The Sore Tooth and the Broken Umbrella: Brexit and the Crisis of Nationalism Fintan O’Toole - Part 1 

I doff my proverbial hat to you sir wonderful talk

Fascinating analysis.

We English, when completing some form or UK document about our nationality, as with the Scots and Welsh, are always forced to choose 'UK' or 'British'. There is simply no 'English' option available on the list. The reason is simple. The British state, with its colonising French origins inspired by the Roman Empire in the Middle Ages, runs the UK as an empire. It even awards MBEs and CBEs to this day. Empires have no interest in national identity. They tend to extract more than they nurture. And sure enough, the north of Britain has the most impoverished regions in Northern Europe. Parts of England feel just as neglected as Scotland or Wales, and Brexshit was us lashing out, in an uneducated way.

I wish he had mentioned more clearly that the Brexit nationalists are only half the country. The rest of us already had a wonderful international view of our British and European identity, and the 17 million have smashed that and we are so angry that we have no interest in some poxy English identity.

This is a fascinating talk full of overstretched and mixed metaphors that offer some genuine insights -- vintage O'Toole. There are some oversimplifications that matter to me: e.g. the national welfare-state "umbrella" in the UK has for some time been patched up, sometimes quite effectively, by the EU. Half a decade later, we see that the UK is struggling to replace all manner of EU support mechanisms: for agriculture, for structurally weak regions -- I could go on -- and of course the economic losses from weakening the UK/EU trade relationship widen the gap left, to the point where the re-homing of the UK's net Brussels budget contribution is a trivial sticking plaster. The present incumbents seem happy to rip ever new holes into the UK's umbrella; one waits to see if they will have progressive successors who will do better, and whether they then need to seek a closer EU relationship again to meet their aspirations.

Great talk RS. Canada

Education and media constantly forcing the idea that 'WE' are better than them is at fault. Some people grow up from this notion (I or my nation is better than everybody else), most people do not. I just find puzzling that in a society, individuals with such attitude are vastly disliked so how it is possible that a group of individuals under a cover of nation, can think such attitude is acceptable. The same is happening in Russia but also in smaller extent in Poland.

What an excellent talk which is incredibly understanding of the English Brexit sentimentality and offers ways to address this in good faith rather than attacking it as a misguided force. The Irish perspective is a very salient one looking upon the UKs situation from across the Irish Sea, much more coherent a view than within Britain itself. The speaker is right, the imperative for the UK now is to focus on internal reform allowing for an English identity before it can consider rejoining the European project.

Trying to work out if prehaps extraction of the proverbial tooth sounds the real option as they know nothing else ..

Excellent insight to the actual cause of Brit Exit it do more damage than Co vid as it’s already proven a wasted effort.. playing the blame game as well articulated by Fintan O Toole .

Mr O'Toole being Irish naturally has a very different view the European Union. Unfortunately, he has no clue concerning the reasons for Brexit ! It was David Cameron who decided to hold a referendum on Leaving or Remaining in the EU. I can only presume the intention was to lock GB in the EU for evermore ? When GB and Ireland joined the European Economic Community (E.E.C) it was sold to British people as a way to improve trade. However, the treaty also included those 3 little words "Ever closer union". If the British people had understood that the end state of "Ever closer union" was being absorbed into a United States of Europe and being governed centrally by a faceless group of Eurocrats they would not have touched it with a 10 foot barge pole. Mr O'Toole really lost the plot with British Empire 2 and for that matter Helmond Province. I have had many many conversations about Brexit.....not once has either of these two reasons cropped up ! Mr O'Toole also seems to place false emphasis on the fact that people ticked English on a survey as opposed to British. If both options exist of course you will tick the most specific. If I tick English I am by definition indicating I am British. Only those who hail from elsewhere would tick "British". No more or less to it than that. It certainly does not indicate a surge in English nationalism. One of the main reasons for Brexit is that since joining the EU the standard of living has steadily fallen. A few examples, my parents bought their first home at the ages of 18 & 21. The government at that time provided "Mortgage Tax Relief" which helped them to achieve this. What is the average age of young couples buying their first home now ? My sister when she went to University received a 'Student Grant'.....my son had to take "Student Loans". Exports to the EU were steadily falling whilst exports to the rest of the world were steadily increasing.......should we remain or leave 🤔 Increasingly since joining the E.E.C/EU the refrain from British Members of Parliament was "We can't do that, Europe won't let us". The problem with any Empire is that it needs to draw power to the centre. The EU introduces its "Directives" slowly and quietly and eventually, overtime, the frogs will be boiled. The European Empire can not accommodate individual Nation States Needs "We must have a level playing field". Van De Leyen's "We have the tools" to ensure obedience gave the EU game away.....I am just waiting for the Borgs "you will be assimilated, resistance is futile".....it surely won't be long now. For most of its history Great Britain navigated it's own path......Brexit simply reflected a desire to do so again. As EU states inevitably merge into the United States of Europe, remember you have a friend across the channel.

The Johnston majority brought back the 'will of the people'. Scottish civic 'nationalism' does not fit into O'Toole's account of nationalism. He also seems to think that Britishness has substantially has survived. I do not think English nationalism was subsumed by British nationalism. Britishness was almost a synonym for Englishness.

I’m not sure I agree with his opening premise that this is English Nationalism at play (or at least not just). Scotland and NI 40% of the population voted to leave as did 52% in Wales.

Lost me at the point where you said that the Brexit vote came from places with low immigration. This is blatantly untrue. The highest vote for Brexit came from Boston in Lancashire which is also the town with the highest percentage of East European immigrants. I don't see the point in listening to anybody that exposes such a blatant lack of integrity.

The Irish are all very clever and cock sure at the moment, as England and Britain go through and difficult period. But that won't last forever. And we have long memories...

5:16

I'm am constantly amazed at the number of times 'speakers' on Nationalism, with regard to the EU, keep forgetting to mention that the Irish had to have three votes on the EU Constitution BEFORE the EU would accept the result. How does that tie in with the TASC idea of what 'Democracy' is?

The problem with the English and Brexit is ignorance about their own History and Geography. We have benefitted from Immigration. The English are reluctant to admit that most of our industrial progress was either ingenuity of immigrants and/or stolen, and second that during the eighteenth and nineteenth century the great ideas of the world were either Scottish, German, or Jewish. The English played little part in their own industrial success, and now, faced with failure we forget the realities on which the nation was constructed,. It is infernal insolence of the English, who had an Empire, disrupted the lives of others, exported and enslaved millions, to have a thing about immigration. The did well living off the world. The solution to the is to divide England in three and create a federation with the greater British Isles including Ireland and re-join the EU A little humility and less conceit and arrogance from the English would be welcome. Whilst their role in the Second World was honourable and valiant, they did not win the war alone The USSR, the USA, and the Commonwealth, including India and the Caribbean, and Africa played their part. This absurd move [Brexit] was the result of myopia, arrogance, conceit and amnesia.

What a windbag this fellow is. Brexit must be the best thing ever to have happened to him, he lectures on it endlessly. I doubt that he has any real understanding of the motivations of English people at all.

This hasn’t aged very well. That’s probably because o’Toole never understood Brexit in the first place.