Neil Harding at Brighton Regency Labour Party blog is taking us English nationalists to task for not knowing about history.We used to be ruled by Normans apparently. Wow. If there is any English Nationalist unaware of that I’ll be very surprised. And we all love Richard the Lionheart, really? The English language is influenced by Norman French. Again hardly a revelation. And polite English (which us English nationalists just love you know) is more French influenced than coarser Anglo-Saxon. Very true. Not sure why it’s relevant though.
“There is a certain irony to nationalist calls for an English ‘parliament’ and their calls to leave the EU – to be ruled by the ‘English’, when in fact the public school dominated ruling classes in London are probably more French than those in Brussels in terms of their ancestry”
The word parliament is from French. Maybe the first English parliament was instigated by Simon de Montfort, who was French (he doesn’t actually say that but I’ll help him out). When we ask to be ruled by the English (and here English nationalism and EUscepticism are confused) we mean democratically by elected representatives of the English people. It is not the racial make up of the leaders that concerns us but who they represent.
“The English ‘Euro’ regions are actually roughly based on ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, the counties came later in the 12th Century under Norman rule. So when the English nationalists claim the ‘euro’ regions as ‘artificial’ to England, it is clear they know less about English history than EU officials.”
Umm no the regions of England are similar to the Kingdoms of the Heptarchy (Wessex, Essex, Sussex, Mercia, Northumberland, East Anglia and Kent). But not the same, nor based on them. Is 800 years not long enough for counties to be established? And it wasn’t EU officials who designed the regions, it was the British government. As EUphiles point out if anyone says regions are being imposed on us.”England over the last few thousand years has been one of the most invaded and ‘mongrelised’ of nations” Umm not sure that is true. For a start there was no England until the Anglo-Saxon invasion. France, with Roman invaded Celtic Gauls followed by Germanic Franks follows a very similar pattern of ‘mongrelisation’. Anyway it doesn’t matter because being a mongrel nation is a good thing – all the best things came from abroad.And Salman Rushdie is more English than Garry Bushell. Rubbish.Anyway in conclusion. England shouldn’t have a parliament and should split into regions and accept EU rule, because we used to be ruled by French speakers and Fish and Chips come from abroad.I for one am not convinced
The Secret Person 
SP- just to clarify, I didn’t say EU officials drew the boundaries, just that they know what they are talking about when they defend them as not ‘artificial’ or ‘euro’. I accept I shouldn’t have put that the regions were ‘based’ on Anglo-Saxon kingdoms – but you have to admit a similarity ;o)
By: Neil Harding on February 25, 2008
at 9:24 am
Yes there is a similarity between Wessex and the South-West region and Northumbria and the North West. The others are more different.
The artificial thing states that people don’t feel a natural identity with these regions, in a way they have grown to do with counties to a certain extent. Counties were equally artificial and remain so to a certain extent. City identities are often more pronounced now.
Either way, I still don’t think the regions are a good way to govern England though.
By: secretperson on February 25, 2008
at 11:10 am
[…] just watched a Time Team special on Channel 4 on Edward III’s Round Table. Following recent criticism of English Nationalists history knowledge I have decided to try and add more history posts, to prove we are not ignorant and hopefully to […]
By: Edward III’s Round Table « The Secret Person on February 25, 2008
at 10:53 pm
How funny! Aren’t most (if not all) nations “mongrel”? Does Neil Harding believe that England, of all the “mongredldoms”, doesn’t deserve parity in the UK? Is Mr Harding some kind of purist racist?
After all, to quote our French influences is surely to open another mongrel can of worms, not to cite a purely derived influence on our uncultured rabbled.
English is a nationality, not a race!
So is French!
By: Drew & Debs on February 26, 2008
at 11:53 am
@Drew & Debs. If you define race by racial types then you could disregard any identity as not being a race. The English are, in the main, a northern European Germanic people (please don’t quote Oppenheimer at me because his findings are already inaccurate old hat). We are a unique ethnicity within the White Race. You also seem to be confusing the Normans with the French, when in fact the Normans were of Germanic descent, and merely adopted French language and culture. We’re Germanic, and ethnically the Germanic tribes that went into the formation of the English people were virtually the same. All this ‘mongrel nation’ bullshit is merely more anti-English bigotry to dupe the English (yes, the English, not some pathetic civic notion of Englishness) into believing they don’t exist as a unique people in their own right. Well we do!
By: mickyg1963 on January 23, 2014
at 10:26 pm
We’ve written up our thoughts on Neil Harding’s racist leanings –
http://englandparliament.blogspot.com/2008/02/neil-harding-english-are-ignorant.html
And according to Trevor Phillips, formerly of the CRE, racism CAN be on grounds of nationality. Thanks for highlighting Neil Harding’s fascist blog, Secret Person.
How anybody can declare a nation unfit for recognition or democratic rule because of the diverse DNA of its citizens defeats us.
By: Drew & Debs on February 26, 2008
at 12:35 pm
Realise I’m a bit late to this post but it’s really amusing when somebody who is probably informed by Wikipedia pretends to knowledge in depth.
The whole point of the heptarchy is that it wasn’t yet ENGLAND. It was a collection of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms who were frequently at war with one another. Out of this and a mutual interest under King Alfred is usually the point at which England as a state is generally considered to have formed around 840AD. Why when we have been together since then would we wish to return to 7 separate kingdoms? The counties are not separate kingdoms, they are the counties of England. They are highly diverse and what’s wrong with that?
Harding as usual is disingenuous (from the Latin I’m sure). The EU couldn’t give a flying xxxx (to be Anglo-Saxon) about England’s heritage. He is also wrong when he suggests that Anglo-Saxon is ‘coarse’. 90% of our everyday but beautiful words are from the Anglo-Saxon: sun, moon, stars, earth etc.
By: kevin on May 12, 2010
at 10:39 am