The psychosocial relationship between national identity and political sentiment in England: 2016-2020.

Abstract

The United Kingdom has undergone significant political changes in recent decades; UK devolution, increasing globalisation, the political fall-out from the 2008 financial crash, Brexit and the global COVID-19 pandemic. The circumstances of these events have led to rapid social, political and economic changes, and have contributed to a sense of wide-spread uncertainty and anxiety amongst the voting population. The repercussions of these events take a central focus to this thesis, which will see the utilisation of a psychosocial lens to focus on the dynamics of national identity and political sentiment in the politically turbulent period of 2016-2020. Harnessing a qualitative approach, in-depth interviews were undertaken with participants of voting age living in rural England to explore the relationship between national identity and political sentiment. Further attention was also applied to the rural dynamic of such relationship, given the geographical differences of voting behaviour and national identification between rural and urban areas. Using a thematic analysis, the findings provide new and nuanced insights into ideas of nation, identity and political sentiment at ground level, whilst highlighting the affective and rural dimension of such sentiments, making way for political-psychological understandings of national identity and political sentiment in post-Brexit pandemic Britain.