‘The Break-up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-Nationalism’ review: The British Empire falls apart at home
The Hindu
Tom Nairn argues that though Brexit may be the cause of the U.K. disintegrating, there are other problems like the makeup of the British state itself
The United Kingdom, within living memory the ruler of history’s largest empire, is disintegrating. The proximate cause is Brexit, the 2016 referendum vote by 52:48 to leave the European Union: Scotland voted 62:38 to remain, as did Northern Ireland, 56-44; Wales, like England, voted Leave 53-47, but the underlying problem is centuries old. It lies in the very nature and organisation of the British state, as Tom Nairn shows in this updated edition of an almost prescient work first published in 1977 — and in doing so he combines often stunning writing with immense knowledge of literature, history, and political philosophy. England’s oligarchy preceded industrial capitalism. The 1688 compact between an emerging bourgeois class, the landed aristocracy, and the monarch created a ‘pre-democratic constitutional state’, in which a supposedly sovereign parliament free of any legislative constraints ostensibly legitimates the government.More Related News