One apparent constant in contemporary UK politics is Nigel Farage’s ability to mobilise a sense of grievance among those who regard themselves as English. By doing so, Farage has, on successive occasions, managed to shift the terms of political debate so that the issues he cares about become the key issues of the day. His ability to drag the other parties onto his terrain is a classic success story of what political scientists call issue salience. He identifies a problem, proclaims loudly that it will be our collective undoing and proposes a tantalisingly straightforward solution.
The Brexit narrative was, of course, that the loss of British wealth and influence, as well the crisis of post-austerity public services, could best be explained by the undue influence of and resources willed away to “Europe”.
In England, this frustration correlated not with British but with English national identity. It also correlated with discontent at the internal union of the UK and a sense that Britain’s political class were distributing resources and influence to other foreigners – in this case Scots.
