The Left must shape England’s national story in the post-pandemic world
Let’s not surrender Englishness to the far right.
Let’s not surrender Englishness to the far right.
The right have been allowed to dominate the patriotism issue for too long, argues Tristan Grove following the launch of a new Young Fabians pamphlet.
Through passionate rhetoric addressing questions of identity and autonomy, the Leave campaign tapped into something the more cautious and technocratic Remain campaign failed to understand.
Britain is an ‘authentic nation’ and the rest are imagined
Article 50 ruling met with more ‘enemies of the people’ tripe
Chilcot needs to ask why a small island with a stretched military budget contemplated a Middle East invasion in the first place
Even at its highest and most aspirant, nationalism demands self-interest over mutual interest between nations.
Nationalism has many potential outcomes, but they are all based on a concern for ‘our people’ not ‘the people’.
There is an uncertain line in the sand on he radical right between legitimate nationalism and unacceptable racism.
We know the drill now. A eurozone member finds itself in dire financial straits. A cabal of finance ministers, European officials, domestic technocrats and global financiers pushes the stricken national government towards severe public spending cuts and tax rises. The social unrest caused by these policies bleeds into some form of populism, be it left-orientated (Syriza in Greece; 15M in Spain), right-orientated (Golden Dawn in Greece) or somewhere in the fuzzy middle (Beppe Grillo in Italy).