Can Britain’s bedrock survive Brexit?

Tracking Back: In the latest in his series exploring ideas of place and passage, Will Gore contemplates the union at a Welsh cliff-edge

Sheer rock walls plunge into the Irish Sea at Cemaes Head, part of the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path (Alamy)

One of the oddities of British life is that being Scottish or Welsh is not only more noteworthy than being English, it is also more legitimate as a source of pride and purpose.

That is partly because the English are in the majority: celebrating Englishness can all too easily be seen as a dismissal of those who are not in the ascendency.

What’s more, English nationalism (which admittedly is different to national pride) is more readily associated with ideas of white supremacy. The nationalist movements in Scotland and Wales are, by contrast, pitched as standing against central government by Westminster – concerned merely with throwing off the yoke of colonial oppression. That perception doesn’t always match reality, of course.