Don’t let the right have its way. The left must speak for England | Martin Kettle

Progressives need to engage seriously with England’s mood and England’s needs – or cede the ground entirely

We will be hearing a lot about England over the next few weeks as the World Cup gets under way. But this column is not – at least not explicitly – about football, English or otherwise. It’s a column about England itself. It is a column about the country whose name is surprisingly rarely referenced outside the sporting context, yet a country with which the overwhelming majority of people living in these islands strongly identify.

A lot has been written since 2016 about whether the Brexit vote marked an eruption of English nationalism. My experience is that this debate gets ahead of itself rather too easily and that those who make the claim sometimes put their fingers on the scales for reasons of their own. Explicit English nationalism remains nonexistent or dormant, not active, unlike other nationalisms in these islands. That the Brexit vote was, in part, an immense expression of English identity is, on the other hand, beyond dispute.

Related: English patriotism on the rise, research shows

Related: Labour must embrace Englishness – and be proud of it | Tristram Hunt

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