they claim is a major problem for the party.

They are calling for Labour to be much firmer about celebrating English patriotism, and have criticised the party for being proud to label some issues Scottish or Welsh, but describing England-only policies as British.

The group crosses Labour’s political spectrum and its structures with the founding members including Sam Tarry – who was co-director of Jeremy Corbyn’s re-election campaign, Judith Blake, leader of Leeds city council, and Alice Perry, a London councillor who sits on the party’s national executive committee.

“If Labour had polled as well among these ‘English’ voters as we did in the wider population, Jeremy Corbyn would be prime minister already,” wrote Denham in a blogpost to launch the new group.

He said Labour had similar proportion of support among voters in England as across the whole of Britain in 2001 but a gap had since grown. The party has fallen back among older, working-class voters living outside the big cities, who had seen good jobs disappear but found rapid migration disconcerting.

“They are strongly patriotic, believe in community and contribution and, like it or not, were much more likely to vote leave,” Denham added. “We won’t win their support by simply waving St George crosses but by respecting who they are and showing we understand their fears and concerns.”

He claimed that some party activists worried that engaging with Englishness meant making concessions to racism and xenophobia, adding: “It doesn’t, and we’ll help show how.”

The network aims to address the electoral challenge, but also to give the party an English voice – asking why Labour did not even mention England when health or education policies applied only in that part of the UK.

One example given was the decision to call the remain campaign “Scotland (or Wales) stronger in Europe” in one part of the country but “Britain stronger in Europe” in England, which Denham claimed had “disastrous consequences”.

Tarry, who focused in the election in areas where Labour had faced a threat from Ukip, talked of freedoms being fought for by the Peasants’ Revolt, the Tolpuddle Martyrs, the Chartists, the suffragettes and others.

“Our history has a radical tradition – one that deserves more celebration, and recognition,” he said. “It can be an English Labour party that demonstrates that a socialist vision is a patriotic one, because nothing is more patriotic than building a society for the many; not the few.”

Byrne, the MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill, agreed that a rediscovery of English Labour tradition was “long, long overdue”

Mahmood, who represents nearby Birmingham Ladywood, said the aim of the network was to present a positive vision of what it means to be English in the 21st century.

“If Labour doesn’t help to develop and shape the rise of English national identity as a distinct force in British politics then there is a danger that this space is instead commandeered and land grabbed by those that cultivate grievance, who prey on fear and insecurity and who offer the simple certainty of the blame game,” she said.

Part of the aim will be to further devolution within England with concerns about the idea of Scottish or Welsh MPs influencing England-only policies in a UK parliament.

Perry argued that the EU referendum had changed UK politics forever. “The government must get serious about English devolution,” she said. “With people voting to ‘take back control’, we need to be actively handing back power, accountability and resources to local communities.”

Denham warned that failure to do so would breed resentment. He cited tuition fees being imposed with the support of Scotland’s MPs, saying the government had got away with that, but adding that things were more sensitive following the fallout of the Scottish referendum.

He told the Guardian that the group would try to give practical solutions – and he also insisted that people should not fear the move amid concerns about anti-migration views.

He said 85% of people in the country associated themselves with some form of Englishness, which meant it was an issue for people of different ethnicities and was not about hostility to immigration. Denham argued that it was important not to make assumptions about people’s views.