Introduction: English Identity and Institutions in a Changing United Kingdom

2018 ◽  
pp. 3-26
Author(s):  
Michael Kenny ◽  
Iain McLean ◽  
Akash Paun
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
National Consciousness ◽  
National Conversation ◽  
National Sentiment ◽  
English Identity ◽  
The Uk

This chapter examines whether, why and with what consequences there has been a disentangling of England from Britain in terms of its governance and national identity. The assumption has been that to distinguish between England and Britain risks destabilising the Union. However, the English seem dissatisfied with how they are governed, as demonstrated by support for Brexit, and less content for their nationhood to be poured into the larger vessel of Britishness. In response, the major UK political parties appear more willing to appeal to English national sentiment. But England has yet to engage in a reflective national conversation about its changing identity and its relationship with the rest of the UK and wider world. The fragmentary character of national consciousness in England, and deep divisions in its political culture, make it impossible to draw simple conclusions. This chapter sketches the outlines of a prospective research agenda on these issues.

Governing England

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
The State ◽  
National Consciousness ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Awakening ◽  
National Conversation ◽  
English National Identity ◽  
The Uk

England is ruled directly from Westminster by institutions and parties that are both English and British. The non-recognition of England reflects a long-standing assumption of ‘unionist statecraft’ that to draw a distinction between what is English and what is British risks destabilising the union state. The book examines evidence that this conflation of England and Britain is growing harder to sustain in view of increasing political divergence between the nations of the UK and the awakening of English national identity. These trends were reflected in the 2016 vote to leave the European Union, driven predominantly by English voters (outside London). Brexit was motivated in part by a desire to restore the primacy of the Westminster Parliament, but there are countervailing pressures for England to gain its own representative institutions and for devolution to England’s cities and regions. The book presents competing interpretations of the state of English nationhood, examining the views that little of significance has changed, that Englishness has been captured by populist nationalism, and that a more progressive, inclusive Englishness is struggling to emerge. We conclude that England’s national consciousness remains fragmented due to deep cleavages in its political culture and the absence of a reflective national conversation about England’s identity and relationship with the rest of the UK and the wider world. Brexit was a (largely) English revolt, tapping into unease about England’s place within two intersecting Unions (British and European), but it is easier to identify what the nation spoke against than what it voted for.

scholarly journals Financing Political Parties in France, Germany and The United Kingdom

2016 ◽  
pp. 91-110
Author(s):  
Jan Misiuna
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Accounting Standards ◽  
Financial Information ◽  
Public Access ◽  
Final Conclusion ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Low Level ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Uk

The paper compares the systems of financing political parties in France, Germany and the UK. The analysis concentrates on effectiveness of collecting contributions, dependency on large donors for providing funds for financing election campaigns and daily operation of political parties, and the level of transparency of finances of political parties. The final conclusion is that only introducing limits on expenditures on election campaigns allows to keep the costs of election campaigns and political parties at a low level, while mandatory common accounting standards and public access to financial information is necessary to preserve transparency of finances of political parties.

Civil society in search of a state: Dublin 1898–1922

Urban History ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 426-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
CIARÁN WALLACE
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Municipal Government ◽  
City Council ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
State And Local ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Government Reforms

ABSTRACT:A municipal boundary dispute between Dublin's nationalist city council and its independent unionist suburbs in the early twentieth century was symptomatic of a much deeper disagreement over national identity within the United Kingdom. Considering urban councils as the link between the state and local civil society (or subscriber democracy), and using theories proposed by Graeme Morton, R.J. Morris and Norton E. Long, along with illustrative contrasts from municipal behaviour in Edinburgh, this article examines these relationships in Edwardian Dublin. It argues that the modernization of Irish municipal government in 1898 empowered Dublin in unforeseen ways. By amplifying existing divergent identities, and providing a platform for the nascent Irish state, municipal government reforms contributed significantly to the break-up of the UK in 1922.

New Unions for Old

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil MacCormick
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Joint Attention ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Present Contribution ◽  
Real Power ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Scottish Government ◽  
United Kingdom Government ◽  
The Uk

This chapter recommends a reversion from the 1707 Union of Parliaments to the 1603 Union of Crowns (though not of governments). Its argument is originally submitted to the joint attention of the Royal Society and the British Academy on a date very close to 5 November 2003. James succeeded in preserving peace in the islands during his long reign — long in England itself, longer yet in Scotland. In Westminster as well as Edinburgh and elsewhere, real power has come to be invested in parliaments, and thus in the governments that command parliamentary majorities through the dominance of political parties. The UK system works so long as party ties make more or less unquestioned the loyalty of the head of a devolved Scottish government to the head of the United Kingdom government. Generally, the present contribution is offered primarily as a scholarly, not a political one. It is enough if it has sketched grounds for taking seriously the question what ‘new unions for old’ might mean.

scholarly journals Financing political parties in the United Kingdom

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Rowbottom
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Legislative Action ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Political Finance ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Party Funding

Shortly after the 2010 general election in the United Kingdom, the new Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government promised to reform the way British political parties are financed and ‘to remove big money from politics’. Such promises are not new, and in the last decade there has been no shortage of legislative action on party funding. The problem has been that the laws failed to address some of the biggest concerns about money in politics, and that the political actors found strategies to avoid the controls. Looking at the UK approach, this article aims to give an overview of the controls in place, while highlighting some of the main difficulties experienced. While the UK laws have some differences compared with those proposed in New Zealand (particularly in relation to third-party activity), there is much common ground and the British experience may offer some lessons and show some of the pitfalls in regulating political finance. 

