As I've said elsewhere, the reasons for Brexit are complex and multi-faceted, but one undeniable factor is the emotional and insidious draw of English nationalism. Part of this is due to the idiosyncratic nature of Britain and its history. By its nature, Britain is a multi-national state, yet dominated by England's size and much larger population.
A history of "Britishness"
The term "Britain" only really became to have proper political meaning when James I of Scotland became joint ruler of England and Scotland at the turn of the 17th century, uniting "Britain" under one crown for the first real time, and with a shared flag, the "Union Jack". While England had dominated Britain and the Isles through its political might, Scotland (in alliance with France) had always resisted. British identity became something more formal under James I, even if Scotland formally retained its independence from England for another hundred years. The Civil War in the middle of the 17th century was as much a "British Civil War", as it affected all nations of the land with waves of anarchy and uprisings.
Britain's status became formalised with the legal union of Scotland with England in 1707; but unlike how Wales had been conquered by England centuries earlier, Scotland's union with England was consensual - a treaty more like a "contract between nations". It was only after an economic crisis that Scotland decided to submit powers to Westminster for equal access to its economic might, seeing in this "contract" its own self-interest.
This formal union coincided with the beginning of the Golden Age of Britain's colonial expansion. With Scotland now tied in with England, both kingdoms enjoyed the fruits of Empire; from Colonial North America to the burgeoning interests developing in India. Scotland began to thrive from this new relationship, and from an English point of view it began to feel the case that England was Britain and Britain was England. The terms seem to become interchangeable. North of the border, this sense of "Britishness" overcoming national identity became so strong that some Scots even referred to themselves as "North British" and their homeland as "North Britain".
In this way, "Britishness" came to be tied inextricably with the British Empire; and as England was its power base, English identity became merged with that of the British Empire, and English self-esteem became sub-consciously tied with the fate of the British Empire.
From the British Empire's point of view, its peak of power was arguably at the end of the Nineteenth Century; implicitly, this was also the peak of British (and thus English) self-esteem. Up to this point, after the trauma of losing the rump of Colonial North America, Britain had thrived, going from one success to another: settling Canada and Australasia, making India its "jewel in the crown" of its Empire, and later on expanding into Africa in the 1880s. Meanwhile, Britain had punctuated this with smaller strategic prizes, from Malta to Cyprus and Suez to Aden.
From the end of the Nineteenth Century, however, there would only be a series of events that would gradually punctuate its decline. This began with the Boer War which, while ending ultimately in victory, was a precursor to the kind of troubles that lay ahead. How close this came home (literally) was shown with the "Easter Rising" in 1916, in the middle of the First World War. When this led to Irish independence several years later, it was a sign that "Britishness" and the integrity of the British Empire was much more fragile than its English advocates thought. It was a combination of arrogance, intransigence and complacency on behalf of some English nationalists that had fuelled the Irish crisis: a mood that would punctuate the rest of the British Empire's life, contributing to its loss of most of its colonies little more than forty years after Irish independence.
Gaining the Middle East "mandates" for the British Empire was a pyrrhic victory, for Britain was incapable of ruling them effectively. This was a trend that spread across all its colonies after the First World War, in India most of all. Once the colonies began to be lost to the Anti-Colonial movement after the Second World War, the question for Britain became: what next?
"What next?"
Like some other European powers, Britain held on to some of its colonies into the 1970s (and a few - such as Belize - into the 1980s). What remains today - officially called the "British Overseas Territory" - is the last shadow of the Empire. This has resulted in a few idiosyncratic entities, such as a segment of Cyprus remaining British for military purposes. Gibraltar is another legacy of England's earlier foraying into European politics.
The "what next?" question was answered, as we know, by Europe. In the same way that Scotland joined England through a combination of political expediency and financial self-interest, Britain joined the EEC for similar reasons. In short, it was a way to make money, with the minimum of trade-offs.
At the same time that Britain was joining the EEC, Scottish nationalism was on the rise north of the border. Again, this was partly about money and self-interest: oil discovered in Scottish waters in the North Sea. The chance for Scotland and Wales to gain some autonomy was lost at the end of the 1970s, and for a time Scottish nationalism seemed little more than a temporary fad tied with gaining control of Scotland's oil. The moment passed with the the coming to power of Margaret Thatcher's administration, as English reactionaries in the governing Conservative Party killed the idea of devolution and any possible risk of ceding control away from London.
