Gavin Esler - How Britain Ends: English Nationalism and the Rebirth of Four Nations

How Britain Ends

Gavin Esler

How
Britain
Ends

English Nationalism
and the Rebirth of
Four Nations

AN APOLLO BOOK

www.headofzeus.com

An Apollo book
First published in the UK in 2021 by Head of Zeus Ltd

Copyright Gavin Esler, 2021

The moral right of Gavin Esler to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN (FTP): 9781800241053

ISBN (E): 9781800241077

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How Britain Ends was written for the generation which will have to pick up the pieces of what was once a United Kingdom, in particular Lucy, Amelia, James and Charlotte. Its also dedicated to the memory of a great Englishman and European, and a great friend, Toby Eady.

Scotland has sent a very clear message we dont want a Boris Johnson government, we dont want to leave the EU. Boris Johnson has a mandate to take England out of the EU but he must accept that I have a mandate to give Scotland a choice for an alternative future.

Scotlands First Minister Nicola Sturgeon after the General Election of December 2019. Her Scottish National Party won 48 out of 59 seats in Scotland. Boris Johnsons Conservatives won the UK General Election with a majority of 80

We in this One Nation Conservative government will never ignore your good and positive feelings of warmth and sympathy towards the other nations of Europe.

Boris Johnson Election Victory Speech, December 2019

When Boris Johnson speaks of being a One Nation Conservative, by One Nation he means England.

Disgruntled Scotsman of my acquaintance who wishes to remain anonymous

Research by Lord Ashcroft, the Conservative donor, found that 76 per cent of English Conservatives who voted Leave in 2016 would prioritise Brexit even if it meant Scotland gained independence. Of the same demographic, 74 per cent would choose leaving the EU over Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK.

Kieran Andrews, The Times , 22 October 2019

Who do you think you are kidding, Mister Hitler,
If you think old Englands done?

Bud Flanagan, Who do you think youre kidding Mr Hitler ( Dads Army theme song)

It is a familiar scene, televised round the world, a symbol of Britishness. The date is May 2016. The location, central London. A sunny day, and the ceremonial State Opening of what the British regard as the Mother of Parliaments. Inside, a sea of ermine, as members of the House of Lords, hereditary peers, political party grandees, a sprinkling of business, academic and other high achievers and senior clergy from the Church of England, move through the Palace of Westminster. They are joined by leading politicians from the House of Commons, the prime minister and leader of the opposition, bringing with them MPs from England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Beefeaters from the Tower of London assemble in their distinctive red, gold and black uniforms. Soldiers from the Household Division form a guard of honour awaiting the arrival of the head of state, Queen Elizabeth II. The seven regiments of the Household Division are famous for their uniforms, especially the cavalry white riding breeches, shiny helmets with horse-hair plumes, swords and gleaming breastplates known as cuirassiers the uniform of British empire victories of 200 or more years ago. At ninety years old the Queen is immensely popular, a remarkable unifying figure for a diverse United Kingdom. Her life of public service stretches from that of a young princess who endured the Blitz with the common people of London in the Second World War, through the difficult years of retreat from empire, to the new Britain and Commonwealth of the twenty-first century.

The State Opening of Parliament manages to be a celebration of a modern democracy, but with the trappings of hundreds of years of practice. Like all traditions, what happens next is a glorious invention. The Queen and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, travel from Buckingham Palace in the horse-drawn Diamond Jubilee state coach. The coach carries ancient symbols of royal power the Sword of State, the Cap of Maintenance and the Imperial State Crown. The Queen could of course arrive in a modern limousine, flanked by a military parade of soldiers in the uniforms of the twenty-first century, but the gold-encrusted coach, the clip-clop of hooves and the gleaming breastplates are a deliberate, nostalgic, choice. The coach is of a 200-year-old design, yet it is just two years old, commissioned in 2012, completed in 2014, and by 2016 still newer than most cars on British roads. Nevertheless, symbols of Britishness are important at an event in which the monarch, Lords and Commons come together to celebrate a new chapter in an ancient democracy, a public display of a United Kingdom. But behind the pomp, all is not well. Real unity is hard to find. In live TV broadcasts of the occasion politicians argue about the Brexit referendum scheduled to take place the following month. The Brexit debate has been caused by an upsurge in a rarely discussed phenomenon English nationalism and its clash with the other competing nationalisms on these islands. Despite the unifying presence of a much-loved monarch and a parliament which is supposed to represent the peoples voice in British democracy, despite all the gold, ermine and faux-antique trappings, this ancient British democracy is in trouble. Without reinvention or reformation the United Kingdom, as we think we know it, may soon cease to exist.

*

Our country is a most peculiar union. It consists of four nations in one. As our children learn at school, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to give it the title as it appears on British passports is made up of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. England is, and always has been, bigger, more populous, richer and more economically powerful than the other three nations put together. Despite surviving and generally thriving for 400 years, now in the twenty-first century this lopsided union may finally be coming to an end. There have been doom-filled prophecies of the end times before. The United Kingdom survived the attentions of Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin and his successors although perhaps it is more accurate to say that it survived because of the attentions of Napoleon, Hitler and the others. Historians, most notably Linda Colley, point out that for centuries the glue that held the United Kingdom together was a mixture of three powerful elements Protestantism, empire and war. In the twenty-first century these traditional elements of Britishness seem less relevant, or completely irrelevant, to many of the people of these islands. For centuries Britain has also weathered domestic rebellions, most seriously that organized by Irish republican terrorists but also by Welsh and Scottish nationalists, and a kind of reactive ultra-Britishness from Ulster unionists. Further nationalist storms are now upon us, but one type of neglected and under-analysed nationalism could by itself result in the end of Britain.

The central argument of this book is that while the United Kingdom can survive Irish, Scottish and Welsh nationalisms it cannot survive English nationalism. For many English people, nationalism is an affliction visited upon others. The English anthropologist Kate Fox claims that the English are not usually given to patriotic boasting. In itself this is a very English way of boasting, a humble-brag about English exceptionalism. As we will see, the facts suggest otherwise.