Continuity, Dissonance and Location: An Anglosphere Research Agenda

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Andrew Mycock ◽  
Ben Wellings
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
The Usa ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Uk

This chapter maps out an agenda for those wishing to research the Anglosphere. It does so by examining the elements of political and ideational continuity between the present-day Anglosphere and its antecedents such as Greater Britain and the English-speaking peoples. It also analyses the dissonance within and amongst members of the Anglosphere and thus assesses the potential for the realisation of the diverse political goals that its proponents claim. In searching for the locations where this idea has been realised, it suggests that Brexit increased the salience of the Anglosphere in the United Kingdom and beyond. The chapter notes the changing scope of definitions of the Anglosphere from proponents and analysts alike. It focuses on the five ‘core’ states of the Anglosphere – the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand – but is sensitive to overlapping and intersecting relationships, such as the Commonwealth and the Anglo-American ‘special relationship’. By examining the narratives that the idea of the Anglosphere generates this chapter argues that the hierarchies and tensions intersecting it both sustain and constrain this durable yet thin political ideology.

‘Standing up for Scotland’: The Scottish Unionist Party and ‘nationalist unionism’, 1912–68

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-188
Author(s):  
David Torrance
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Standing Up ◽  
Full Independence ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Modern Era

Scottish nationalism has long interested political scientists and historians but has often been interpreted narrowly as the desire for full independence from the multi-national United Kingdom. A broader definition, however, reveals what this article calls the ‘nationalist unionism’ of the Scottish Unionist Party (1912–65), and its surprisingly nuanced view of Scottish national identity as well as Scotland's place in the UK. Drawing on nationalist theory, Smith's ‘ethno-symbolism’, Billig's ‘banal nationalism’ and Bulpitt's interpretation of the Conservative Party's ‘territorial code’ are deployed to analyse this phenomena, supporting the argument that it rested upon myths and symbols from the pre-modern era; pushed what it perceived as ‘bad’ nationalism (the desire for legislative rather than administrative devolution) to the ‘periphery’ of Scottish political discourse and, finally, demonstrated the willingness of the unionist ‘core’ to allow the Scottish Unionist Party to pursue a relatively autonomous strategy for electoral dominance. Furthermore, this article argues that the Scottish Unionist Party presented itself – most ostentatiously between the early 1930s and mid 1950s – as the main ‘guardian’ of a distinct Scottish national identity, while celebrating and protecting Scotland's semi-autonomous place within the UK.

Englishness and the Union in Contemporary Conservative Thought

2009 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 343-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard English ◽  
Richard Hayton ◽  
Michael Kenny
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Public Intellectuals ◽  
Detailed Consideration ◽  
High Profile ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Right

AbstractThis article analyses the importance of arguments developed since 1997 by influential right-wing commentators concerning Englishness and the United Kingdom. Drawing on historical, cultural and political themes, public intellectuals and commentators of the right have variously addressed the constitutional structure of the UK, the politics of devolved government in Wales and Scotland, and the emergence of a more salient contemporary English sensibility. This article offers case studies of the arguments of Simon Heffer, Peter Hitchens and Roger Scruton, all of whom have made controversial high-profile interventions on questions of national identity, culture and history. Drawing on original interviews with these as well as other key figures, the article addresses three central questions. First, what are the detailed arguments offered by Heffer, Hitchens and Scruton in relation to Englishness and the UK? Second, what does detailed consideration of these arguments reveal about the evolution of the politics of contemporary conservatism in relation to the Union? And, third, what kinds of opportunity currently exist for intellectuals and commentators on the fringes of mainstream politics to influence the terms of debate on these issues?

The English on England and the United Kingdom

Englishness ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 57-79
Author(s):  
Ailsa Henderson
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Public Spending ◽  
State Support ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
English Identity ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Clear Majority

Chapter 3 explores English attitudes to England and its place within the United Kingdom, attitudes that are strikingly different from those held by that proportion of England’s population that views itself in primarily or exclusively British terms. English identity is strongly linked to what we term ‘devo-anxiety’—namely, a belief that England is not fairly treated in the union as currently constructed. Scottish MPs are perceived to have too much influence and Scottish public spending is perceived to be too high. Also evident is support for the recognition of England as a unit within the UK state. Support for solutions that treat England as an indivisible whole are more popular than options to divide it into regions. English identifiers are also the most ambivalent unionists in England, with a clear majority in favour of Northern Ireland breaking away, and plurality support for Scottish and Welsh independence.

scholarly journals Linguistic situation in the UK as a reflection of national identity

2019 ◽  
pp. 12-17
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Sergeevna Ignatova
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
National Identity ◽  
English Language ◽  
European Population ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
National Minorities ◽  
National Values ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The 19Th Century

The article is devoted to the national identity problem in the United Kingdom. The problem is considered in terms of the linguistic situation in the country, in particular, by analyzing the relations between the English language and the languages of national minorities in different historical periods. The author compares the Great Britain’s language politics of the 19th century with that of the 20th - 21st centuries. Their goals were found to be completely opposite to each other. That’s why the author puts forward and attempts to justify the assumption that the reason for the linguistic situation changes in the country is the change of the national identity idea. The author argues that the growing role of supra-state structures is pushing European states toward globalization. It leads to a blurring of the national identity boundaries and to the unification of the entire European population. It is said in detail that, being unwilling to lose their national uniqueness and to intermingle with other European nations, the British turn to the culture and languages of regional people in order to broaden the concept of national identity. As a result, the English formula is replaced by the British one, in other words, by a conjunction of all national values, whose carriers reside in the United Kingdom.

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