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Governing England explores how England is governed and how the English wish to be governed. England's relationships to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland is discussed in terms of devolution and Brexit alongside the regional divide of the Brexit vote. Issues of nationalism and support for separate English institutions are also examined.
List of contents
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on the Contributors
- Part I: England and the Union State
- 1: Michael Kenny, Iain McLean and Akash Paun: Introduction: English Identity and Institutions in a Changing United Kingdom
- 2: Arthur Aughey: England and Britain in Historical Perspective
- 3: Akash Paun: Sovereignty, Devolution, and the English Constitution
- 4: Jim Gallagher: The Ghost in the Machine? The Government of England
- 5: Meg Russell and Jack Sheldon: An English Parliament: An Idea Whose Time has Come?
- Part II: Speaking for England? The Political Parties
- 6: Daniel Gover and Michael Kenny: Interpreting EVEL: Latest Station in the Conservative Party's English Journey?
- 7: John Denham: Labour and the Governance of England
- 8: Robert Ford and Maria Sobolewska: UKIP, Brexit, and the Disruptive Potential of English National Identity
- Part III: An England of Cities and Regions
- 9: Mick Moran, John Tomaney, and Karel Williams: Territory and Power in England: The Political Economy of Manchester and Beyond
- 10: Tony Travers: London Within England - a City State?
- 11: Iain McLean: England in a Changing Fiscal Union
- Part IV: English Identity and Attitudes
- 12: John Curtice: How Do People in England Want to Be Governed?
- 13: Michael Kenny: English Nationalism in Historical Perspective
About the author
Michael Kenny is Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge. He has written extensively on British politics and political ideas, and is the author of The Politics of English Nationhood (Oxford University Press, 2014) which won the W.J.M. Mackenzie prize awarded by the Political Studies Association of the UK in 2015. He is currently working on a project, funded by ESRC, examining the implications of Brexit for the UK's territorial constitution.
Iain McLean is a fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, and a specialist in UK devolution since his time as a senior member of Tyne & Wear County Council in the 1970s. He has published widely on the Barnett Formula and alternative transfer mechanisms, including those used in Australia. He has served on the Independent Expert Group advising the Calman Commission in Scotland, and an expert group advising the Minister of Finance in Wales on local taxation.
Akash Paun is a Senior Fellow of the Institute for Government in London, leading research on devolution and constitutional change. He was Expert Adviser to the British Academy Governing England programme, out of which this book emerged. Recent publications include Four Nation Brexit: How the UK and Devolved Governments Should Work Together on Leaving the EU (2016) and chapters on devolution to four English regions in Governing England: devolution and mayors in England (2017).
Summary
England is ruled directly from Westminster by institutions and parties that are both English and British. The non-recognition of England reflects a longstanding assumption of 'unionist statecraft' that to draw a distinction between what is English and what is British risks destabilising the union state. The book examines evidence that this conflation of England and Britain is growing harder to sustain, in light of increasing political divergence between the nations of the UK and the awakening of English national identity. These trends were reflected in the 2016 vote to leave the European Union, driven predominantly by English voters (outside London). Brexit was motivated in part by a desire to restore the primacy of the Westminster Parliament, but there are countervailing pressures for England to gain its own representative institutions, and for devolution to England's cities and regions.
The book presents competing interpretations of the state of English nationhood, examining the views that little of significance has changed, that Englishness has been captured by populist nationalism, and that a more progressive, inclusive Englishness is struggling to emerge. We conclude that England's national consciousness remains fragmented due to deep cleavages in its political culture, and the absence of a reflective national conversation about England's identity and relationship with the rest of the UK and the wider world. Brexit was a (largely) English revolt, tapping into unease about England's place within two intersecting Unions (British and European), but it is easier to identify what the nation spoke against than what it voted for.
Additional text
This lucid, literate and compelling book is a joy to read... a book to which future historians of British politics will turn for decades... a distinguished work of scholarship, written with energy of thought and clarity of style
