The UK Independence Party and the Politics of Englishness

Abstract

The rise of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) has been one of the most dramatic and widely discussed features of British politics in recent years. This article argues that one vital but largely overlooked facet of this phenomenon has been the politics of national identity. It argues that despite UKIP’s ostensibly unionist stance, Englishness is an important pivot around which key elements of the party’s appeal revolve, notably in terms of its Euroscepticism, its opposition to immigration and its anti-establishment narrative. It argues that the Anglo-Britishness promulgated by UKIP allows space for the celebration of English identity rather more easily than of other sub-state national identities, as it does not challenge the legitimacy of the UK state, which is itself seen as the expression of Anglo-British identity and sovereignty. Scottish nationalism, on the other hand, is seen as a threat to the Union and therefore anti-English.