Likely not, as sovereignty was a strong argument made by the 'Leavers'.  But then, is Brexit really going to be a good thing for the UK?  Jury is still out on that but it's already restarted the troubles on the Irish border.  This is another problem with nationalism.  Whose nation are we talking about?  The way the strident English nationalists voting all the way for Leave failed to think about Northern Ireland reminds me of how we in India keep clinging onto Kashmir while also unleashing devastation on them in the name of counter-terrorism.  The North East fares only somewhat better.  The problem seems to be that one large majority bloc see themselves as the nation and forget about other groups (whether they differ on the basis of race, language or ethnicity). Even from a nationalist point of view, that's a cardinal sin and it's one that nationalists repeatedly commit.

I think this is a very acute observation.

The whole Brexit debate was a mess, really. The driving force behind much of the Leave argument intellectually was the issue, as you say, of sovereignty. However, it was far more complex than that. The vast bulk of the “ordinary people” who voted leave were also driven by a very real sense of their “identity” being taken from them, and this, in turn, was driven by the relentless focus by populists on nationhood, immigration, and so on, this very much aided and abetted by perhaps the grubbiest tabloid press in the western world. Many others also thought that they would register a protest vote against a particularly harsh austerity driven government, “safe” in the knowledge that the remain argument would garner more votes, and this rather came back to bite them on the backside.

Northern Ireland was a completely foreseeable issue, and one that, remarkably, was unforeseen by the great and the good. However, when one sees gangs of youths chucking petrol bombs and the like against each other and the police, the overwhelming majority have not a clue about the complex issues of border controls, free trade, single market, and the like. They are manipulated by their “leaders” on one issue, and one issue alone, that of their “British” and “nationalist” identity in turn. In other words, as with so many similar issues throughout history, a basic human trait, that of wishing to have an identity, usually with similar looking or similar thinking people, is turned into something altogether more toxic, with the usual “group think” chucked into the mix.

I see that one of the Bald ladies has said that nationalism is always an ugly word for her. No, it is not. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with a pride in one’s identity or nation. Where it becomes ugly is where this is manipulated by powerful people into something far more sinister, and you will know better than most that this is precisely the issue which confronted India in the partition era.

I fear for us all in this era of simplicity of politics and identity. We seem to be incapable of having rational debate and feelings for others on the opposite side of any debate. Perhaps this was always so, but it is most clearly exaggerated, and manipulated by not very nice people, in the modern era of global 24 hour news and social media commentary.

Thank you, old chap. These debates are always fun and interesting.

I am off outside now to cut the lawn and pull out some weeds before I have the backlash of a German/American liberal argument. Please do feel free to take over!  

One sensible reason? I will give you two. First, I am inordinately proud of the fact that we stood up to and defeated Nazi Germany. Incredible, and we are free owing to it.

Second, we resisted the onset, alongside other nations, of totalitarian Soviet communism.

Both of those creeds were intrinsically damaging to human thought and human rights.

Yes, yes, yes, Mahatma was a nationalist.  People who evoke nationalism to fight oppression are also nationalists.  You cannot redefine nationalism so that it includes only 'bad nationalist' and excludes 'good nationalist'.  It doesn't work that way. 

Well actually, in a teeny tiny way, I was involved in the second. I was a member of the armed forces. My family were actively involved in the first.

I see that you edited your original post from which my reply came, and I don’t remember you saying I had to be actively involved the first time around, although I may, of course be guilty of not reading your post carefully enough. Blame it on the gardening.

You never voted for the Liberal Party in elections, eh? You should know by now that I NEVER refer to liberals as a political party, but metropolitan liberals as a distinct social and political group who think alike. In fact, one of the main reasons why the Liberals in this country (Liberal Democrat Party) have become effectively defunct as a political force is that they really are irrelevant since the metropolitan liberals within both Labour and Conservative have stolen their raison d’etre. The major political debate of our times is not left v right, but so called progressive v conservative traditionalist.