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Unless Labour's soft left can overcome its aversion to political and intellectual organisation it is likely to remain marginalised in future debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over two decades, voters who emphasised their English identity played an influential role in the rise of UKIP and the Brexit Party, the Brexit referendum and the election of Conservative governments—a trend overlooked in most electoral analyses. Using twenty years of data from the British Election Study and British Social Attitudes Survey, as well as recent original surveys, the article explores the evolving political behaviour of national identity groups. It finds that 'more English' and 'more British' identifiers increasingly voted for different parties. The analysis also identifies growing differences in the demographics, social values and immigration attitudes of these groups, which descriptive and regression analysis suggests may underpin these divergent political behaviours. However, a fuller understanding of electoral behaviour must take account of ideas of national democracy and sovereignty. The electoral impact of both the characteristics of English identifying voters and ideas associated with English identity constitute 'political Englishness'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We cannot separate Labour’s social and economic ambitions from the way in which it intends to exercise and distribute power. Where power and authority lie – across the union, in nations and in localities – and how they are exercised will determine whether Labour can transform the United Kingdom. That will require Labour to rethink its centralised statecraft. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Place-based explanations' of politics in the U.K. tell sweeping narratives about 'Two Englands', or of sizeable regions of the country that have been 'Left Behind', reinforcing popular accounts of a North–South or city-town divide. We introduce the concept of nested deprivation – deprivation that may occur in just one housing estate or even one row of flats within neighbourhoods that are otherwise affluent. We report on intensive fieldwork in 8 neighbourhoods varying in relative affluence and density of population (including urban, suburban/satellite, market town or rural village). Three key themes and consequences emerge for those living in nested deprivation in relatively affluent and geographically dispersed contexts: (a) either disconnection from or entrapment within the local economy; (b) social isolation and atomisation; and (c) powerlessness to affect politics. 'Place-based' explanations of rapid and radical changes to political participation in Britain need to take fine-grained geographical distinctions much more seriously. Our study provides evidence that the rising tides in affluent areas are drowning some residents rather than lifting all boats. Where deprivation is dispersed and then nested within mostly affluent constituencies it does not allow for the political mobilisation among communities of interest that is a necessary condition for pluralist representative democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Labour’s relationship to patriotism is more than an inconvenient electoral problem. Without a clear sense of the nation and its people, we cannot hope to develop a politics of the common good. Building a progressive future requires grappling with uncomfortable histories, fragmented identities, and the politics of the Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]