By
Robert Robinson
June 26, 2026
A RECENT BBC programme about English identity considered what it means to be English as a ‘deeply contentious debate’. Defining identity is a hot topic. Recognising differences between Britishness and Englishness is part of this debate. It raises questions about national sovereignty and the future of the Union.
The nations of the United Kingdom are distinct, both genetically and culturally. Each one has its own well-defined national history. Britain is a relatively recent political construct and British identity has only a superficial civic meaning. On the other hand, English identity has much deeper roots, which are of far more profound significance.
Native English people are predominantly Anglo-Saxon in origin. Following the Roman withdrawal in AD 410, the indigenous Celtic population in Britain was left undefended and unable to prevent the large-scale settlement of Anglo-Saxons from northern Europe. These newcomers were ethnically and culturally different, and spoke an unrelated language. They brought with them a different set of values and customs, and built a high trust society around small independent family units and non-familial communities. An individualistic way of living replaced the clannish culture of the Celts.
Local decision-making supplanted the centralised structure of absolutist Roman governance. English common law provided a just and fair legal system based on Christian teachings. Individual rights to property and family inheritance were enshrined in law. Anglo-Saxon kings were elected to office and subject to the law of the land. These rulers governed through witans, the forerunner of the modern day Houses of Parliament.
The Venerable Bede first recognised the English as a distinct people in AD 731. Over the following 200 years, independent Anglo-Saxon kingdoms began merging into a single nation. Athelstan’s victory over Northumbrian Vikings at York in AD 927 established the kingdom of England in a geographical form that is recognisable today. It was the world’s first ever nation state: a people unified under one language, one king and one religion.
Remarkable feats of ancient engineering separated the English from the rest of the people in the British Isles. In the eighth century, Offa built a 200-mile dyke to prevent Welsh invasions of his Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia. Hadrian’s Wall, built by the Romans in the second century AD, remained a functioning defensive barrier against Scottish raids for centuries. Plans to upgrade it existed until well into the 16th century. The English had no particular designs on territories beyond these defensive lines; however, other kingdoms of the British Isles attempted to destroy the new English state at its birth. In AD 937, a military alliance of British kings was defeated by a huge Anglo-Saxon army of around 100,000 at the Battle of Brunanburh in Cheshire. The battles of York and Brunanburh are events of tremendous significance in the story of England, yet are barely remembered today.
Following the Anglo-Saxon settlement in the fifth and sixth centuries, England remained a remarkably stable nation in terms of the composition of its population. Levels of immigration were extremely low for centuries. Norman immigration (in the 11th century) and Huguenot immigration (in the 16th and 17th centuries) was measured in the tens of thousands. Even within England, the movement of indigenous people was minimal. Those able to trace ancestors to locations before the Industrial Revolution will often discover that generations of their family lived in the same place for hundreds of years.
New arrivals started to increase throughout the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, most notably from Ireland. Around 600,000 people born in Ireland were recorded in the 1861 Census of England, comprising about 3 per cent of the total population at that time. Communities of Indian, African, and Chinese sailors were established in some English port cities; however, they only numbered a few hundred people. Between 1880 and 1914, an estimated 250,000 Jews came to England fleeing Tsarist pogroms in Russia. A further 70,000 arrived after escaping from Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Up to 160,000 Polish refugees came at the beginning and at the end of the Second World War.
Large-scale immigration began in the post-war period. Between 1948 and 1992, net migration averaged around 50,000 a year. Most came from Commonwealth countries following the collapse of the British Empire and subsequent post-colonial wars and expulsions. By the mid-1970s there were more than 1.5million immigrants, accounting for about 3 per cent of the total British population. In 1992, the Maastricht Treaty granted EU citizens the right to live and work in Britain, and net migration increased to about 100,000 a year during the 1990s. The Treaty of Accession in 2004 brought an additional ten countries into the EU, and net migration quickly grew to 300,000 a year. The Brexit vote in 2016 reflected the public’s desire to control increasing levels of immigration. Despite this, there was a deliberate government policy to increase numbers, particularly after the labour market failed to return to its pre-covid lockdown participation rates. In the year ending March 2023, annual immigration was nearly 1.5million, and annual net migration was nearly one million.
Today, there are around 12million foreign-born people living in Britain, about 20 per cent of the total population. This scale of immigration has not happened since the Anglo-Saxon invasion. Furthermore, the recent rate of change in the population mix has never been seen before. The vast majority of new arrivals have settled in towns and cities in England, and it is mostly English people who have had to absorb this cultural change. Failure to take back control of national borders after the Brexit vote was a denial of a democratic decision made by predominantly English voters. Scotland, along with nationalist areas of Wales and Northern Ireland, voted in favour of remaining in the EU.
Devolution has created an unfair situation whereby political representatives from Scotland and Wales are able to vote on English matters without any reciprocal arrangements. The re-allocation of funds to different nations of the Union also means that English taxpayers pay a disproportionately higher amount for public services compared to their neighbours. Philosophical and political differences regarding basic values between the nations of the Union have also become increasing apparent. For example, lockdowns exposed policy variations between the different devolved administrations on what were considered acceptable restrictions to basic civil liberties and freedom of speech.
In the early 17th century, English politicians fiercely resisted attempts by King James I and his son, Charles I, to unite their Scottish and English realms. The subsequent civil wars (1639-1653) highlighted the ethnic, cultural and religious differences between the nations of the British Isles. It took the bankruptcy of Scotland, following an ill-conceived plan for a Scottish colonial empire, to bring about the creation of the British state in 1707.
Wider acceptance of a unified British state started taking root among the nations of the Union around 200 years ago, driven by the Napoleonic Wars. This was followed by the huge social and economic upheaval of the Industrial Revolution, which led to political and social reform. These events helped develop bonds between different national groups, and ideas of ‘Britishness’ and ‘British values’ were promoted by the state. The psychological trauma of the First and Second World Wars helped further cement a sense of togetherness between the nations of the Union. However, since then the pillars on which British identity were built have been severely eroded.
The end of empire, deindustrialisation, and devolution have raised questions about the legitimacy of the Union and its future. Even the fundamental legal basis of the sovereignty of the United Kingdom, founded on the Acts of Union 1800 between Great Britain and Ireland, has been undermined by the post-Brexit Windsor Framework, which imposes trading restrictions between Great Britain and Northern Ireland in clear contravention of the integrity of the Union.
The concept of ‘Britishness’ hangs on through declining British institutions such as the monarchy, the BBC and the NHS. Britain’s constitutional system is broken. The social contract between the political class and the people has been shattered and trust in the institutions of state is at an all-time low. On the other hand, English identity is increasingly celebrated and England’s own unique political, religious and cultural history is becoming more widely recognised.
The British state has become dysfunctional and its long-term future is under threat. Established political parties, traditionally supportive of the Union, are losing their long-standing dominance in an increasingly fractured political landscape. Democratic legitimacy is threatened by an increasingly disengaged and demoralised population. An alternative form of governing based on genuine national identity and sense of belonging should be considered. Since the creation of a British state, England has been in the highly usual position of being a nation without its own state. It is perhaps time to bring back a separate independent English state from which political trust can be re-established and institutions rebuilt to serve the interests of the English people.
The Conservative Woman
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/is-it-time-for-an-independent-england