I’m not an avid follower of Paul Kingsnorth’s work, but I do remember his One No, Many Yeses. This was a contribution – some may say cash-in – to the burgeoning library on the internationalist, anti-capitalist, and fashionably networky movement of sundry NGOs, anarchists and occasional Trots of the early part of the last decade. As something of a radical travelogue, our Paul flitted from country to country giving us the low down on the Zapatistas (of course), the G8 summit in Genoa, hung out with gold miners in New Guinea, and all other kinds of things. It was an uncritical celebration of this most rooted of rootless movements, an advert for the New Way of Doing Things. The book stuck in my mind because it helped fill an adventure of my own – a bus trip from Stoke to Telford. Continue reading
Tagged with English nationalism
UKIP and English nationalism
Let’s look at some recent research by Edinburgh University. While UKIP are basking in the warm glow of favourable polling, north of the border, Edinburgh’s polling finds them stuck on 10%. Respectable certainly, but not a political earthquake. Interestingly in Wales their support stands at 20% – a good nine points clear of Plaid Cymru but trailing 19 to Labour. As for England UKIP are on 29 to Labour’s 30, a score mirroring (trailing) recent polling. If you look at voting intention by self-reported national identity, ‘English Only/More English than British’ identifiers are 42% for UKIP.
The party and Nigel Farage win a plurality of ‘who best stands up for England’, followed in short order by ‘no party’ and ‘no one’. On the EU referendum, 40-37 would have us out in England, where in Wales and Scotland it’s 39-35 and 48-32 to stay. And lastly of English only/mainly, 55% would vote to leave, and just 26% are for staying (the terms are almost reversed if one identifies as British only, or mostly British). Continue reading
