Rethinking Englishness: deep historical analysis of working-class forms emphasises the importance of redistribution for the left [version 1; peer review: awaiting peer review]

Recent English political phenomena are generally presented in post-colonial contexts: that Brexit and attendant electoral outcomes are the result of an unrepentant, dominant and pathological Englishness in communities that refuse to integrate into modernity. Significant levels of support among working-class English communities for Brexit, The Conservative Party in 2019, the 2021 Hartlepool by-election and the rise of Reform UK has been explained by commitment to long-standing colonial cultural privilege. However, for many of those voters, this has fostered a sense of confusion: not only do these people feel alienated and excluded from modern political discourse, they also inhabit communities that have long been subject to significant material deprivation and cultural domination. In this article, we engage in deep historical analysis of England since the Migrations to argue that there are forms of elite, colonial and working class, colonised Englishness that have divergent and contradictory characteristics that post-colonial analyses cannot easily explain, but which become apparent through older, Marxian lenses. We argue that failure to understand working class communities’ understandings of their Englishness as dominated and subjugated leads progressive politicians to dismiss precisely the interventionist, redistributive socio-economic policy required to advance collective interests nationally, promote equality and demonstrate the relevance of progressive politics to the communities for which parties like the Labour Party were formed to serve.