Tag: Identity politics
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Ethnonationalism: Last Refuge of Globalism
Philip Cunliffe thinks we have no national interest in ethnonationalism. (Long read) Ethnonationalism has reared its head in British politics, sowing division on the Right and providing vindication once again for the Left’s perennial prophecy of a looming fascist menace. It is an unsurprising development. As the electorate has grown increasingly frustrated by the failure…
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Britain Against the Yookay: Nation Against Empire
Philip Cunliffe identifies the source of the increasing fragmentation of British politics and society in the imperial structures of the state, and its long experience of relying on devolved government and sectarianism to frustrate the national self-determination of the colonised. We live in the Yookay. Everyone instantly recognises their lives and surroundings in the social…
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The Far-Right Excuse
Peter Ramsay argues that the official reaction to the recent riots in England is an ideological distortion that seeks to deflect responsibility for national disintegration. The riots and disorder that spread across Britain last week involved outright racial violence and intimidation, criminal damage and looting. They were widely condemned, and prosecutors are rightly taking action…
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Rule of the Void
The UK’s general election result might seem like a restoration of the old pre-2016 political order. A bland technocrat has won a sweeping majority. However, Peter Ramsay and Philip Cunliffe argue that Labour’s massive victory is hollow and leaves the state in a weaker position than ever. The election results are a dramatic manifestation of…
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Why the Nation Matters
With a General Election looming, Peter Ramsay spoke last week at the London School of Economics about why the survival of the British nation is in doubt and why the politics of culture war are an evasion of the problem rather than a solution. Here is an edited version of what he said. Benedict Anderson…
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Save Us from National Saviours
Philip Cunliffe considers the current interest in ‘Anglo-Gaullism’ among some British conservatives, and asks whether there is any prospect of a national saviour on the French model coming to the rescue of an exhausted British nation. With the nation in the grip of palpable decay, our existing political system offers no prospect of change or…
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Waving the Wrong Flags
The rancorous divisions in Britain over the war between Israel and Hamas exemplify the decadence of our national politics. Peter Ramsay argues that the claims of both sides in the dispute are toxic to the sovereignty of the British people. The sacking of Suella Braverman as Home Secretary is the culmination of an extraordinary round…
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Political Thinking vs Moral Posturing
The Hamas attack on southern Israel was a terrible sectarian massacre of civilians. The Western left’s willingness to apologise for it, or in some cases even celebrate it, is a dangerous development, giving a free pass to depraved acts carried out in the name of religious supremacism and anti-Semitism. However merely condemning Islamist violence and…
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When Failed States Go to War
The atrocities committed by Hamas fighters in Israel represent a political failure that is matched by the stupidity of the reaction to them in the West, argues Peter Ramsay. The massacres, hostage-taking and humiliation of prisoners during the Hamas attack on Israel are vile and shocking: as vile and shocking as they were predictable. For…
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Culture Wars and Wars for Values
“Both at home and abroad, culture-wars politics entails drawing a division between the enlightened, morally-superior minority attuned to the exclusions and oppressions of the vulnerable, and the uninformed, unaware majority who are likely to abuse if they are not re-educated and policed.”
The Northern Star 