Brexit-backing English voters ‘also dispirited over UK devolution’
LEADING Welsh political scientist Richard Wyn Jones has claimed that English voters who are unhappy about the country’s place in the European Union are also unhappy about the changes that have taken place in the UK since devolution.
New research showcased at the Conservative Party conference reveals that voters who defined themselves as more English than British were overwhelmingly more likely to back Brexit.
Professor Jones said the rising influence of English identity in UK politics was electorally “really, really important”.
He said: “We are entering a new era in UK politics in which the traditional textbook understanding of the nature of the UK is basically wrong – and actually England [and] Englishness is coming into play in ways which we haven’t seen before.”
Warning of a “great deal of unhappiness as to how England is treated within the UK” he described how