The rise of British nationalism
Nationalism
Support for Irish Nationalists
Ireland is Awake
Her comment specifically regarding “hostile lefties” (lefties being a derogatory term in the UK for people who harbour so-called progressive left-wing views) is especially notable due to the curious, yet significant, cases of left-wing and liberal political parties and movements suddenly expressing their intentions to promote British patriotism, when these very same parties had previously attempted to distance themselves from patriotic sentiment, instead choosing to strongly push for even greater levels of pro-multiculturalist views among the British public.
Most notably, the British Prime Minister himself, Keir Starmer, had also come out in support of the notion of flying the British flag. While his rhetoric is an obvious attempt to appease the mostly right-wing supporters of Operation Raise the Colours, many do not see his “support” as genuine, as Starmer’s centre-left
Labour Party is known for having many members and supporters who often espouse views which have been anti-British in nature, instead choosing to directly combat nativist British patriotism in favour of promoting multiculturalism and so-called progressive left-wing politics. Indeed, Prime Minister Starmer had also stated that he desired to see the British flag flown not as a symbol of “hatred and division”, but rather as a symbol of unity.
There is yet another crucial factor in not only the British Government’s sudden turn towards trying to promote British patriotism, but also the growth of British nationalism across the UK – the dramatic rise of the right-wing Reform UK political party.
Led by Nigel Farage, the man formerly of the UK Independence Party, and, arguably, the face of Brexit, Reform UK has caused shockwaves across the UK by becoming – and staying – the highest-polling political party in the UK since April of this year.
UK Reform
Since 1922, only two political parties in the UK have gained power as the ruling government – the centre-left Labour Party and the centre-right Conservative Party. For over a century, the UK had been known as a two-party state, with one of these two parties being all but assured political power, while other parties had, realistically, very little chance of forming the next British government.
However, since April, Reform UK under Nigel Farage has consistently topped every single public opinion poll, and is likely to become, for the first time since 1922, the first political party to take power in the UK that is neither the Labour nor Conservative Party. What is more is that Reform UK would likely become the most right-wing government that the UK has seen in its modern history.
As of the writing of this article, an opinion poll held by the Find Out Now survey outlet on the 18th of September saw Reform’s public popularity at an unprecedented 34%, with both Labour and the Conservatives trailing behind at 16% each.
Although Nigel Farage and Reform UK are currently enjoying very high levels of public popularity – to the extent where several British politicians have even defected from their previous parties to join Reform UK – it must be kept in mind that the next British general election is not due until August 2029 at the very latest, and much could change very quickly by then which could see the political dynamics change in the UK even further.
Whether these changes are work in favour or against Farage and Reform UK remains to be seen, but there is one other factor which could potentially harm Farage’s long-term popularity – the growing influence of more radical elements of the British political right. The most notable example is Rupert Lowe and his Restore Britain movement.
Formerly a member of Reform UK, Lowe was expelled from the party in March of this year following alleged “legal accusations”. However, many suspect that the real reason for Lowe’s expulsion was his growing popularity within Reform UK itself, to the point where many had expected Lowe to rival even Farage in influence.
In June, Lowe formed the Restore Britain movement, an even more right-wing and nationalistic splinter group from Reform UK which aims to promote more ardent British nationalism, Christian values and, most notably, the mass deportation of all illegal migrants in the UK, without exception.
Contrary to what many had initially believed, Lowe’s more radical policies have proved to be very popular among the British right, with Restore Britain quickly gaining more and more members, and continues to do so, as of the writing of this article. Although Restore Britain is an independent movement, not a political party, many have suggested that the movement could potentially become a fully-fledged political party to rival Reform UK in the coming months, or sometime in 2026.
The Dangers of Nationalism
Nationalism and national history proved as staunch an ally for established states as it did for emerging ones – if not more so. By emphasising the similarities between their present regimes and their countries’ glorious national pasts, conservative governments used history to promote continuity rather than revolution.
By stressing national unity and integrity above all else, they could condemn protesters as divisive antagonists who did not have the national interest at heart.
And with the apparatus of the state at their disposal, they were able to instil their state-approved version of nationalism into their citizens and subjects, an approach that is still pervasive today.
The introduction of compulsory education throughout much of Europe in the 19th century meant that children could be taught the importance of patriotism and of the willingness to fight for one’s country – a theme very much to the fore as we head towards Remembrance Day.
The instigation of mandatory military service throughout much of Europe around the same time allowed the state to drill similar ‘cultural education’ lessons into the continent’s peasantry, instructing them to place the nation above all other interests – self-preservation included.
Meanwhile, the growth of nationwide media, communications and transport – newspapers, telegraphs, steam engines and the like – made it easier for compatriots to envisage themselves as members of the same national community.
