English nationalism and its role in building support for Brexit : the case of UKIP and the Brexit Party

The form and condition of English nationalism is very closely linked to the changes which are currently taking place in British national identity. The character of the latter had earlier been dominated by very civic and political features. However, the unity of the United Kingdom already began to crumble in the 1970s, when Tom Nairn published his famous diagnosis of this process: The Break-Up of Britain. Until the end of the 20th century, the processes of regaining national subjectivity by Scots, Welsh and Irish people were followed in academic and public spheres. However, little attention, if any, was devoted to the revival of English nationalism and this lack of recognition meant that the English electorate, deprived of a sense of representation, began to search for solutions outside the three-party political oligopoly. In this way, first UKIP, and then the Brexit Party became not only anti-European parties, but also new political forces that directly began to declare their desire to represent the English national interest in a multinational United Kingdom. The aim of the chapter is to present the phenomenon of a growing sense of English nationalism in the context of the disintegration of British identity