The Rise and Rise of English Nationalism?

Abstract

This article reviews myths about English identity, using ‘myth’ in a social scientific way, a truth held to be self-evident; not something which is patently untrue. It argues that there must be three defining dimensions of English ‘nationalism’ if it is to be treated as such: first, whether there has been a significant increase in the proportion of people claiming ‘English’ as their national identity; second, how ‘England’ is treated as an ‘imagined community’; and third, the degree to which the Conservative Party is the political vehicle for English nationalism. These dimensions are labelled the social, the cultural and the political. Only if there is sustained evidence for all three aspects might we consider English nationalism to be a significant phenomenon.