England’s Dream

cameron_1030639aIf you’re still in shock at the end of a gruesome week about both the personal and political implications of Jo Cox’s murder, and hoping it might be a trigger to some better politics, this may be a disappointing read. None of the likely scenarios is going to bring forth a period of calm,  a settled will or a landscape of progressive politics, certainly not a British level. A Remain vote is likely to be slim and contested, with a bitter aftermath. A Leave vote is likely to be highly traumatic and signal a further constitutional crisis.

If Ian Jack (and others) are right (‘Scotland’s Europhilia stands between Cameron and catastrophe’) then Scotland may save the (European) Union. He writes: “If David Cameron wins on Thursday by the narrowest of margins, he may well owe his salvation to his old enemies in the north. They will tilt the balance. So much of his own side is on the other side, working for his defeat… If it happens, British political history will be hard pushed to furnish a bigger irony.”

You can’t imagine this scenario going down calmly with the far fringes of the Out Brigade, some of whom find little difficulty transferring bile and bigotry from Poles to Jocks in their efforts to ‘take back their country’.

Commentators from Fintan O’Toole to Neal Ascherson are describing this phenomenon as a form of revival of English nationalism and a plaintive, if confused claim for English independence. O’Toole writes (‘Brexit is being driven by English nationalism. And it will end in self-rule‘):  ” England seems to be stumbling towards a national independence it has scarcely even discussed, let alone prepared for. It is on the brink of one of history’s strangest nationalist revolutions.”

Ascherson writes: “Down south, many factors are combining in the surge of opinion towards Brexit. But the strongest is the one that dare not say its name: English nationalism. This is why what happens on June 23 is England’s independence referendum.”

But there are severe difficulties with this analysis.

First, as O’Toole accepts, “There’s nothing inherently absurd about the notion of England as an independent nation state. It’s just that if you’re going to create a new nation state, you ought to be talking about it, arguing for it, thinking it through. And this isn’t happening.” There is no Claim of Right, no Constitutional Convention, there is no ‘movement’ and there won’t be either.

There are good reasons for this.

First, you can’t create a campaign for an English Parliament when you dominate the existing institutions of democracy on such a vast scale. Why would anyone feel disenfranchised when they get the government they elect? There is no democratic deficit.

Secondly as O’Toole explains: “Hardly anyone is even talking about England – all the Brexit arguments are framed in terms of Britain or the UK, as if these historically constructed and contingent entities will simply carry on regardless in the new dispensation.” And this is an ongoing problem, the inability for people outwith or within Britain to distinguish between Britain and England. This is in part out of a sense of propriety openly displayed during the Scottish referendum in the kind of language used about Scotland, but it’s also about a sense of innate settled continuity. Part of the reason that “hardly anyone is even talking about England” is because ‘England-Britain’ is just what is. It just ‘is’: ok?! This inability to even conceive of England as England is one of the problems that Scottish self-determination stirred up. Not just ‘how dare you’ – but ‘how could you’? The break up of Britain would represent for many a break with the natural order of things.

Third such a non-movement without a driving purpose also lacks any leadership. And no the Poundshop Powell doesn’t count. The likely inheritor of the head of a latent English Nationalist movement is Boris Johnson, and he has bigger fish to fry. He wants to take over the British State not lead some incoherent cultural shambles. He’s not as stupid as he looks.

Fourth, there is a complete mismatch between the non-movements non-aims and the potential outcomes. O Toole again: “The English nationalism that underlies Brexit has, at best, one of these five assets: the sense of grievance is undeniably powerful. It’s also highly ambiguous – it is rooted in the shrinking of British social democracy but the actual outcome of Brexit will be an even closer embrace of unfettered neoliberalism. There is a weird mismatch between the grievance and the solution.”

Fifth, and connected, the non-movement has the wrong target in its aim. As Ascherson observes: “Are English people justified in feeling unrepresented, underprivileged and manipulated by a remote power-clique? Yes, they are. But that enemy is not the Commission and it’s not Brussels. It’s London. It’s the geopolitical dominance of London and the south-east, and the elitist power-politics of the United Kingdom. Direct rebellion against that metropolitan elite would threaten both Remain and Leave leaderships. Most of them belong to it.”

This is a rebellion led by a stockbroker and an Etonian.

