In the present, in the wake of devolution, there has been a subtle shift in the definition of Britishness and the way British identity is superimposed on to England. This plays on English people’s traditional identification with Britain but is actually intended to replace an English-national identity with a British one. And, as I suggested in the post, this is designed to create a new sort of ‘nation of Britain’, divided up into regions, which nominally accommodates the national aspirations of the Scots, N. Irish and Welsh but effectively turns them and the whole of England into a series of ‘British regions’. This is, perhaps, the last gasp of a unitary English-British unionism.

What I really do believe is that the existence of a / the English nation as such is under threat; and until I start hearing the government and mainstream media talking about English matters as English matters, and starting to discuss English governance and identity, not just British, I’ll continue with my PR, as you call it.

Such nonsense! First sentence…eh? Second sentence…eh? You really do believe your own PR, don’t you?

The full legal opinion can be found at the following URL -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacCormick_v._Lord_Advocate

With regard to your comments (9 December 2007) in the last sentence of paragraph two, the following is an extract from a 1954 legal finding by Lord Cooper in the Scottish Court of Session -

‘…I have difficulty in seeing why it should have been supposed that the new Parliament of Great Britain must inherit all the peculiar characteristics of the English Parliament but none of the Scottish Parliament, as if all that happened in 1707 was that Scottish representatives were admitted to Parliament of England. That is not what was done…’

Source: MacCormick v Lord Advocate 1954 (1953 SC 396)

Re Chris’s comment, yes, of course, Great Britain was / is the creation of both England and Scotland. But I think there has traditionally been a difference in the way Scotland and England viewed their relationship to the Union, with Scottish people making a clearer distinction between Scotland and Britain as a whole, while English people have tended to conflate England and Britain – hence, the traditional English habit of speech of referring to the UK as ‘England’. This reflects the fact, in my view, that Great Britain should more accurately be described as an incorporation of Scotland into the English state rather than a merger of equals forming something altogether new.

Post-devolution, Scotland has begun to forge a political identity separate from that of Britain; but England is not being allowed the same freedom. What this means is that, more than ever perhaps, ‘Britain’ becomes the form and name of English statehood. But then, if Britain is England, in political and constitutional terms, the whole thing can be stood on its head, and we can subversively start to describe the UK government and British national institutions as those of England.