The politics of Englishness

When intellectuals fail? Brexit and hegemonic challenge

“…The history of immigration as an issue embedded in public concern about the vulnerability of national identity to the arrival of competing cultures has been documented for two decades, both in the UK and elsewhere. Research has shown the transition of English identity from an obscure backwater to the political mainstream as a sense of ethnic majority nationalism has grown in response to the increasingly multicultural character of British society produced by immigration (Aughey, 2007;Kenny, 2014;Kumar, 2003;Wellings, 2012). Effectively, cultural pluralism has generated an unresolved competition over the definition and nature of British citizenship, a competition amplified by the parallel claims of EU citizenship (Ashcroft and Bevir, 2017;Lodge et al, 2012).…”

The Lion and the Eunuch: National Identity and the British Genius

“…You didn't have to invent it or think about it because it was supposed to be self-evident or, as E. P. Thompson put it, it was evident at 'the conjunction of memory and practice'. 30 To change this for a coded document written by parliamentary solicitors would bring mixed benefits. Either way, it is one of the peculiarities of the history of the law and Constitution that it rarely talks of 'nation' and 'state', let alone 'national identity', yet it offers far more than one might suppose on those very subjects.…”

Celebrating British multiculturalism, lamenting England/Britain's past

“…Indeed, when previous work has identified a rebirth of English patriotism (Garland 2004;Kenny 2014;Poulton 2003), then it is important that critical attention is awarded to examining the ways in which the English Nations andNationalism 22 (4), 2016, 786-802. DOI: 10.1111/nana.12164 Subsequently, whereas understandings of 'England' were once experienced through 'the prism of British identity and imperial bonds' (Jackson 2015: 11) and as part of an imperial process that racialised national identity along racial hierarchies of national belonging (Cesarini 1996), contemporary understandings of England are marked by anxieties enveloped in the European continent (Euroscepticism), England's post-imperial role and, more recently, its position within a devolved British state (Aughey 2007;Colley 2005Colley , 2014Colls 2002;Featherstone 2009;Gibbons 2015;Gilroy 2005;Leddy-Owen 2014a, 2014bMaguire 1993;Malcolm 2014;Skey 2012;Wellings 2010). This is echoed by Kingsnorth, who argues that:…”

“…In the context of the Diamond Jubileea royal event marked by tradition and historyand the London Olympic Gamesa global sporting event, awarded to London based upon its promoted multiculturalismexaminations of the relationship between 'past' and 'present' narratives in media discourses can provide a valuable insight into contemporary representations of Britain (Edy 1999;Falcous and Silk 2010;Silk 2014;Wardle and West 2004). In the case of England, this can take on particular relevance, especially when analyses of English nationalism/national identity have been marked by examples of dislocation, anxiety, (post-imperial) decline and a decrease in 'British' identifications (Abell et al 2007;Aughey 2007;Cesarini 1996;Colley 2014;Featherstone 2009;Gibbons 2015;Gilroy 1987Gilroy , 2004Gilroy , 2005Kenny 2014;Kumar 2003;Leddy-Owen 2014a, 2014bMaguire and Poulton 1999;Maguire et al 1999;Reviron-Piégay 2009;Skey 2012;Wellings 2010). Therefore, with regard to examining how representations of Britain's multicultural 'present' were related to, framed by and, worked alongside, established and stable versions of an English/British 'past' Naidoo 2004, 2005), this article explored English newspaper coverage of the 2012 Diamond Jubilee and London Olympic Games.…”