It’s smoke and mirrors and in an atmosphere of blind self-pity and xenophobia it’s difficult to find a space for a real critique of power, or a progressive politics of solidarity. They made you a moron. A potential H-bomb.

Finally, there is no cultural basis for English self-determination. Despite the grievance culture no language has been suppressed no cultural identity obscured. Instead England’s linguistic and cultural gifts to the world are celebrated and rightly lauded. The problem of a real rejection of multiculturalism is that it’s so great and so successful and so many people love it so much. A process of rediscovery and salvage from cliche and dross might be fruitful but that seems a side-show.

If commentators are right – and Labour canvassers are witnessing on the doorsteps what their northern comrades did two years ago, ie an extinction level collapse of the Labour vote, then the problem may not be the failure of an elusive English nationalist movement to make sense of itself. The problem may be that morphing into something far worse.

 

 

Comments (29)

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  1. Alistair Livingston says:

    It is a shame that Anthony Barnett’s article ‘It’s England’s Brexit’ was not included in this analysis, since Barnett answers the point made above that “First, you can’t create a campaign for an English Parliament when you dominate the existing institutions of democracy on such a vast scale. Why would anyone feel disenfranchised when they get the government they elect? There is no democratic deficit.”- and most of the others the article raises.

    https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/anthony-barnett/it-s-england-s-brexit

  2. peterarnott says:

    I respectfully disagree, Mike. To the self defined British Patriots of Leave, an English Independence referendum is exactly what this is, and just because there is much less nuance, doubt or lack of confidence in them, it doesn’t mean that the grievance or sense of threat to identity you say is missing isn’t there…in fact, i think the Leave campaign have a much stronger sense of cultural threat and democratic deficit than we did. Just because we don’t like the phenomenological similarity doesn’t mean it isn’t there…

    1. Happy to have that discussion and fully aware that it is what is becoming. I don’t doubt the authenticity of that – I doubt that the target is right and the outcome under PM Boris will be what they think

  3. muttley79 says:

    First, you can’t create a campaign for an English Parliament when you dominate the existing institutions of democracy on such a vast scale. Why would anyone feel disenfranchised when they get the government they elect? There is no democratic deficit.

    What if the Brexit campaign is being driven by many working class people in England/Wales in particular, who are as completely alienated and disillusioned by Westminster, as much as Brussels and the EU though?

    This is a rebellion led by a stockbroker and an Etonian.

    That is not the analysis being put forward by the likes of John Harris and co. They are arguing, as far as I understand, that the rebellion is being led by the working class in England and Wales in particular against elite political rule, it is being directed against the EU and Brussels at present, but it is also against Westminster, and politics in general. Harris reckons that many people who are going to vote to quit the EU think very little about Farage, Johnson and Gove. I think John Harris is one of the best political journalists in the UK. Farage and co are only capitalising on the massive discontent that has been around for decades.

    1. Hi – yes I think John Harris is on the ball. I hope he’s right. I hope the genuine issues raised from the grassroots are heard and radicalised. My point is I suspect they are and will be manipulated and exploited.

      Hope I’m wrong.

      I’d love also to see some examples of how this is a radical expression of anti-elite rule.

      Has anyone got any examples of this?

      1. muttley79 says:

        Here is John Harris’s article on Friday:

        http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/17/britain-working-class-revolt-eu-referendum

        Here is a passage from it:

        To quote the opinion pollsters Populus: “Both socioeconomic groups C2 and DE disproportionately back the UK leaving the EU.” To be a little more dramatic about it, now that Scotland has been through its political reformation, England and Wales are in the midst of a working-class revolt.

        To be sure, there are many nuances and complications among leave voters. In the inner-city Birmingham neighbourhood of Handsworth, I met Sikh shopkeepers who claimed that the country is full, with just as much oomph as anyone white; in Leominster, Herefordshire, there are plenty of Tory voters gleefully defying Cameron’s instructions, and fixating on questions of sovereignty and democracy.

        But make no mistake: in an almost comical reflection of the sacred lefty belief that any worthwhile political movement will necessarily be built around the workers, the foundation of the Brexit coalition is what used to be called the proletariat, large swaths of which are as united as in any lefty fantasy, even if some of their loudest complaints are triggering no end of anxiety among bien-pensant types, and causing Labour a great deal of apprehension.

