Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Valmy]

I guess I will never understand what is so great about being Scottish and so bad about being English.

[The Larch]

I guess I will never understand what is so great about being Scottish and so bad about being English.

Being the underdog is way cooler.

[Valmy]

I guess I will never understand what is so great about being Scottish and so bad about being English.

Being the underdog is way cooler.

Well England is certainly an underdog in today's world...and hell was for most of history as well. England and Scotland were only this juggernaut that dominated the world once they got together.

I personally think it is just because the English are so francophobic that they cannot come to terms with the fact that they lost to the French in 1066 and so long to be a country that never lost to the French. Well tough shit.

[The Larch]

I guess I will never understand what is so great about being Scottish and so bad about being English.

Being the underdog is way cooler.

Well England is certainly an underdog in today's world...and hell was for most of history as well. England and Scotland were only this juggernaut that dominated the world once they got together.

Oh give me a break.

[Valmy]

Oh give me a break.

Obviously I was kidding. But it is no more idiotic than denouncing a culture just because it was not an underdog.

[The Larch]

Oh give me a break.

Obviously I was kidding. But it is no more idiotic than denouncing a culture just because it was not an underdog.

Smilies help in that case. 

Englishness is not helped by the fact that those who are most proud of it tend to be rather unsavoury.

[Valmy]

Englishness is not helped by the fact that those who are most proud of it tend to be rather unsavoury.

Yeah it probably needs to be rescued from Germanic heritage nationalist types.

[Tamas]

Sheilbh and RH had a good point about this earlier when this was discussed: probably, once Britain ceases to exist (and I guess after Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, why would this last), what it is now to be British will become called being English. Right now Tyr can sneer because those who go out of their way to call themselves English instead of British are far-right xenophobes. But the majority who now identify as British will have no choice but to call themselves English, changing the meaning of that identity.

[The Brain]

Maybe Little Brits?

[Sheilbh]

Dominic Cummings agrees. I just wonder if the change he will drive is something that most people will consider a change for a better Britain. Early indications point to a chance that Brexit was just the first of more bad change to come for Britain, especially the British state.

I think Cummings is mostly right in his analysis. I'm less sure of his solutions. Hopefully other people will also start thinking about it.

Being the underdog is way cooler.

Ish. I think in terms of confronting our history one thing Scotland will need to confront is that it wasn't an early victim of English colonialism but a very active participant in British colonialism and empire-building. I think Scotland's also sort of had an interesting sort of class based nationalism. So true Scottishness resides in the Glaswegian tenement and the highland croft - the various bits of Scots aristocracy, or lawyers, or politicians etc were, in effect, more English than Scottish.

Englishness is not helped by the fact that those who are most proud of it tend to be rather unsavoury.

Also: the discourse. It's exhausting. We've been talking about Englishness for about 20 years and are no closer.

I feel we're past that stage - but then I see you and Tyr posting. And, as Tamas says, I think we're going to have to deal with it at some point. I feel like it is strange that the bit of national identity that's lacking here is the sub-national old nation, rather than federated identity (Spanishness, Italianness, Belgianness etc). Because it feels like the other way is more normal - the regional or old national lingers.

[The Larch]

To which point do you think that Englishness has been affected by devolution in the UK?

From the outside it's weird that Scotland and Wales have their own parliaments and governments but England doesn't. It makes the UK = England comparison pretty easy.

Btw, I agree that Scottish nationalism skims over much of their role within the UK and conveniently forgets that Scotland joined England voluntarely.

[Sheilbh]

To which point do you think that Englishness has been affected by devolution in the UK?

From the outside it's weird that Scotland and Wales have their own parliaments and governments but England doesn't. It makes the UK = England comparison pretty easy.

I think that was a big issue. I mean in 2005-2010 we had a Labour government but England had actually voted Tory, so there were lots of times when Labour relied on Scottish MPs to vote for something that only affected England - needless to say the Tories made a lot of this.

I think devolution would be good, or more of a federal structure but it's difficult to work because England is so big. Ideally I'd like to have more devolution within England instead - Cummings scuppered that in his first campaign.

But I think it's definitely part of an alienation from Englishness that there's no "English" political identity and all of our politicians love playing the big Prime Minister of the United Kingdom - even over areas where they're effectively acting as PM of England.

Btw, I agree that Scottish nationalism skims over much of their role within the UK and conveniently forgets that Scotland joined England voluntarely.

I mean the SNP are pretty good avoiding blame as well. Coronavirus is a perfect example - health is entirely devolved, there is no UK government on this. But according to polls, Scottish voters basically blame it all on Johnson and the UK government - which is nice if you can get away with it for Sturgeon

[Josquius]

The thing with "England" is its such an unnecessary and artificial intermediate stage.
There's nothing that unites English people with each other more than with other Brits other than things that are specifically designed to be so like sports teams.
To identify as English is to identify as a bit of a cunt. It carries no meaning beyond this. The true borders in Britain are not around the fringes of England, its a curve that roughly stretches Humber-Mersey-Severn.

England's size probably has a lot to do with this. English became British which slightly stretched its inclusiveness to the lowland Scots, who afterall are more English than most of the English and identified as such until far later than many expect.  This left being English not as an identity built up of anything, rather as merely being the left overs when you take the other bits of Britain out.

[The Brain]

There's nothing to stop you from calling yourselves Brits and Britain. I noticed there's a Wars of the Roses documentary series incongruously called Britain's Bloody Crown. So there you go.

[Valmy]

Well Wales did end up winning the War of the Roses after all.