The Ulsterisation of English politics as a result of Brexit - an idea first expressed by Alex Kane in 2019 (link in comment below) - does appear to the accelerating. It can be stopped.
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This is very good point.
aug 25, 2025, 10:57 am • 0 0 • view
📌
aug 25, 2025, 5:49 am • 0 0 • view
How?
aug 24, 2025, 8:49 pm • 0 0 • view
Don't even go there! Ireland was partitioned by Britain in 1922. The Orange State, built on a sectarian headcount, collapsed in 1972. British view, well expressed by a Governor of Palestine in 1948: Israel was a little Ulster in a sea of Arabs. See North of Ireland similarly ie in terms of ...1/2..
aug 24, 2025, 9:33 pm • 0 0 • view
..2/2..control. Loyalists in NI are not an aberration but very much in the mainstream of British "nationalism" - empire nostalgic, sectarian and supporters of settler colonial regimes like Israel, Apartheid S Africa. Identify with white nationalism: Musk, Thiel, Farrage, Jenrick & "Tommy" hooligan.
aug 24, 2025, 9:39 pm • 0 0 • view
I disagree but that might be just my personal perspective. Having grown up in Belfast (1970s) and Dublin (70s-90s), then having spent 25 years in England, working all over that country, NI loyalist Britishness always seemed to me an aberration. Let’s help shape an 🏴 without the siege mentality.
aug 25, 2025, 7:03 am • 0 0 • view
Blaming the Loyalists for their siege mentality is typical. The problem is 'those vulgar Loyalists'. In fact, the siege mentality is widespread nowadays - St George's Cross (Palestinian!) all over parts of England because some feel under siege because of migration. The problem is here, not there!
aug 25, 2025, 9:29 am • 0 0 • view
I’m not sure “blame” is the right word. Loyalists have a siege mentality: that’s an observation rather than an attribution of liability. It’s not a healthy state of mind, though. What do you propose for the English? Just accept that they share the same mentality as Loyalists and impugn them all?
aug 25, 2025, 9:50 am • 0 0 • view
That commentator blamed the Loyalists for what is essentially an English problem. The "siege mentality" is fostered by those who think England is being invaded by migrants. As in the US, this is at root a colonialist, white supremacist attitude. Blaming the Loyalists "over there" is an easy option.
aug 25, 2025, 10:04 am • 0 0 • view
I’m confused. Who do you mean by “that commentator”? Kane or Ford? Both seem to me to be blaming Brexit for unleashing something in the English that looks as exclusionary and exceptionalist as NI loyalism. Neither seem to me to be blaming NI loyalists.
aug 25, 2025, 10:09 am • 0 0 • view
Ford.
aug 25, 2025, 10:12 am • 0 0 • view
Thanks. “Brexit has caused certain segments of the English population to become a pastiche of Northern Irish Loyalism.” He’s blaming Brexit for causing some English people to turn into dodgy replicas of NI loyalists. He’s using the latter as the ultimate example of ersatz defensive Britishness.
aug 25, 2025, 11:36 am • 0 0 • view
Constitutional questions, like culture war issues, are not real politics. They are identity markers. There is no room in them for the negotiation and compromise which are the hallmarks of real politics. Since no ground can be given they can only lead to either stagnation or conflict or both.
aug 25, 2025, 12:10 am • 1 0 • view
True, identity politics and constitutional politics are not the same. I’m focusing here on the former. I think the nascent post-empire, post-EU, pre-post-Union English identity can be shaped. National identities are mutable. We Irish have proven that. A better 🏴 identity could emerge, with help.
aug 25, 2025, 6:58 am • 1 0 • view
National identities are imagined and can be whatever. Constitutional/identity politics are not the same but they are similar in being unyielding, reductive and divisive. Mainstream English culture is normally tolerant and broad-minded, whatever the media say, and will likely revert to the mean.
aug 25, 2025, 7:56 am • 0 0 • view
Yeah, I think we are agreeing: I agree with all three of those statements. I think the developing English national identity should be shaped to match the mainstream culture you mention. That means resisting the efforts of those who seek to use the media to push English identity the wrong way.
aug 25, 2025, 9:01 am • 1 0 • view
www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...
aug 24, 2025, 8:48 pm • 3 2 • view