Abstract

This paper considers the significance of class to English national identity. It takes onesystematic exposition of the argument that Englishness has been traditionally and intimately bound up with class: George Schopflin’s essay Englishness: citizenship, ethnicity and class, published in 2000. Schopflin thought that Englishness was distinctive in European terms by its class rather than its ethnic character and that this provided people with a very secure and very stable identity, though he did observe a more ethnicised form ofidentity emerging at the beginning of the new millennium. This is a strong definition ofEnglishness as class and the paper reassesses its claims in terms of recent research onidentity. It argues for a more nuanced understanding of the role of class but suggeststhat the modus vivendi of English class relations still distinguishes its identity withinEurope and the United Kingdom.