The book explores the elite motivations driving Brexit, framing it within the context of English nationalism. It challenges the perception of Brexiteers as insular 'Little Englanders' by highlighting their intent to maintain connections with traditional allies in the Anglosphere, aiming to mitigate the impact of leaving the European Union through strategic alliances.
This book analyses the elite project behind Brexit, and considers its framework within the political traditions of English nationalism. Far from being 'Little Englanders', Brexiteers sought to lessen the rupture of leaving the European Union by suggesting a return to alliances with true friends and traditional allies in the Anglosphere. -- .
Losing the Peace
This book seeks out the origins of contemporary English nationalism. Whilst much academic and political attention has been given to England’s place within the United Kingdom since devolution, the author argues that recent English nationalism actually derives from Britain’s troubled relationship with European integration. Drawing on political evidence from the former Empire, the debates surrounding EEC accession and the United Kingdom’s ongoing membership in the European Union, the author identifies the foundations of contemporary English nationalism. In doing so, he adds an important corrective to the debate about nationalism in England, pulling our gaze out from the United Kingdom itself and onto a wider field. Far from being ‘absent’, English nationalism as we know it today has been driven by resistance to European integration since the end of Empire in the 1960s.