NM's blog

“The number of people who believe “Britishness” is something you are born with has almost doubled in two years, according to research that warns of a rising tide of ethno-nationalism in Britain. “Although a majority of the public still believe being British is rooted in shared values, a growing proportion see it as a product of ethnicity, birthplace and ancestry, according to analysis carried out by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and shared with the Guardian. “About one-third of people (36%) thought a person must be born British to be truly British, up from one in five (19%) in 2023, a YouGov poll carried out this month for the thinktank found. “Supporters of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK held the most  extreme views  of any party backers, with 71% saying that having British ancestry was a prerequisite for someone to be truly British, and 59% saying they believed the nation was an ethnic, not a civic, community.“

“ In trying to solve the puzzle of why people vote in politicians that do little to improve their living standards, Seymour goes for a psychological explanation. “this dismissal of the primacy of the economic is not just surprising coming from one of the foremost Marxist intellectuals in Britain today, but rests upon empirically spurious claims. “Seymour only tangentially acknowledges the role of elites in the rise of disaster nationalism. While he does point out that its political economy is mainly about furthering the interests of domestic capitalists, that is never really explored. “To get a full picture  of the social forces driving the rise of the far right and likely to benefit from it, we need more systematic and comparative analysis of party elites, their donors and their actual economic policymaking when they enter office. This could help better explain the apparent contradiction of the far right as both a rejection and reinforcement of neoliberalism. We also need to bette...