Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[garbon]

I was with her until she agrees that Home Office had asked for additional material that she failed to provide.

[Sheilbh]

A relatively "oldie but goldie" piece of news, EU citizens keep getting their settled status rejected by the Home Office for arcane reasons.

Yeah. It's gone better than expected - there's been almost 5 million applications and 97% either now have settled or "pre-settled" status. I expected far more chaos. But you still keep getting these ridiculous outcomes and I think if the government want to shoo away concerns around institutional racism it'd be a lot easier if they didn't keep happening and people weren't forced into this ridiculous bureaucratic nightmare. Having said that my big fear isn't how the system's operating as people are going in and making applications, but how it'll operate in 20 years time because I think there's a real risk of something like the Windrush scandal happening because someone who lived in the country for 20+ years didn't keep the right papers.

Separately an interesting sign of how common ignorance of NI is in GB. This was the first cut of today's Metro front-page:

They've since changed the bottom headline to "Get the beers in!" because the "glorious twelfth" is the 12th July when Orange Orders in Northern Ireland (and anywhere else with a significant Ulster Protestant community) do their parades, paint the pavements in red, white and blue and have huge bonfires and parties to celebrate William of Orange winning the Battle of the Boyne.

In Northern Ireland historically it's been quite a fractious day. There are some particularly contentious routes where the Orange Order or Apprentice Boys parade through a heavily Catholic area - in those examples there's been thousands of unionists descending on an area to watch the parade, a heavy police presence and all sorts of different clashes.

It means nothing to people in England generally and in Scotland the glorious twelfth is the 12 August when grouse shooting season starts. So it's probably a phrase someone's heard and thought it might work as a headline without realise. They changed it very, very quickly

[Richard Hakluyt]

It is not just ignorance about NI of course. For some reason the entire Dutch business has been dropped from the English national memory. I mean a Dutch army landed in Devon and marched on London. Now admittedly this was all with the connivance of the English elites...but even so. The Glorious Revolution is the preserve of history geeks nowadays, even those gratifying victories against Louis XIV are largely forgotten (you would think that the nationalist nutters would be all over those).

The entire process of national historical memory is fascinating and this dropping of one of the key points in our history is weird.

[Josquius]

The 17th and 18th century just didn't happen apart from a little bit of agricultural revolution and that fire in London.
Thinking back to what I learned in school it always amazed me that the textbook continued onto these people all called "Stuart" who were just never to be mentioned in favour of rehashing the Tudors ad infinitum.

[Sheilbh]

It is not just ignorance about NI of course. For some reason the entire Dutch business has been dropped from the English national memory. I mean a Dutch army landed in Devon and marched on London. Now admittedly this was all with the connivance of the English elites...but even so. The Glorious Revolution is the preserve of history geeks nowadays, even those gratifying victories against Louis XIV are largely forgotten (you would think that the nationalist nutters would be all over those).

The entire process of national historical memory is fascinating and this dropping of one of the key points in our history is weird.

Yeah.

I'm very guilty of that. I'm incredibly ignorant of UK or any other form of history that is sort of 18th century/pre revolutionary. I get this is a little earlier but basically anything post-restoration until the French revolution starts and I know nothing but the most broad brush facts - and I am a history geek. I know nothing about the later Stuart era and nothing about the Georgian era, except for the odd picturesque moment like Bonny Prince Charlie.

I wonder if it's even just a British thing or if others have it too because I just get the sense that while important stuff happened, pre-revolutionary 18th century in Europe is just too cynical and complicated for us to really understand what's going on or engage with. It's sandwiched between the alien but comprehensible wars of religions and revolution? Maybe it's seen too much in the light of the revolution? So it's not looked at enough for what's going on as it is for the roots of 1789?

Having said that I did read a book that was really interesting about Europe in the 18th century. It's from one of those survey series where they get historians to do a few hundred pages of very high level trends etc - which was really good (can't find it now) but never really inspired me to learn more.

There's something similar with literature even when I was at uni. The period that felt most alien and that the lecturers sort of had to justify and explain most was 18th century Augustan/Georgian style. Everything's a little bit too arch and too knowing and too clever - again it's sandwiched between Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and Milton on one side and the Romantics on the other.

[The Larch]

I wonder if it's even just a British thing or if others have it too because I just get the sense that while important stuff happened, pre-revolutionary 18th century in Europe is just too cynical and complicated for us to really understand what's going on or engage with. It's sandwiched between the alien but comprehensible wars of religions and revolution? Maybe it's seen too much in the light of the revolution? So it's not looked at enough for what's going on as it is for the roots of 1789?

At least for Spain that's not the case. The early XVIIIth century is really important historically, as it's when the Bourbons replaced the Habsburgs, and in a way this is what gave birth to "modern" Spain (increased centralization, modernisation of the state's aparatus, final abolition of holdover medieval institutions...).

[Sheilbh]

Yeah - and I suppose Frederick the Great is very important in German history (though I wonder how he's interpreted in modern Germany).

