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8 - The English and the British today

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2009

Krishan Kumar
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
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Summary

The British nation and the British state are clearly entering a process of dissolution, into Europe, or the mid-Atlantic, or a post-imperial fog. Britain has begun its long march out of history.

Gwyn Williams (1982: 190)

Who knows what vigour Englishness might exhibit if for the first time in many centuries the English find themselves speaking for only England?

Paul Langford (2000: 319)

For many people, members of minorities and of the majority alike, the existing images of Britishness do not embrace the new mix of cultures and communities that exist today. We need to reform and renew conceptions of Britishness so that the new multiculturalism has a place within them.

Tariq Modood et al. (1997: 359)

I think it is a great Error to count upon the Genius of a Nation as a standing argument in all Ages; since there is hardly a spot of ground in Europe, where the Inhabitants have not frequently and entirely changed their Temper and Genius.

Jonathan Swift (in MacDougall 1982: 77)

Forever England

In December 1991 Britain signed the Treaty of Maastricht and so committed itself, in principle at least, to a European Union. The move caused consternation in several quarters, not least among Tory supporters but also among ‘Little Englanders’ on the Labour left. It seemed to herald the loss of British parliamentary sovereignty and the end of British independence. At the Conservative Party conference in the following year the then prime minister, John Major, sought to reassure the Tory disaffected.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2003

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