As the eurozone crisis continues, anti-establishment insurgencies like the Scottish National Party, SNP\u2019s, are surfacing all over Europe: nationalist, populist, separatist, left or right.<\/p>\n
As the British empire was gradually dissolved after the second world war and its industrial base attacked by younger, nimbler economies, the cohesion of the British state weakened.<\/p>\n
There was an impulse towards supra-nationalism in the shape of membership in the European Union, but Britain joined late, in 1973.<\/p>\n
English people \u2013 steeped in Britain\u2019s maritime, imperial traditions \u2013 felt hostile towards the EU.<\/p>\n
At the same time, long-smothered regional nationalism was reviving on Britain\u2019s Celtic fringes. In divided Ireland, it was violent; in Scotland, political, emboldened by newly discovered North Sea oil; in Wales, initially, cultural, based around the preservation of the Welsh language.<\/p>\n
That was in the 70s. Forty years on, these rival strands are much stronger, and testing the concept of \u201cBritishness\u201d to destruction.<\/p>\n
The Scottish national party has barely paused for breath since losing last September\u2019s referendum on independence for Scotland \u2013 immediately declaring itself the moral victor and demanding greater powers for Edinburgh.<\/p>\n
Since the referendum result \u2013 55% no, 45% yes \u2013 disaffected working-class Labour voters have flocked to the SNP. Polls suggest the Scottish nationalists, now led by Scotland\u2019s new first minister, the formidable Nicola Sturgeon, will slaughter Labour north of the border, winning dozens of Scotland\u2019s 59 seats and perhaps holding the balance of power in London. If she finds herself in that position, Sturgeon promises to block Cameron and prop up a minority Miliband administration. <\/p>\n
Britain\u2019s Tory newspapers are busy denouncing Sturgeon as \u201cthe most dangerous woman\u201d in the country. Cameron \u2013 whose Tories have only one seat in Scotland \u2013 warns of a Scottish veto from the people who want to break up Britain. Miliband is embarrassed.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, in England, the populist anti-European right, in the form of the UK independence party (Ukip), has evolved under the skilful leadership of Nigel Farage.<\/p>\n
Ukip’s proven ability to win protest votes at four-yearly elections to the 28-nation European parliament is now threatening the status quo at Westminster. It has two MPs (both defectors from the Tories) and hopes to win more on 7 May.<\/p>\n
If that sounds familiar, it should. Though Ukip portrays itself as free market and libertarian, it is also deeply nostalgic, socially conservative, and suspicious of immigrants and big-government bureaucracy, especially from the EU\u2019s Brussels headquarters.<\/p>\n
Racist, homophobic and authoritarian? Certainly not, says Farage. We just want to be a self-governing sovereign state again. But Ukip\u2019s \u201clittle guy\u201d rank-and-file is not always quite so on-message. This is disruptive Tea Party Republicanism with added potency. <\/p>\n
Ukip\u2019s threat to the status quo is twofold. It may take enough votes away from Cameron\u2019s Tories to deny the prime minister his slim hopes of a Commons majority on May 7, or even to stop him being the largest party, which would make it hard for him to form another coalition.<\/p>\n
In a tight race, with both main parties polling at around 34%, Ukip\u2019s rise may also hurt Miliband\u2019s prospects by peeling off Labour\u2019s equivalent of blue-collar Democrats, working-class voters fed up with stagnant wages and gay marriage, underfunded public services and \u201cunpatriotic\u201d liberals.<\/p>\n
Source: The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As the eurozone crisis continues, anti-establishment insurgencies like the Scottish National Party, SNP\u2019s, are surfacing all over Europe: nationalist, populist, separatist, left or right. As the British empire was gradually dissolved after the second world war and its industrial base attacked by younger, nimbler economies, the cohesion of the British state weakened. There was an … Continue reading “The rise of nationalism in Britain”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,3],"tags":[186,70,73,2363,226,3927,1945,9341,4456,11408],"class_list":["post-18360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-news","tag-britain","tag-eu","tag-gay-marriage","tag-immigrants","tag-imperialism","tag-nationalism","tag-scotland","tag-tories","tag-ukip","tag-westminster"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18360"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18361,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18360\/revisions\/18361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}