I think in part the lack of absolutism might be what makes it particularly difficult/unpopular in the UK. So there's Whigs and Tories - but except in very broad strokes people aren't aware of what they're about. Lots of politics is about the Church of England and dissenters. It's when we have the first "Prime Minister" but the politics is very corrupt and diffuse with lots of different power bases playing off against each other and I think there's lots of sudden/surprise alliances and about faces - which makes for a less coherent, easy to understand narrative than say Bourbon reform or the rise of Prussia.

[Grey Fox]

No, I am familiar with what happened in the 18th century in North America.

[Josquius]

I wonder if it's even just a British thing or if others have it too because I just get the sense that while important stuff happened, pre-revolutionary 18th century in Europe is just too cynical and complicated for us to really understand what's going on or engage with. It's sandwiched between the alien but comprehensible wars of religions and revolution? Maybe it's seen too much in the light of the revolution? So it's not looked at enough for what's going on as it is for the roots of 1789?

From what I gather the 18th century is THE prime period to learn about in French speaking Switzerland. Local boyo Voltaire represent.

[The Larch]

Yeah - and I suppose Frederick the Great is very important in German history (though I wonder how he's interpreted in modern Germany).

I think in part the lack of absolutism might be what makes it particularly difficult/unpopular in the UK. So there's Whigs and Tories - but except in very broad strokes people aren't aware of what they're about. Lots of politics is about the Church of England and dissenters. It's when we have the first "Prime Minister" but the politics is very corrupt and diffuse with lots of different power bases playing off against each other and I think there's lots of sudden/surprise alliances and about faces - which makes for a less coherent, easy to understand narrative than say Bourbon reform or the rise of Prussia.

I guess that's usual when there's no "big" stuff in the popular mind to anchor a particular period (outside of dedicated academic study, that is). In Spain that happens a bit with the last Habsburgs during the XVIIth century. You have this massive period that is remarked over and over from the late XVth century  to the late XVIth with tons of stuff taking place and then you get to the XVIIth century and it's... yeah, end of the Golden Age, beginning of the decadence, economic decline, Felipe III & IV who are kinda meh, and then the car crash that was Carlos II.

Art is maybe the only redeeming feature of this period for Spain (Velázquez!), and regionally it's very important for Catalonia as well because of their failed revolt during the 30 years war, that has become a seminal event in recent times.

[Sheilbh]

There's definitely big stuff that happens and is important - the UK is formed, the British Empire really starts to emerge. But I don't think there are big "moments" or big enough personalities (the Tudors' great strength). I think too much happens at the elite level and people tend to be more interested in the social side of history - which is big in the 19th century - and it's all complex. The monarch isn't as strong as they were in the Tudors but understanding how power was distributed with Parliament is not clear to me as a non-expert. There's a bit more awareness in Scotland because of the Jacobites but even that is limited to Culloden and Bonnie Prince Charlie escaping dresssed as a maid etc.

I think the military heroes like Wolfe used to be more popular. But the images I have of that period is basically just fiction - The Favourite, Sir Walter Scott's version of the Jacobite rebellion, The Madness of King George.

[garbon]

people tend to be more interested in the social side of history

Is that true? I feel like a lot of popular history books are either about a specific polity as a whole or biographies/narratives of key people and their rule/reigns.

[The Larch]

people tend to be more interested in the social side of history

Is that true? I feel like a lot of popular history books are either about a specific polity as a whole or biographies/narratives of key people and their rule/reigns.

Yeah, popular history is all about military stuff and great figure's biographies. Social history (at least what in my mind constitutes social history, don't know what it is for Sheilbh) seems quite academic in contrast.

[Sheilbh]

Is that true? I feel like a lot of popular history books are either about a specific polity as a whole or biographies/narratives of key people and their rule/reigns.

You're probably right actually. I might just be thinking of the 19th century specifically where I think most people in the UK are aware of Disraeli and Gladstone and Victoria, but not that interested in them. What is more interesting is industrialisation, Highland Clearances, Cottonopolis, the Potteries, slums and tenements, Jack the Ripper. It's not all purely social history because I think lots of people are interested in the tech and engineering side of it too - again I slightly wonder how much that is shaped by fiction so our image of the 19th century is still basically Dickens.

Similarly if you go into any bookshop in the country there'll be the same history shelves that you get in every bookshop with the bestsellers, the latest Anne Applebaum or Simon Schama etc. But there'll also be a case of local history books and I'd be willing to bet that almost all of that is about the 19th century and the building of Manchester or Liverpool, or what it was like on the Docks/Mill/Mine, or about rural life/clearances/"Hardy's Dorset" in the countryside etc.

Obviously people who are into military history (which I'm not) are into that regardless of the era and read about specific wars or battles. But they do that for every period and I can't claim to know anything about it

Edit: Also I'm thinking of Fred Dibnah who my dad loved and had numerous TV series visiting industrial sites around the country and trying to play with the machinery, talk with people about what it was like for the workers etc.

[Tamas]

As I keep saying if you went by TV "documentaries" English history went along the lines of  Henry VIII - Churchill - Diana, and nothing else of importance happened.