        In Stoke, Merthyr, Birmingham, Manchester and even rural Shropshire, the same lines recurred: so unchanging that they threatened to turn into cliches, but all the more powerful because of their ubiquity. “I’m scared about the future” … “No one listens to us” … “If you haven’t got money, no one cares.”

        You might hate the focus on the EU and immigration, but that sounds like radical expressions of anti-elite rule to me. After all, many people in England and Wales, and there are probably more than 30 per cent in Scotland as well, who are going to ignore all the warnings from the American state, the EU, a major part of the British establishment, the IMF et al, and are going to vote to quit the EU on Thursday.

    2. florian albert says:

      I agree entirely about John Harris.
      However, if you look at what he is doing – talking to working people and listening to them- you can’t avoid thinking; why don’t other ‘left wing’ journalists do this ?

      1. muttley79 says:

        They don’t want to hear what they have to say, or more likely the answers to questions, because it would upset their assumptions?

  4. florian albert says:

    ‘This is a rebellion led by a stockbroker and an Etonian.’

    Neal Ascherson, who is quoted approvingly in the article, is also an Old Etonian.

    1. MBC says:

      Though hardly an enthusiastic one.

    2. True, though he’s not leading a political campaign

      1. MBC says:

        ?? Sorry, don’t catch your drift. Don’t see the relevance of Acherson being an old Etonian and not leading a campaign.

  5. Alan Johnstone says:

    Can I throw this in ( apologies if this has been answered in any earlier articles )?
    If UK leave the EU, would the London rule not then have the power to close the devolved parliaments?

    1. MBC says:

      Of course. There would be nothing constititional to prevent it. The recent Scotland act failed to secure a clause which ensured the permanency of the Scottish parliament.

      1. Bob McMahon says:

        I can’t see any government at Westminster closing the devolved legislatures. It would cause more problems for Westminster and its main parties than it would ‘solve’.

    2. Muscleguy says:

      The outside impetus towards devolution did not come from the EU but the Council of Europe. The CofE is not a creature of the EU and predates it, non EU states like Switzerland are members of the CofE, all EU members are CofE members and membership of the CofE is required for entry to the EU for countries applying.

      It is not clear that as a result of Brexit the UK will resign from the Council of Europe, there are undoubtedly elements in Leave who wish to do so in order to leave the Court of Justice but this is not being made overt. It suits the Leavers to maintain public confusion about these institutions. it is for eg commonly believed that the Court of Justice is an EU institution, it is not. Those voting Leave to get away from the court are voting in error.

  6. MBC says:

    Yes, strange times. The English working class, or rather, the working class in England (they are not all white) are making the EU the scapegoat for the corrosive ills of 40 years of neoliberalism on the fabric of British society. But they grasp a snake to their bosom. Boris, Gove, and Farage et all are phonies, they are not progressives, they will only lead them further down the neoliberal road that is the source of their ills. It’s classic demagoguery. The interesting question will be – if there is a Brexit – if Boris et al will be able to control the furies they have unleashed.

    I know it is wishful thinking on our part that there will be some kind of left wing revolution that comes out of all of this, but that is very naive indeed. The English working class will be controlled by the Brexiteer demagogues, not vice versa. It will become incredibly ugly.

    The English working class are thick. Sorry, but they are.

    1. Andimac says:

      Unfortunately, the thickness of the English working class is matched by that of its Scottish counterpart.

      1. MBC says:

        I don’t underestimate the intelligence of the ordinary man or woman on either side of the border, or indeed, anywhere. So I will rephrase that.

        – The level of political debate and analysis in England amongst the working class is appalling. As has been mentioned, it lacks ‘leadership’, by which I think is meant, ‘intellectual leadership’. There are some excellent voices like Paul Mason, George Monbiot, and others, but the point is that their intellect has no traction in the public debate which is dominated by crude populism.

        1. Muscleguy says:

          I think we see a similar phenomenon with the Tea Party and Trump’s supporters in the US. Fortunately for the US they have Bernie for a progressive protest vote. England lacks a Bernie equivalent because Labour doesn’t know what it stands for and will not articulate the necessary Englishness. They have not come to terms with their near extinction here in Scotland so central to the foundation of the Labour movement and for so long assumed to be the eternal rock of Labourism they can retire to when England turns against them periodically. The SNP and half of Scotland has taken that away from them. The SNP now has more union affiliates than Scottish Labour does, the Left here has voted with it’s feet, not sat on its hands.

