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The trouble with this take is it’s just not true. Oh yeah, Labour won big. But it wasn’t because the country was draped in the Union flag & Labour got onto it. It was because Major was being perceived as hopeless, and Blair looked like a winner. https://twitter.com/v_j_freeman/status/1356542037038944256
Britpop etc was a product of the Major years. A reaction against Back To Basics if you like. It wasn’t a resurgent nationalism that drove it, it was a rediscovery of the cultural history of the fairly recent past. It was, and I speak for myself here, a load of people having fun.
There’s nothing intrinsically nationalist about a load of people dancing to Grooving With Mr Bloe or singing songs about how rubbish modern life is. Nor is there in persuading wealthy patrons that paintings of coloured dots are worth squillions.
My feeling here is that there’s too much stock put in Union Jack dresses and guitars, and not enough examination of Blair’s Labour, which was positive about embracing the EU and a desire to be at the forefront of international affairs. Very little nationalism, economic or other.
Basically, don’t conflate,even in passing,something that I was a central witness to with something that I know, I absolutely know, it had nothing to do with & which I really in all conscience cannot get behind ie peddling a narrow,”traditional”view of Britain to try and win votes
Here endeth the hipster analysis. Well, for today at any rate.