The author goes on to say this all meant that, by the dawn of the twentieth century, nationalism had triumphed across the political spectrum. Within the space of a century it had ballooned from an obscure middle-class interest into the lingua franca of politics.
Conservatives and liberals, monarchists and republicans, all found the nation and national history to be the most captivating way of expressing their ideas and garnering support. Even the staunchly anti-nationalist communists would eventually give in, transforming themselves into die-hard patriots by the outbreak of the Second World War.
These historical narratives become even more far-fetched when you consider how young most countries are. Nationalism was not so much the reawakening of ancient nations as it was the deliberate creation of them out of scraps of local culture.
Consequently, most countries today have remarkably recent origins. A look at a world atlas from the turn of the 20th century shows how much the world has changed politically in little more than one hundred years.
Turkey, Mongolia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Indonesia and dozens of other countries are nowhere to be found. Central and Eastern Europe are home to just seven sovereign states, as opposed to today’s twenty-two. Much of Africa is unrecognisable, with a handful of colonial powers dominating a continent that today is home to fifty-four countries.
Indeed, more than half the world’s countries are less than one hundred years old, and the majority of African countries are just sixty years old – younger than their average head of state.
In 1945, our planet was home to just fifty-one sovereign states. Today that number has nearly quadrupled. In 2020, the United Nations recognised 193 national states, and there are many more unrecognised nations – such as Catalonia, Kurdistan and Transnistria – vying for the distinction.
The concept of the nation remains central to 21st century politics. ‘Nationalism is the mainstream,’ says the political theorist Tom Nairn, ‘and it is time we recognised that fact.’
National histories, in short, are some of the most confusing compilations of fact and fantasy ever assembled. As the historian Christina Bueno succinctly put it in 2016, ‘National histories are inventions.’
It is the inevitable result of forcing the past to serve a political purpose, of making it tell a feel-good tale rather than the truth. These distortions can only come at the expense of academic rigour and intellectual honesty.
The more patriotic the past becomes – the more it is forced to fit an inspiring national narrative – the less room there is for historical complexity and nuance. ‘To get one’s history wrong,’ sighed the French historian Ernest Renan in 1882, ‘is an essential factor in the making of a nation.’
As Mountain concludes, nationalism ultimately likes its history lessons a little too trim and tidy. History is a mess, he reminds us. How could the records of billions of people over thousands of years be anything else?
Those neat national narratives we learn at school – those lists of kings and queens and presidents and prime ministers – do their best to hide this fact, but they can only do so at the cost of the complexities and ambiguities of the past. Such a price is rarely, if ever, worth paying.
he main thrust of the scholarship on nationalism has so far been concerned with its origins. But nationalism also has effects. Whether it underpins the nation-building efforts of states, is mobilised by counter-state forces or is used in everyday life, nationalism might implicate a wide range of substantive outcomes, including political regimes, public goods provision, citizenship and immigration laws, and different patterns of conflict.
Yet—with a few notable exceptions—the consequences of nationalism have received significantly less scholarly attention. In response, the aim of this Exchange is to create a new dialogue between different strands of scholarship around what we know and do not know about the consequences of nationalism.
We organise this Exchange around the following questions: (1) What is nationalism? (2) How can we measure nationalism? (3) What are the consequences of nationalism? (4) What are new research frontiers?
The UK Rally
On the 13th of September, what the British media had described as the largest nationalist gathering and subsequent march in British history took place in London – the Unite the Kingdom Rally.
Organised by English nationalist Tommy Robinson – once the leader of the English Defence League – the gathering had attracted an immense crowd of over 150,000 people from across the UK and even abroad, with many foreign nationalist activists in attendance.
Counter-protesters from movements such as Antifa were also present, numbering around 5,000 and heavily protected by the police. The entire event was also livestreamed via Twitter, and almost 3 million people had tuned in to watch the event live.
In fact, not only did the event garner a massive number of viewers via Twitter, but Elon Musk himself gave an address to the rally via a video feed, during which he called upon the British people to “fight back” against mass immigration, multiculturalism and even the British Government itself.
Other notable speakers at the Unite the Kingdom Rally include the following individuals – French leader of the Reconquest party, Eric Zemmour; Danish People’s Party leader Morten Messerschmidt.
Alliance for the Union of Romanians leader George Simion; Polish MEP and member of the Law & Justice party Dominik Tarczynski; Belgian MP and member of the Vlaams Belang party Filip Dewinter; Alternative for Germany MEP Petr Bystron; New Zealand-based Christian leader and politician Brian Tamaki.
The Unite the Kingdom Rally was also notable for its commemoration of the late Charlie Kirk, the popular and highly influential American conservative commentator and activist who was assassinated on the 10th of September by a 22-year-old man suspected of being a left-wing extremist.
