What on earth is up with British unionism? Although not especially reflective at the best of times, this ideology has recently been thrust into explicitness in disturbing ways. It’s often said that Brexit is in part driven by an upsurge of English nationalism, but I don’t buy that – if only because there’s no suchContinue reading “Uncanny Britannia”
Category Archives: Nations and Nationalism
The Politics of ‘Us and Them’
In its death agonies, the vestigial remnant of Scottish Labour is convulsing in some entirely predictable ways. One of them, particularly evident recently, has been an even more ferocious assault on the independence movement in Scotland, which they corral – not, a lot of the time, unfairly, but not always entirely accurately – under the labelContinue reading “The Politics of ‘Us and Them’”
English Scots
Don’t mind me, I’m an oxymoron. Or at least, I think I used to be – which is as much as to say I wasn’t really anything at all. But perhaps I’m oxymoronic no more. I can stand up if I want to and say, hey, everybody, get this – I am an English Scot. There’s still aContinue reading “English Scots”
Undiscovered Countries: Shakespeare’s Britain
‘He was not of an age, but for all time!’ That’s what Shakespeare’s friend Ben Jonson wrote in memory of him, a mere seven years after he died, and long before some kind of posterity had had a chance to show its hand. Such claims were not that uncommonly made for poets of the period;Continue reading “Undiscovered Countries: Shakespeare’s Britain”
Angry Politics
One of the funniest byproducts of recent political campaigns in Scotland has been the irresistible rise of Angry Salmond. Starting off as a parody twitter account, and now aspiring to the status of monetised meme, Angry Salmond has epitomised the irreverence of the Yes campaign and the new, metamorphosed SNP.
The Accidental Nationalist
I didn’t mean it to happen – but for a short period, around the age of 18, I think I was an English Nationalist.
JAMES LOXLEY 