On 12 December 2020, Lord Patten, a so-called “Tory grandee” and former chairman of the Conservative Party, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I don’t think that Mr. Johnson is a Conservative, I think he is an English nationalist”. Irrespective of whether you actually consider British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to be an English nationalist or not, there can, however, be no denying the resurgence of a new brand of English nationalism in recent years, which has fuelled support within the nation for the process of detachment from the EU that is widely known as Brexit.
Nationalism is by no means a new phenomenon, having been seen in various forms during different periods of evolution of national histories. What is new today is the paradoxical surge of nationalism throughout the world in response to globalisation, whereby various nation-states seek to protect themselves against perceived and growing external threats to their sovereignty, national identity, manufacturing and trading interests, and cultural heritage, among many other things. While historically nationalism arose in response to colonial oppression or to territorial conflict, today’s versions have arisen in a rather different context, where colonialism or territorial expansion is no longer the main concern.
English nationalism is of particular interest. Despite England being the largest and most populous member of the United Kingdom and thereby the dominant partner, there is no actual identifiable English state, nor an English parliament, or even an English currency. Such manifestations of English identity as the monarchy and the Church of England have largely lost their influence and become less relevant in the 21st century, The remaining markers of English identity, such as the flag bearing the Cross of St George, are largely of symbolic value only.
English nationalism can be considered as an offshoot of an earlier British nationalism, with which it may have overlapped at times. British nationalism arose from a sense of exceptionalism and jingoistic pride, based upon Britain’s global territorial dominance, industrialisation and manufacturing prowess, promotion of “civilising” Christianity, and the widespread adoption of the English language, alongside sincere feelings of Anglo-Saxon racial superiority. It cannot be overlooked that the British Empire at its peak controlled a quarter of the world’s land surface area, where the Sun never set, an achievement of major proportions when you consider the small size of the Mother Country. Given its powerful domination, there never was the need for a political English nationalist movement, until things changed more recently. Besides, the English nation-state itself was a somewhat nebulous entity, although it could be reasonably traced back to the establishment of a unified “Old English”-speaking Anglo-Saxon kingdom by King Athelstan in 927 AD and the subsequent victory of this kingdom at the Battle of Brunanburh in 937 AD, and linked to the name of Engla-land bestowed earlier (around 879 AD) upon the land of the Angles.
Today’s nationalism is a by-product of declining British influence on the world stage, accompanied by widespread deindustrialisation, loss of manufacturing output, and a shift to a service-based economy, which has devastated entire traditional working-class areas around the country and created a new class of disaffected people. But English nationalism has also become less British in its scope and more of an assertion of English identity, placing it somewhat at odds with the competing Celtic nationalist ideologies of Scotland and Wales.
English nationalism can be viewed as a response to wide range of perceived threats to a specifically English, as opposed to British, sovereignty and identity. . There are several reasons for this new-found spirit of nationalism. Mass non-white immigration from the New Commonwealth in the 1950s and 1960s changed the demographics of many English towns, creating many social problems and engendering racial conflict. The problem was intensified by deliberate residential segregation and “white flight” from areas of immigrant settlement. Non-white immigration prompted the birth and growth of several small xenophobic nationalist groups, beginning in the 1950s, for whom the overwhelming priority was to “Keep England White”. Simultaneous counterbalancing attempts at promoting multiculturalism, from the 1970s onwards, received a mixed response, often being resented by alienated locals who felt unable to engage with the process. And then came radical Islamist terrorism in the 2000s, which was readily seen as an unwelcome product of Muslim immigration, even though many of the perpetrators were British-born and had one time apparently subscribed to local cultural traditions.
In the 1980s, a renewed sense of national pride emerged under Margaret Thatcher, driven by such events as the 1982 Falklands War, which was accompanied by a strong outburst of patriotism. Then, in the 1990s, nationalist sentiments grew stronger, in response to the effects of devolution, creeping Europeanisation, and globalisation, creating demands, for the first time, for at least an English parliament, if not an independent sovereign English state.
Many in England felt disadvantaged by devolution. The English no longer felt they had any say in Scottish and Welsh matters, although Scottish MPs could cast their votes on English issues in the House of Commons (the so-called West Lothian question). The Barnett funding formula for the devolved nations (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) was also felt to unduly favour, in particular, Scotland’s public services over those of England. Devolution thus created a rising tide of resentment within certain circles in England, which did not benefit from a national assembly of its own.
English nationalism appears to be driven primarily by economic concerns, although anti-immigrant and anti-EU sentiments readily feed into the narrative. Similar feelings of disenfranchisement are to be found in other nations as well, leading Populist leaders, with personal backgrounds far removed from the “forgotten” working-class people whose cause they have taken up, to successfully step into the political vacuum, as demonstrated by Donald Trump’s election as American President in 2016. Similarly, the electoral success of the Conservative Party in 2019, and not just that of Boris Johnson, was enabled through the harnessing of nationalist views in England. Whether you like it or not, English nationalism is a political reality, and not just the preserve of fringe far-right splinter group,-that mainstream political parties have to acknowledge and attempt to address in order to ensure electoral success. Only time can tell, however, if Brexit will deliver on the aspirations of English nationalists.
Ashis Banerjee