Political Studies Review – Symposium Issue

August 2016

Although deliberations about English identity politics and constitutional reform have proven an increasingly prominent feature of British politics over the past two decades, the trend has intensified in the wake of the Scottish independence referendum and the lead up to the UK’s referendum on membership of the European Union in 2016. This very public ‘English turn’ has been further energised by the UK government’s introduction of ‘English Votes for English Laws’ at Westminster and concurrent programme of devolution of power within England.

Seeking answers to the so-called ‘English Question’ from the realm of constitutional policy and national politics, in August 2016 Political Studies Review will be publishing a series of papers from a symposium exploring the ‘Dilemmas of Political Englishness’. The papers interrogate the tensions at the heart of England’s collective self-identification and its subsequent relationships with the United Kingdom and the wider world. 

Initiated by members of the Political Studies Association Britishness Specialist Group and developed during a Workshop hosted at the University of Huddersfield in April 2015, leading experts from across the UK and Australia offer a comprehensive analysis of the dynamics that are pushing questions about English identity into party politics. 

Guest edited by Andrew Mycock, Michael Kenny and Ben Wellings, the symposium covers a broad array of themes, from Andrew Gamble’s The ‘New English Toryism’ and the Origins of Anglo-Britishness to Emily Robinson’s Radical Nostalgia, Progressive Patriotism and Labours English Problem. There are reflections on the Institutions and National Identity in English Political Thought from Arthur Aughey, and Michael Kenny considers The ‘Politicisation’ of Englishness. The Party Politics of the ‘New English Regionalism’ is analysed by Andrew Mycock, while Richard Hayton discusses The UK Independence Party and the Politics of Englishness. For Charlie Jeffery, Ailsa Henderson, Roger Scully and Richard Wyn Jones the focus is on England’s Dissatisfactions and the Conservative Dilemma, while Ben Wellings develops the debate sparked by the re-publication of Henrietta Marshall’s Our Island Story in 2005, and presents a consideration of England, Europe and the Anglosphere Alternative.

Pictured (from left to right): Andrew Gamble, Andy Mycock, Arthur Aughey, Richard Hayton, Emma Vines, Mike Kenny, Emily Robinson (not pictured Ben Wellings and Charlie Jeffrey)