Following the Unite the Kingdom Rally, Prime Minister Keir Starmer released a statement to the left-wing Guardian newspaper:
People have a right to peaceful protest. It is core to our country’s values…But we will not stand for assaults on police officers doing their job or for people feeling intimidated on our streets because of their background or the colour of their skin…
Britain is a nation proudly built on tolerance, diversity and respect. Our flag stands for our diverse country, and we will never surrender it to those that use it as a symbol of violence, fear and division.
Starmer’s statement was met with praise by the political left and centre for its call for unity amidst the rise in nativist British nationalism, but criticism from the right, largely due to Starmer being ignorant of the fact that the primary reason for the rise in British nationalism is that millions of native British people feel increasingly neglected by their own government.
With a significant degree of justification, a growing number of native British people feel as if the British Government itself is putting the needs and concerns of the native people aside, in favour of the demands of tens of thousands of illegal migrants in the UK, benefitting off British taxpayer money.
For decades, there has also been growing resentment from native British people even against British citizens of foreign ethnicity, believing that the latter are being treated far better than the natives.
Such concerns are founded, because for the past several decades, the native British people have long since been taught, from a young age, that feelings of patriotism and nationalism are inherently negative, and should often be associated with fascism, Nazism, racism, etc.
However, according to the very same mainstream narrative, patriotic and nationalistic feelings from ethnic minorities should always be celebrated, as an example of diversity and multiculturalism in Britain.
This long-term institutionalised effort by so-called progressive British governments, past and present, has arguably caused far more harm than good – making national British pride a taboo to be shunned and condemned, while ethnic minorities should be celebrated instead.
Naturally, as with all cultural communities worldwide, being neglected by the state will eventually stoke resentment, leading to a very rapid eruption in hardline nationalistic sentiment.
History has proven time and time again that this is the case, and even in the case of the United Kingdom, often seen as one of the most “progressive” nations in the world, a new rise in nationalism in one nation could very well lead to a domino effect, encouraging nationalists in other countries to follow suit, rejecting so-called “progressive” ideologies and instead pursuing a return to the ways of old – a celebration of nativist national and cultural identity in a world where globalism is facing a crisis in a changing world order.
The New Rise of British Nationalism
Nationalism is the sort of word that provokes a full range of responses, from exuberant enthusiasm to deep negativity. It is also a word that can be manipulated in a myriad ways to suit the purposes of politicians, historians and commentators from Moscow and Kyiv to Edinburgh and London.
As David Mountain highlights in his book ‘Past Mistakes’, nationalism has weaponised history in a way never before seen. It encourages people not only to celebrate and preserve the past but to demonise and destroy it as well.
Libraries have been built, and burned to the ground, in its name. Archaeological sites have been discovered and subsequently demolished in bursts of nationalistic enthusiasm. All too often, innocent people have been caught up in these conflicts.
As regular readers will know, ‘Past Mistakes’ has featured in these blogs over several weeks, mostly because I found it so interesting and ended up writing down so many notes from it.
This week, the debate broadens from looking at specific individuals to consider some broader themes. Mountain’s analysis of the concept of nationalism is both perceptive and thought-provoking, which always strikes me as a good combination.
As the author points out, the first history lessons many of us are taught are about our own country’s history.
At school, we learn of our nation’s kings and queens, presidents or prime ministers, of births, deaths, battles and disasters. It is a subject many of us return to once we leave school. Bookshops team with national histories. Documentaries focus on key events from our country’s past. Dates such as 1066, 1649 and 1945 stay with us – even if their significance does not.
Not surprisingly, because the Victorians and their contemporaries further afield continue to have much to answer for, the fact that we learn history this way – indeed, the fact that we learn about history at all – is largely thanks to the pioneering work of nationalist historians of the 19th century, who did much to promote the popularity of history and archaeology.
Although it is common nowadays to regard nationalism as an outdated ideology or a mere expression of discontent, this risks overlooking the enormous influence it has had in shaping the modern world.
The movements for national sovereignty and independence that came to dominate the 1800s not only gave us a world of nations, but sparked a widespread interest in national history that has stayed with us ever since.
In some respects, Mountain argues, this is a good thing. The study of our country’s past is not only fascinating but provides us with crucial context for understanding the machinations of modern politics – of which there are many.
There is, however, a more questionable side to nationalism’s legacy. In their eagerness to use history to foster national identity and pride, few nationalist historians were willing to let facts and evidence get in the way of a good story.
As a result, many of our beloved national histories are riddled with inaccuracies, anachronisms, exaggerations and outright lies. He urges us to forget for a moment what we think we know about the past: Boudicca was not English, the Gauls were not French and the ancient Egyptians were not Egyptian.
