Writing Skills, Assessed Five-Paragraph Essay

Imperial Legacy: The Britons and their Identity1

How and how much did the British Empire influence the way Britons saw
and see themselves? It is said that British national identity has –or in the
case of religion arguably has had– four main constituents: the Royal
Family, Parliament, the Protestant Faith and the British Empire. The
latest, however, is the most important of all because the others are of
English design. It was only the early imperial expansion that brought them
to the rest of the isles. I shall argue, therefore, that the empire has had the
single most profound impact on British identity. It evoked the “imperial”
or “missionary” nationalism which attaches the core ethnic group of an
empire to a higher purpose and thereby acts as a potent unifier2.
To begin with, let us look at Protestantism an admittedly powerful
element to British identity: Since England broke away from the Roman
Catholic Church in the 16th century, it, and later Britain, identified itself as
the “Protestant nation”. The struggle to secure the survival of
Protestantism against continental Catholic forces, namely France, was the
source of a strong feeling of cohesion over a long period in the course of
British history (the Crown and the Parliament, although not to be
discounted, have not stirred such national feelings on their own as have
Protestantism and the British Empire). Yet, religion’s importance to
British national identity waned in the 19th century: First of all, France lost
its status as Britain’s most vital economic challenger to Germany and the
USA (both are Protestant nations). Secondly, Ireland, a Catholic nation,
was annexed in 1801. And, last but not least, Europe as a whole was
becoming more and more secular by the time –which made religion
generally less important in identity matters. As we shall see, the British
Empire in contrast has neot while it lasted, and arguably not even after its
disintegration, lost influence on the British identity on such a scale. An

1 I am throughout this essay indebted to the excellent work of Rebecca Langlands and,
most of all, Krishan Kumar on the topic of British and English identity. I have been
inspired in my arguments by the idea of “imperial nationalism” by Kumar and the
depiction of the relation between Britishness and Englishness by Langlands.
2 Krishan Kumar. “Nation and empire: English and British national identity in
comparative perspective” Theory and Society 29 (2000): 575-608.
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Writing Skills, Assessed Five-Paragraph Essay

absolute division between the two factors can, nonetheless, not be drawn.
To do so would mean to ignore the legitimating and promoting effect
religion has had on the empire.
It is in the concept of missionary and imperial nationalism that
religious body of thought and imperial ambition affect each other. At first
sight the term “imperial nationalism” seems paradoxical. Any Empire in
the course of history has been multiethnic and multilingual to a strong
extent and the British Empire was no exception; therefore, an empire is
essentially the antonym of the nation-state, which is the medium for
nationalism. Notwithstanding Krishan Kumar claims that an empire
provides the core ethnic group with a sort of sense of togetherness:
“My point is that empires, though in principle opposed to claims
of nationality, may be the carriers of a certain kind of national
identity that gives to the dominant groups a special sense of
themselves and their destiny. Such groups – the "state-bearing"
peoples or Staatsvölker - will be careful not to stress their ethnic
identity; rather they will stress the political, cultural, or religious
mission to which they have been called.”3
So, at the beginning of the empire, the English, as the dominant people,
started to identify with the task of setting up English dominance in
Britain. The conquest of other cultures and peoples was legitimised, then
and later, through the civilising and progressing impact of their own
culture and religion on the “lesser breeds”. This last aspect was especially
stressed when dealing with non-white tribes and nations. By this, imperial
expansion becomes more than just a mere question of power, warfare and
politics. It is enhanced into a higher and noble aim bestowed upon by
nature or god. After the internal empire was more or less integrated, the
Britons as a whole became the core ethnic group in the build-up of the
external, world-wide empire. Accordingly, the empire and its spoils did no
longer gratify and enrich just the English but the Britons as a whole.

In order to fully understand the effect the empire has had on

British identity, one must look at the time after the Second World War

3 Krishan Kumar. “Nation and empire: English and British national identity in
comparative perspective” Theory and Society 29 (2000): 575-608.
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Writing Skills, Assessed Five-Paragraph Essay

when its dissolution took up momentum. The first thing one notices is
that the demise of the British Empire left the English with the most to
cope with. The not wholly serious definition of the English as being
Britons who are neither Scots nor Welsh is, nonetheless, quite telling. The
Scots and Welsh, not to mention the Irish, have always had a genuine
national identity alongside a British one. The English in comparison have
not; and how could they? Britishness may roughly be on a par with
Englishness, which is its biggest advantage, as well as its greatest weakness.
As long as the British state is chiefly affected by English institutions and
culture, support for the state by the English is secured. Simultaneously, the
English dominance meant that Scottish and Welsh national identities
persisted4. This means that the English could not take refuge in their very
own national identity as easily as could the Scots and Welsh after the
empire collapsed. The empire, as Kumar puts it, meant that the emphasis
was shifted from the creators to the creation.
On the whole, the supranational state of Britain itself was the
product of imperial expansion by the English. This, as I said, means that
the British Empire was crucial for the development of British identity.
Although the loss of the empire has not made British identity vanish, the
whole extent of its influence has only become visible after its demise.
Nobody knows for sure what all of this will amount to in future for
Britain and its identity. There are, however, a few developments that could
spell trouble for a united Great Britain. The current debate about the
“West Lothian question”5 gives some indications about a supposedly rising
English nationalism6–a reaction to Scottish endeavours to complete
independence. Furthermore, such growing Scottish appetite for complete
independence may one day force a referendum on whether the Scots still
want to be a part of the UK or not. Even if the English, the Scots and the
Welsh decided to abolish the British state, would this mean that British

4 Rebecca Langlands. “Britishness or Englishness? The historical problem of national

identity in Britain” Nations and Nationalism 5 (1999): 53-69.
5 At the Westminster Scottish MP’s can vote on issues exclusively concerning England,
whereas English MP’s have no say over Scottish matters since Scotland was given its own
parliament in 1998.
6 “English Question: Handle with care” Economist 3 November 2007: 42-43.
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identity would die with it? Most probably not; after all, geographical
entities are not as easily torn to shreds as are human projects and
ambitions. At the very least they will stay neighbours for some millennia to
come.

[1127 Words]

Works Cited
“English Question: Handle with care” Economist 3 November 2007: 42-
43.
Langlands, Rebecca. „Britishness or Englishness: The historical problem
of national identity in Britain.” Nations and Nationalism 5 (1999):
53-69.
Kumar, Krishan. “Nation and empire: English and British national identity
in comparative perspective” Theory and Society 29 (2000): 575-
608.

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