The United Kingdom – the state of competing nationalisms

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a country of multiple national identities, with resultant nationalist political parties. While often called a nation-state, it is in fact a multi-national country comprising of distinct nations and regions. Each UK nation has a sub-state political system with competing national identities at play. i Thus, analysis of nationalism within the contemporary UK must consider the whole UK from both a wider but also individual perspective in order to understand that the competing nationalisms conflict with the overarching state identity of Britishness. To consider the variety of nationalisms which compete for political, economic and cultural attention and control within the wider UK, we must break the state down into its constituent national parts. This is because each of the nations of the UK exhibits distinct nationalist cleavages, distinct party systems and distinct voting behaviours. Thus, within this chapter, we consider the UK as a whole but also each national unit, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, individually.

Nonetheless, we start with a short consideration of the underpinning, unspoken, and often assumed nationalism of the UK, Britishness. This is the sense of national identity that underpins the UK as a state and is employed to create a common sense of belonging for the country as a whole. Obviously, it cuts across the various national identities that exist within the UK, with varying degrees of success in different areas, and it does attract a sense of belonging, like a nation. It is not only the identity of the UK State and the British Government, which has underpinned the political union (in its various guises and forms) for hundreds of years, but many individuals within and across the UK (and the wider world) identify as British. Furthermore, Britain has a national anthem, it has a national flag, it has a history and culture. Only after understanding the underpinning belonging that is Britishness, can we then consider the various nationalist movements within the UK that challenge this idea of Britishness.