          Instead too many of the dispossessed in England are voting UKIP as the only viable protest vehicle they see after the Liberals sold out for ministerial limos. New Labour became the party of the petty managerial classes and gave up representing the working class or the unemployed. Their role instead was to manage the expectations of those classes, explain whey they could not share in national prosperity. People power elected Corbyn but he is surrounded by Blairite MPs in the Westminster caucus, some of whom bitterly regret signing his nomination papers. If another leadership contests is forced Corbyn may well fail to get nominated by the PLP. What will the Corbynite membership do then? Deselections are in abeyances but can be reactivated at will. Jo Cox was of course an arch Blairite who tore into Corbyn after he was elected. Be interesting to see who gets nominated to replace her.

    2. Bob McMahon says:

      Are you saying that non-white people cannot be English? Sounds like something from page 1 of the BNP handbook to me.

  7. MBC says:

    Heh, here’s a worrying taste of things to come! Michael Crick from Channel 4 news was debarred from covering a Brexit rally today.

    http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jun/19/channel-4-news-barred-from-oversubscribed-brexit-rally

    So this is how Boris a Gove will control the furies they have unleashed – they will censor the press!

    I told you the English working class were thick. No progressive critique of elites will ever come out of their little tantrum. They are all brainwashed.

  8. MBC says:

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/17/meeting-jo-cox-a-brush-with-dedication-passion-and-eloquence

    This was another illuminating article that seems to have been missed, about the state of the working class in England.

    Jo Cox, two days before her assassination, was witnessing the mass defection of Labour voters in her constituency to UKIP. They were mostly for Leave. She thought it unlikely that she would be re-elected at the next general election. She was asking herself if there was any point in being an MP, and if her energies might be better spent in campaigns out of politics.

  9. Alistair Livingston says:

    To follow up my original comment made 17 hours ago, I have gone through Anthony Barnett’s ‘It’s England’s Brexit’ and picked some quotes from it to provide a series of counterpoints to the ‘Five Points’ made in the article.

    BC: First, you can’t create a campaign for an English Parliament when you dominate the existing institutions of democracy on such a vast scale. Why would anyone feel disenfranchised when they get the government they elect? There is no democratic deficit.

    AB: Thanks to devolution there is an Arts Council England, English Heritage and NHS England. But there is not a single major English civic organisation or think tank I know of, that seeks to represent English opinion, framing itself within the necessary national consciousness. England has no voice, no civic institutions, no parliament or even assembly. [‘Blimey its Brexit!’ PDF p.131]

    BC: Secondly as O’Toole explains: “Hardly anyone is even talking about England – all the Brexit arguments are framed in terms of Britain or the UK, as if these historically constructed and contingent entities will simply carry on regardless in the new dispensation.” And this is an ongoing problem, the inability for people outwith or within Britain to distinguish between Britain and England. This is in part out of a sense of propriety openly displayed during the Scottish referendum in the kind of language used about Scotland, but it’s also about a sense of innate settled continuity. Part of the reason that “hardly anyone is even talking about England” is because ‘England-Britain’ is just what is. It just ‘is’: ok?! This inability to even conceive of England as England is one of the problems that Scottish self-determination stirred up. Not just ‘how dare you’ – but ‘how could you’? The break up of Britain would represent for many a break with the natural order of things.

    AB: [In 1982] asking the English to rank their primary identification in terms of whether they were more British or English was like asking a coin if it was more obverse or
    reverse. Such a question genuinely does not make sense. For the Scots, Welsh and Irish, Britishness is a separate identity which they share with the English. For the English, Britishness was built into who they were. If all human life has an inside and an outside, then they were British without and English within. The outer face of the coin was British – the British navy – while the inner was English – the English countryside. The lyrical interior and the buccaneering
    exterior were a single fused national romance.

