Modern
The English nationalist movement has its roots in a perception amongst many people in England that they are primarily or exclusively English rather than British, which mirrors the view in the other constituent countries. The perceived rise in English identity in recent years, as evidenced by the increased display of the English flag (particularly during international sporting competitions), is sometimes attributed in the media to the increased devolution of political power to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
One possible incentive for supporting the establishment of self-governing English political institutions is the West Lothian question: the constitutional inconsistency whereby Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs in the UK Parliament are able to cast votes on bills which will apply only to England while English MPs have fewer such rights in relation to Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish legislation, which is in many cases handled by the devolved legislatures.
Many contemporary English nationalist movements differ significantly from mainstream Scottish, Welsh and Cornish nationalist movements insofar as they are often associated with support for right-of-centre economic and social policies. Nationalists elsewhere in the UK tend towards a social democratic political stance, as evidenced by the policies of the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru. There are, however many liberal and left-wing English nationalists, such as Labour MP Jon Cruddas and musician Billy Bragg. English nationalism is also often associated with Euroscepticism, one reason for opposition to the EU being the belief that England is being subdivided into regions at the behest of the European Union.
While there is in principle no conflict between the objectives of English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish nationalism, there is an inherent incompatibility between many forms of English nationalism and Cornish nationalism, since Cornwall is seen by some English nationalists as being an integral part of England. To the extent that it advocates the political separation of England from the (remainder of the) UK, English nationalism is not compatible with Scottish or Northern Irish Unionism.
Read more about this topic: English Nationalism
Famous quotes containing the word modern:
“I lately met with an old volume from a London bookshop, containing the Greek Minor Poets, and it was a pleasure to read once more only the words Orpheus, Linus, Musæus,—those faint poetic sounds and echoes of a name, dying away on the ears of us modern men; and those hardly more substantial sounds, Mimnermus, Ibycus, Alcæus, Stesichorus, Menander. They lived not in vain. We can converse with these bodiless fames without reserve or personality.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The reason for the sadness of this modern age and the men who live in it is that it looks for the truth in everything and finds it.”
—Edmond De Goncourt (1822–1896)
“The near explains the far. The drop is a small ocean. A man is related to all nature. This perception of the worth of the vulgar is fruitful in discoveries. Goethe, in this very thing the most modern of the moderns, has shown us, as none ever did, the genius of the ancients.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)