How Britain Ends: English Nationalism and the Rebirth of Four Nations

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The data from the Future of England ­surveys Henderson, Wyn Jones and their colleagues have carried out since 2011 reveal that English identity is a far from straightforward phenomenon. Englishness and Britishness are “intertwined” – deeply, inconsistently and hypocritically. Contrary to received assumption, English nationalists are not Little Englanders, and the common mode of English identity is one of feeling equally English and British. Indeed, the very stuff of English nationalism, ­Henderson and Wyn Jones argue persuasively, is better termed “Anglo-British”, fetishises the British empire and is rarely about England alone. Gavin EslerGavin Esler was born in Glasgow, and brought up in Edinburgh and Northern Ireland. His family are descended from German Protestant refugees who fled to safety in Scotland during the religious wars of the early 17th Century. He spent the first three years of his life living with his parents, grandmother and aunts in a three-bedroom council house in Clydebank. The family moved to Edinburgh and Gavin won a scholarship to George Heriot's School. He planned to study medicine at Edinburgh University and then, to the relief of patients everywhere, made an abrupt switch to English, American and, eventually, Irish literature. After he finished his post-graduate studies he was offered a job on The Scotsman in Edinburgh but turned it down as likely to be a bit dull, preferring instead The Belfast Telegraph. He moved on to the BBC in Belfast during some of the worst of "the Troubles," and got to know leaders of the IRA and other Republican and loyalist paramilitary groups. On one occasion the leader of a loyalist organisation introduced himself to Esler with the memorable words: “I am speaking to you as someone deeply involved in violence.” It turned out to be an accurate description. That started to change in 2014 though with the Scottish Independence Referendum and it was won narrowly by those wishing to remain a part of the Union. Part of what helped that was the promise that the UK would remain part of the EU. Two years later, partly as a response to the rise of UKIP in local elections and to placate a section of the Conservative party that had lurched to the right, the Prime Minister of the time called a Referendum about our place in the EU. We voted to leave by the narrow margin of 52% versus 48% and from that moment on the union was under threat. In Esler’s eyes, this was the point where the rise of English nationalism became a real threat to the union rather than just a low-level concern. I'm English. I'm from Southeast England and have lived in the North West of England for a few years. I moved to the North West not long after the Brexit referendum. The timing of that relocation has been key to my interest in what it means to be English, British, and European.

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A great deal of this content resonated with me - "the news where you are" chapter in particular. Esler is good on Scotland, and devotes a chapter to Northern Ireland, but Wales is very poorly covered. There's no mention of the Welsh language or the fact that Wales has had a working Labour government throughout the last 12 years of Tory central government. He even has a section on the Royal family that fails to even mention the contentious Prince of Wales title. The rise in a strong sense of Welsh identity in the last few years, particularly among the young, is an important factor to consider in the future of the Welsh independence movement but Esler fails to see the seeds of this, which were certainly there in 2020. Chakravarty, Urvashi (2022). Fictions of Consent. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-9826-0. Research Suggests White Slavery Was Much More Common". Research Suggests White Slavery Was Much More Common . Retrieved 23 April 2021. In Englishness, Henderson and Wyn Jones pay especial attention to the general election of 2015, an interlude between the Scottish referendum of 2014 and the Brexit referendum of 2016 which has not received the prominence it deserves. That election established a new pattern in British politics: it was the first in which a different party dominated in each of the four component parts of the United Kingdom: the Conservatives in England, the SNP in Scotland, Labour in Wales and the DUP in Northern Ireland. And it wasn’t a fluke. The 2017 and 2019 elections followed the same contours.British citizens in the twenty-first century are kept as much in the dark about what our system of government truly entails as European Christians were in the time before Martin Luther and the Reformation ensured that the Bible was available for all to read" He makes no attempt to conceal that he is a Remainer, turned Rejoiner. Whilst many have moved on from that question, the author hasn't. This is where his condescension shows through. He fails to understand the emotional base of the Leave vote and refuses to accept that his cause lost the day. In essence, he is not a democrat when the vote goes against him.

How Britain Ends : Gavin Esler: Signed by the Author How Britain Ends : Gavin Esler: Signed by the Author

When incensed English swing voters – not only susceptible Ukip supporters, but also otherwise middle-of-the-road Lib Dems – envisaged a scenario in which the SNP imposed a Labour government on the UK for which England hadn’t voted, they expressed a willingness to lend their votes to the Conservatives. The chief Tory strategist Lynton Crosby had hit upon a recipe for success. Instead of the hung parliament the polls had predicted, the Tories won outright, and Cameron was unexpectedly compelled to make good on his promise of a Brexit referendum. Strabo, Geographica, book 4, chapter 5: "Britain, Ireland, and Thule". http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/4E*.html - "It bears grain, cattle, gold, silver, and iron. These things, accordingly, are exported from the island, as also hides, and slaves, and dogs" Brexit apart, the decisive moment so far in the unravelling of Britain came not – as some, myself included, had feared – on 18 September 2014, when the Scottish nation voted against independence. It arrived first thing the next day at 7am when David Cameron announced that, with the Scottish referendum out of the way, it was now time to assuage the grievances of the English nation. Cameron’s trumpeting of English votes for English laws (with its unfortunate acronym, EVEL) had devastating consequences in Scotland where many anti-independence voters – the reluctant and the switherers – found themselves suddenly, ­regretfully undeceived. A thoughtful, articulate and important book about the rise of English nationalism and the impending breakup of the United Kingdom from one of the finest BBC journalists of the last twenty years. Zdanowski, Jerzy (2011). "The Manumission Movement in the Gulf in the First Half of the Twentieth Century". Middle Eastern Studies. 47 (6): 863–883. doi: 10.1080/00263206.2010.527121. ISSN 0026-3206. JSTOR 23054249. S2CID 144351013.

In the coming years, many people will be writing about the end of the UK. They'll all quote this wonderful and curiously moving book. I know I will