    The two sides of the coin are now separating into different currencies. This painful process has been pushed by the creation of the separate parliaments in Scotland and Wales and by the
    European Union. It sits astride the country’s definition of the UK in the world, and by occupying our exterior definition of who we are weakens our sense of “being British”, while at the same
    time penetrating our domestic regulation and challenging what it means to “be English”… [BiB! PDF p. 142]

    BC: Third such a non-movement without a driving purpose also lacks any leadership. And no the Poundshop Powell doesn’t count. The likely inheritor of the head of a latent English Nationalist movement is Boris Johnson, and he has bigger fish to fry. He wants to take over the British State not lead some incoherent cultural shambles. He’s not as stupid as he looks.

    AB: We are witnessing a gravely reduced and weakened Westminster system whose legitimacy is bleeding away; a historic shift in temper and opinion in England; a ferocious, open battle within the governing Tory party, and an even more fundamentally divided opposition. In this concatenation the only point of influential, positive verve is coming from the Tories of the Leave campaign who are reaching out to hostility to elites and thereby energising it. They are reading the energy as British, hoping what is at heart English sentiment will return to the old British exoskeleton.

    Like Michael Gove only more so, Boris Johnson’s appeal is entirely couched in the language of British patriotism,

    “do you see Britain’s future as an open, global, free trading, dynamic economy based on confidence in tried and tested British institutions? Or do you believe that in order to survive we need to remain embedded in something that fundamentally takes away our
    powers. We are asking the British people to be brave, to be confident in themselves and to believe in Britain.” [BiB1 PDF p.138]

    BC: Fourth, there is a complete mismatch between the non-movements non-aims and the potential outcomes. O Toole again: “The English nationalism that underlies Brexit has, at best, one of these five assets: the sense of grievance is undeniably powerful. It’s also highly ambiguous – it is rooted in the shrinking of British social democracy but the actual outcome of Brexit will be an even closer embrace of unfettered neoliberalism. There is a weird mismatch between the grievance and the solution.”

    AB: Whatever the result of the referendum, whether it is a healthy majority for Remain, a narrow one, or a vote to Leave, the heart of the matter is that England has to have its own parliament. What the referendum reveals is that England both monopolises and is imprisoned by British Westminster and its culture of ‘to the victor the spoils’. To escape from this England is embracing Brexit because no other solution is on offer. It may be intimidated into remaining in the EU through fear of the economic consequences. But England’s frustrated desire for democracy has turned it against the EU rather than the real culprit, the British state. [BiB! PDF p. 132]

    BC: Fifth, and connected, the non-movement has the wrong target in its aim. As Ascherson observes: “Are English people justified in feeling unrepresented, underprivileged and manipulated by a remote power-clique? Yes, they are. But that enemy is not the Commission and it’s not Brussels. It’s London. It’s the geopolitical dominance of London and the south-east, and the elitist power-politics of the United Kingdom. Direct rebellion against that metropolitan elite would threaten both Remain and Leave leaderships. Most of them belong to it.”

    AB: [Same as for BC Point 4 above] Whatever the result of the referendum, whether it is a healthy majority for Remain, a narrow one, or a vote to Leave, the heart of the matter is that England has to have its own parliament. What the referendum reveals is that England both monopolises and is imprisoned by British Westminster and its culture of ‘to the victor the spoils’. To escape from this England is embracing Brexit because no other solution is on offer. It may be intimidated into remaining in the EU through fear of the economic consequences. But England’s frustrated desire for democracy has turned it against the EU rather than the real culprit, the British state. [BiB! PDF p. 132]

    Sources
    https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2016/06/19/englands-dream/
    https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/jamie-mackay/blimey-it-could-be-brexit-book-so-far

    1. Thanks Alistair, though I think points 1-4 simply reinforce my argument rather than contradict it?

      1. Democratic Deficit.

      You quote Anthony sayinG :”there is not a single major English civic organisation or think tank I know of, that seeks to represent English opinion, framing itself within the necessary national consciousness. England has no voice, no civic institutions, no parliament or even assembly.”

      All true but I’d argue this is because there is a a lack of need. If there was a drive for one there would be one. Nothing is stopping this happening apart from a large ancient building where all the decisions are made.

      2. Conflation of England/Britain

      Anthony says: “The two sides of the coin are now separating into different currencies. This painful process has been pushed by the creation of the separate parliaments in Scotland and Wales and by the European Union. It sits astride the country’s definition of the UK in the world, and by occupying our exterior definition of who we are weakens our sense of “being British”, while at the same time penetrating our domestic regulation and challenging what it means to “be English”

      Yes this process is happening but often framed with bitter resentment and aggressive cultural and political attacks (we can cite these endlessly if required). So to what extent this is a positive awakening, a political-cultural renewal is doubtful. Not that it CANT be,just that it doesn’t seem to be.

