English nationalism and the threat to the union
The renowned constitutional historian, Arthur Aughey, once described English nationalism as “a mood, not a movement”. That was before the British people voted to leave the EU, and it’s become common to assert that this mood subsequently hardened into the movement that brought us Brexit, then morphed into Boris Johnson’s whopping majority at the end of 2019.
It’s not a persuasive argument, because it ignores the majority in Wales that backed Leave, and the substantial minorities that did likewise in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Aughey, who believes that the referendum put the Union in a predicament, acknowledges that, “the ideological vessel for Brexit and Englishness involves a democratic claim with the UK as much as a nationalistic assertion against the EU.”
It’s a self-evident statement, yet we still see the referendum result, and any subsequent difficulties for the Union, blithely and routinely ascribed to English nationalism. Admittedly, some recent polls show that, in England, enthusiasm for its links with the rest of the United Kingdom has dwindled, particularly among pro-Brexit Conservatives. But, if this sentiment really is rising, it’s superficial not to ask whether it’s linked to anti-English separatism in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, and why there still isn’t a sustained demand for England’s independence (or an English parliament at least).
Tony Blair admitted to “steamrollering” through referendums on Scottish and Welsh devolution, after Labour won the general election in 1997. His experiment was supposed to destroy separatism in the British regions, but instead it provided a platform for the Scottish National Party to eventually dominate Scottish politics.
The SNP is masterful and ruthless when it comes to nurturing resentment against Westminster. Most recently, despite copying nearly all the worst aspects of the government’s approach to Covid-19, Nicola Sturgeon used the crisis to emphasise her administration’s independence from London and its disdain for the national response. The pattern is repeated wherever separatists want to break up the UK.
In Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein‘s deputy first minister, Michelle O’Neill, is demanding that travellers from Great Britain should be quarantined when they arrive in the province. The party’s leadership flouted social distancing rules publicly less than three weeks ago, when republicans staged a show of strength at a terrorist funeral in West Belfast, but they think that they can repair their damaged credibility on coronavirus by exploiting anti-English feeling among their supporters.
The dynamic in Ulster is different, because rather than concentrating only on its supposed separateness from Great Britain, nationalists emphasise the “all-island” perspective on every issue, rather than its UK-wide dimension. The Conservatives made a stunning and unnecessary concession to this mindset, by agreeing to place a trade border down the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and its biggest external market in GB, rather than insisting that checks take place at the existing Irish land border after Brexit.
The UK’s internal market is now undergoing additional assaults from Scotland’s administration. The SNP has attacked the government’s ideas for preventing new barriers to trade between the British regions, after powers are recovered from the European Union at the start of 2021. The paper sets out plans to avoid the emergence of significant regulatory differences within the UK, but Scots nationalists say that Westminster is grabbing authority in areas that should properly be devolved to Scotland.
Just like Northern Ireland and Wales, Scottish businesses sell far more goods to the rest of the UK than any other external market, but, for nationalists, separatism trumps economics.
This constant diet of aggression and grievance from the devolved regions was always going to exasperate English voters eventually; particularly when there’s a perception that taxpayers in England fund Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales generously. Yes, transferring public money to less prosperous areas of the country is part of living in a unitary state, but it relies upon goodwill and solidarity that is difficult to sustain in the face of incessant rhetoric against the English.
When voters in England are polled on their attitudes to the rest of the UK, it isn’t so startling that some impatience with the devolved regions is evident. If anything, it’s more surprising that these sentiments are not fiercer and more widely felt.
Surveys reveal that English respondents would prefer Brexit to be implemented, irrespective of the impact it might have on the Union. That’s regrettable from a unionist perspective, but it’s understandable that people don’t want their democratic mandate frustrated by regional concerns. In contrast, the English response to separatism in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland over decades has been patient and moderate, in the main.
Perhaps that’s the reason that there’s still a tendency among politicians at Westminster to assume that nationalism can be defanged by granting greater powers to the devolved regions. This way of thinking has found its way into proposals for “devo max” (or full fiscal autonomy for Scotland), the Constitutional Reform Group’s paper on radical devolution and the idea that the UK should become a genuine federal state.
Policy makers should remember that whichever powers separatists wield and whatever autonomies they’re granted, they will always use them to foster grievances against Westminster, and loosen further the bonds that hold together the United Kingdom. The Northern Ireland Protocol is the latest self-inflicted constitutional disaster designed to placate nationalists. It should be the last.