As the government in London centralised authority further in the 1980s, Thatcher also bridled at the realisation that the deal to join the EEC was beginning to involve granting more powers to Brussels. This was the time when "Euroscepticism" began to become a real force within the Conservative Party. This movement was also indistinguishable from what some would nowadays recognise as "English Nationalism".
Euroscepticism or "English Nationalism"?
The term "English Nationalism" is problematic as it was for so long associated with the far right and hate groups. The term began its gradual "rehabilitiation" by the onset of the 1990s, when the "Eurosceptics" that had initially lost their focus with the forced resignation of their idol, Margaret Thatcher, only to quickly rediscover their sense of purpose with their opposition to the Maastricht Treaty. Apart from the "bastards" that were causing Thatcher's (more moderate) successor, John Major such worry in parliament, Maastricht's effect was to create UKIP.
UKIP have also been called the "English Nationalist Party", and with good reason. While the party itself might not think of itself as intrinsically Anglo-centric or innately nationalistic, its support base certainly is. UKIP's support base has always been at by far its strongest in the English shires and parts of the deindustrialised North of England.
UKIP's rise, and the more general rise of English Nationalism in the last twenty years, can be lined up with several historical "punctuation marks". UKIP first came on the radar in the 1999 European Elections, gaining more than 6% of the vote and its first three MEPs. Tellingly, this coincided with the devolution process by the Labour government in the Scotland and Wales (whose nationalist parties also gained MEPs). In the European Elections five years later, UKIP's MEP representation had leaped to 11. By this point, devolution in Scotland and Wales was a fact of life, and there was another important point: a number of East European countries had joined the EU not long before, and their people were give open access to live and work in Britain. Added to this the financial crisis of 2008, and "English Nationalism" was given even more fuel to add to its fire. In the 2009 European elections, UKIP had gained more MEPs, and even the BNP - an avowed Fascist party - had a presence in Brussels. In this way, "English Nationalism" had become almost a fashionable form of protest in some parts of the country.
From this point onward, the story is familiar: the issue went mainstream after the combined factors of the lingering effects of the financial crisis and the (seemingly highly-visible) increase of European immigration. On the back of this, UKIP became the largest British party in the European Parliament in 2014. The unofficial "English Nationalist Party" had taken control of the agenda, and we know the result of that: Britain is leaving the EU.
UKIP started out a little more than a single-issue party; a fringe group that acted as a maverick entity of the "Eurosceptic" element of the Conservative Party. Over time, their agenda evolved and crystallised into something more structured. While this was a chaotic process, the end result was a Libertarian agenda that sees Thatcherism taken to its logical conclusion. The "English Nationalist" aspect of the agenda seems to have been a by-product of the nature of its support base; while this might be shared by only some of those in the hierarchy, all of those at the top can see its ultimate use as a platform.
All the talk of leaving the EU in order to restore connections with former colonies is innately nationalistic in tone, as it harks back to a time when England, though Britain, controlled a quarter of the globe. Seen in another light, even when part of the EU, it seems that many people saw it merely as another projection of Britain's footprint abroad. The EU acted as a psychological substitute for the Empire; using the continent as an excuse for cheaper holidays and sunshine. Psychologically, it was treated as no different from going to Australia, except that it was only a hop across the Channel. This less about engagement with Europe as a cultural trashing of it. After years of this arrogant attitude becoming ingrained within a segment of the population, it's difficult to be nationalistic without being Anti-European. So we can call the EU referendum result also a victory for English Nationalism, as well as a result of English Nationalism.
The schizophrenic part to this is (as mentioned the initial linked article at the start) London is probably is the least nationalistic and least Euro-sceptic part of the UK; the government's agenda is that of "England-outside-London". Put like this, the "Brexit government" feels like an occupying power in the capital. It would be more fitting if they moved the "capital" back to Winchester, say, to have a "real" Anglo-Saxon hub; or one of the "Brexit bastions", such as Peterborough.
Such talk is as fantastical as it is nonsensical, but it is little more than what we've come to expect from the people running the government, or those that have the government's ear. But such talk is what you get when you let nationalism set the agenda.
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