      3. A Crisis of Leadership and Direction

      Anthony says: “We are witnessing a gravely reduced and weakened Westminster system whose legitimacy is bleeding away; a historic shift in temper and opinion in England; a ferocious, open battle within the governing Tory party, and an even more fundamentally divided opposition. In this concatenation the only point of influential, positive verve is coming from the Tories of the Leave campaign who are reaching out to hostility to elites and thereby energising it. They are reading the energy as British, hoping what is at heart English sentiment will return to the old British exoskeleton.”

      Again the trouble is the framing of tho. Much of the anti-politics centres around ‘pretend rebels’ like Guido Fawkes, perhaps the epitome of the sort of Attack Blog which focuses on anti-politics but which in reality comes from the far-right. Westminster’s legitimacy may well be bleeding away but in the void there is nothing to replace it.

      4. Mismatch of Brexit and Outcomes.

      Anthony writes: “Whatever the result of the referendum, whether it is a healthy majority for Remain, a narrow one, or a vote to Leave, the heart of the matter is that England has to have its own parliament. What the referendum reveals is that England both monopolises and is imprisoned by British Westminster and its culture of ‘to the victor the spoils’. To escape from this England is embracing Brexit because no other solution is on offer.”

      I’d say the key line is that “England both monopolises and is imprisoned by British Westminster” – which I agree with completely. Where I disagree is the idea that “no other solution is on offer”. My point is, why is that?

      5. Elite Rule

      The final point just repeats itself, but they key idea is that Brexit is divided by leaders and followers. There leaders are establishment to the very core, their followers as outlined by John Harris are not.

      1. Alistair Livingston says:

        When I read Anthony Barnett’s ‘It’s England’s Brexit’ I had just been reading a book ‘Festivalized by Ian Abrahams and Bridget Wishart about the (mainly) English free festival movement 1970-1992. It struck me- although there is no discussion of it in the book- that the free-festival movement was part of an almost unconscious attempt to construct a new form of ‘Englishness’- to create an Alternative England. It was something I was involved with when I lived in England 1977-1997.

        Although the free-festival movement was suppressed (eg Battle of the Beanfieild in 1985) people I know still trek to Stonehenge every summer solstice. Even those who no longer do so have not given up on the belief that ‘another England is possible’ and are politically or culturally (or both) engaged in the struggle to realise that possibility.

        I found Anthony Barnett’s article encouraging while your critique of related/similar articles was discouraging- that you were saying “realistically another England is not possible”.

        In May 2013 I wrote a post for Radical Independence Dumfries and Galloway where I connected my support for a Yes vote in the Scottish referendum with my hope that a Yes vote would fracture the oppressive structures of the UK/ British state and thus empower my ‘alternative’ English friends in their struggles.

        https://radicalindydg.wordpress.com/2013/05/14/there-is-no-future-in-ukips-dreaming/

        The reverse of that equation would be that if another England is not possible, then neither is another Scotland.

        1. I wasn’t arguing that ‘another England is impossible’ I was suggesting reasons why its unlikely to take a radical or genuinely transformative turn under these set of conditions. I then outlined why I thought this to be the case.

          I think the cultural and political conditions of the two ‘referendums’ are fundamentally different so I dont accept your notion that to raise critical questions about the Brexit campaign negates the potential of Scottish independence. Both were / are part of a learning curve about how you identify where real power lies.

          1. Alistair Livingston says:

            I guess what I have taken from both referendums about ‘how you identify where real power lies’ is a confirmation of what Guy Debord said nearly 50 years ago.

            The spectacle is the existing order’s uninterrupted discourse about itself, its laudatory monologue. It is the self-portrait of power in the epoch of its totalitarian management of the conditions of existence. [The Society of the Spectacle #24]

  10. Alf Baird says:

    “Conflation of England/Britain” was likewise arguably epitomised by the circa 80%+ of English folk living in Scotland who voted No in the Scottish referendum, seeing the latter as a ‘threat’ to their ‘Britishness’, and thereby also sticking with their preferred “Elite Rule”.

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