Thread by @nickreeves9876

Complex identities’ of Northern Ireland being undermined, says ex-official

Ciaran Martin criticises post-Brexit attempts to ‘redesign’ UK based on old notion of English sovereignty

English nationalism is little English imperialism.
theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/m…

English nationalism is built around the denial of the pain, loss and humiliation of loosing the empire, and around delusions of regaining that past glory. Only through acceptance of the humiliation of imperial collapse can England move to a positive & realistic national identity.

The world's largest ever empire collapsed in just 20 years. It was a huge loss of status for those who care about such things, and the humiliating reality was covered up by the myth of a gracious withdrawal.

The failure of the English to live out the humiliation of the loss of empire has meant that while the empire has died, the imperialist spirit has lived on, frothing and raging at its lack of power, and hallucinating dreams of world-beating glory.

The Left go on about the evils of empire, but this merely inflames the spirit of imperialism. To destroy that spirit we should go be going on about how the empire suffered such a devastating and crushing collapse, about how English imperialism at the end totally failed.

We could do with a TV mega-series detailing the collapse of the British empire. It could be entitled 'Downfall'. And indeed at the moment the Brexiters are in a state of delusion not dissimilar to that of Hitler in the Führerbunker moving armies that no longer existed.

The spirit of English imperialism is like that of a person in a horror story who has not been buried with the proper rites, leaving their angry and malign spirit to haunt the present. Only when that spirit is cast out will England be able to find its place in the modern world.