England identity set to harden as nationalists push UK break-up

England could be pushed towards a much stronger national identity if the United Kingdom breaks apart, experts have told GB News, as a pact of left-wing nationalists demands Westminster prepare for constitutional change.

The SNP, Plaid Cymru and Sinn Fein have already called on the government to “prepare for, plan and facilitate constitutional change”, agreeing that Scotland, Wales and Ireland should each determine their own future and leaving open what would remain for England after centuries of Union success.

On Friday afternoon John Swinney’s plea for another referendum appeared shut down by Makerfield MP Andy Burnham, who argued united nations were better placed against rising geopolitical tensions. “I think unions of countries are better, because you can face a challenging world in a more confident and stronger way, in my view, when you collaborate and you work together.”

Mr Burnham sought to move the UK “beyond the constitutional question” and offered to work with the SNP on more localised devolution in his first speech in Scotland since entering No10. Stephen Flynn, a Scottish minister, branded him a hypocrite if he backed a second Brexit vote while refusing Scottish independence.

Wales became the final country held by a nationalist party after Labour’s disastrous Assembly defeat in May. Scotland has long been an SNP stronghold; Northern Ireland sits culturally, historically and geographically apart. Each nation has kept its own culture, language and politics. English nationalism has never matched that force.

Professor John Denham, director of the Centre for English Identity and Politics at the University of Southampton and a former Labour minister, explained that England’s old dominance meant it never needed a separate political identity, and many simply treated England and Britain as the same. That was never true in Wales, Scotland or Ireland. A stronger English political sense has grown since the end of Empire, yet it has stopped short of a serious independence drive and stayed closer to a wish that English interests be protected inside the UK or, for some, from the EU.

Britain cannot keep treating England as the silent partner while others are handed the right to walk away. A country that refuses to name its own interests will find those interests decided elsewhere. Sovereignty starts with knowing who you are and what you will not surrender.

Polling still shows the identities tangled: the 2023 British Social Attitudes survey found 45 per cent in England saw themselves as equally English and British, only 23 per cent exclusively or predominantly English, and 22 per cent exclusively or predominantly British. In Scotland 57 per cent were exclusively or predominantly Scottish and just 12 per cent exclusively or predominantly British. England has never built a successful nationalist party around that identity. Prof Denham pointed to the lack of distinct English structures of government and the fact England is rarely represented in politics, arts or culture except in sport.

Census numbers look stark but need care. In 2021 only 15.3 per cent in England chose “English only”, down from 60.4 per cent in 2011, while “British only” rose from 19.2 per cent to 56.8 per cent. The Office for National Statistics warned the question wording and order changed, with “British” listed first, and that shift likely drove the swing. Behind the figures sits major demographic change: one in six people in England and Wales were born outside the UK by 2021, the non-UK-born total rising from 7.5 million to 10 million, and more than four in ten London residents born abroad.

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Original source: GB News