Nationalism Before the Nation
Nationalism is not a recent contrivance, nor is it the artificial invention of bureaucrats or financiers. It is an organic force, a deep current within the blood of a people, recurring across centuries and civilisations. It is as natural to man as kinship, as inevitable as language. It is the unspoken recognition that we belong to a people, to a history, and to a homeland — and that this belonging is sacred.
Two thousand years ago, in ancient Athens, the people of the city-state lived with a unity that went beyond shared laws. They saw themselves as one ethnos — bound by ancestry, language, custom, and the myths of their forefathers. This identity extended to the wider Hellenic world, uniting scattered Greek city-states in a common ethnic fraternity. They might feud or war, but they knew they were of one blood and one civilisation.
This alone refutes the fashionable claim, so often made by Marxists and other internationalists, that nationalism is merely a tool crafted by ruling classes for their own ends. No mere decree could compel a people to feel as one; no state apparatus can create the organic love of kin and country. Nations are not the product of nationalism — rather, nationalism forges nations.
If nationalism were truly artificial, how would we explain the fierce loyalty of stateless peoples who have been deprived of sovereignty for centuries, even millennia? The Kurds, the Catalans, the Basques — all deprived of a homeland, yet all driven by a passion for self-determination that eclipses that of many established states. In fact, the absence of a homeland often strengthens the nationalist flame, for it sharpens the sense of injustice and the yearning for restoration.
A people dispossessed of their land becomes doubly aware of their identity, for they must guard it jealously against assimilation and erasure. This is why nationalism is not a transient ideology but an instinct of survival.
Nationalism as a Concept
The modern term “nationalism” may be recent, but the substance it names is ancient. Critics — especially Marxists — insist that nationalism in its modern form arose as an “imagined community” during the Industrial Revolution, a fabrication by financiers to divert the working class from class struggle. But this is a shallow reading of history.
The seed of nationalism is found in primitive ethnic tribalism, the original human social unit. In tribal society, “your people” meant those who shared your blood, your speech, your gods. As societies grew more complex, so too did their identity. Kinship expanded into broader ethnic and cultural unity — no longer only the family or the clan, but the nation.
Nationalism, then, is not an invention but an evolution. It is the natural extension of tribal belonging into the larger framework of civilisation.
The Evolution of Nationalism
How did this transformation from tribe to nation occur? It was not sparked by a single event or designed in a committee room. Rather, it was the result of an organic maturation, shaped by multiple interwoven forces:
- Vernacular language — The shared tongue of a people is a living vessel of their soul. A nation speaks itself into being through the words and idioms shaped by centuries of common life.
- Founding myths — The stories of origin and heroism that bind generations together, linking the living with the dead and the unborn.
- Ethnic identity — The recognition of common descent, visible in the shared features, temperaments, and customs of a people.
Together, these forces carried humanity from the narrow horizons of the tribe into the wider unity of the nation.
Britain: The Homeland of National Consciousness
The British Isles provide one of the clearest examples of early national consciousness in Europe. As far back as the 8th century, a recognisable sense of ethnic unity existed in England. Local shires and communities gave people a strong sense of belonging, and chroniclers such as the monk Bede recorded this identity with remarkable clarity.
In his Ecclesiastical History of the English People (AD 731), Bede wrote of the English not as a mere collection of territories but as a single people with a shared history and destiny. This national consciousness gave rise to leaders like Alfred the Great, who bore the title Rex Angulsaxonum — King of the Anglo-Saxons — not simply ruler of land, but sovereign of a people.
Yet England was not alone. The Celtic nations of Wales, Ireland, and Scotland each nurtured their own ancient nationalism.
- Wales — The term Cymry, meaning “fellow-countrymen,” predates the Roman conquest and speaks to a deep ethnic brotherhood. The Welsh preserved myths such as that of Brân the Blessed, whose death shattered a united Britain, a calamity mourned in legend for centuries.
- Ireland — The Irish distinguished between the native Féni and the foreign Gall, guarding their identity through centuries of invasion. Their founding myth tells of descent from the Milesians, who claimed the land through sacred song and bound themselves to Ireland forever.
- Scotland — The Scots forged their identity from the Picts, Gaels, and Britons, uniting under the legendary ancestry of the Scythians, exiles from Egypt who travelled across Eurasia before settling in Iberia and later in Alba. The very name “Scotland” honours Queen Scota, their mythical progenitor.
This tapestry of ethnic consciousness in the Isles reveals an essential truth: nations are not political fictions but historical organisms.
The Organic Nature of Nationalism
A true nation is not a set of borders on a map. It is a living organism, rooted in the soil and grown from the bloodline of its people. Its culture, language, and institutions are the flowering of centuries of shared struggle and triumph. Like any living organism, it has a birth, a growth, and — if neglected or corrupted — a decay.
This is why nationalism cannot be imposed from above in any lasting form. It must grow naturally from the people themselves, for only an organic nationalism can endure. Attempts to replace it with synthetic identities — “global citizenship,” “multiculturalism,” “universal values” — are doomed to fail, for they lack the roots and the organic unity that give nationalism its vitality.
Nationalism’s Opponents
Nationalism’s strength has made it the target of sustained attack. In the modern era, these attacks take the form of smear campaigns. Words like “racism” and “xenophobia” are wielded not as reasoned criticisms but as weapons of silencing.
Consider the absurd spectacle of asylum seekers, newly arrived, with barely a word of English — yet perfectly capable of uttering the accusation “racist.” This word, alien in sound and origin, is used like a magic curse to silence native Britons who dare to defend their homeland.
But these rhetorical weapons are merely the latest tools of an older campaign. Long before mass immigration, the forces of internationalism — whether liberal, Marxist, or even so-called “conservative” — sought to undermine nationalism. For them, the loyalty of a people to their nation stands as a barrier to their schemes of global governance and market domination.
They know that a nation united in identity and purpose cannot easily be controlled. And so they seek to divide it, dilute it, and ultimately dissolve it.
The Historical Legacy of Nationalism
Despite centuries of assault, nationalism has never been extinguished. Empires have risen and fallen, borders have shifted, dynasties have come and gone — but the bond between a people and their homeland remains.
The survival of the Welsh language, the revival of Irish culture, the endurance of Scottish traditions, and the steadfastness of the English identity all bear witness to the resilience of nationalism.
History teaches that a people who lose their national consciousness do not merely change their politics; they cease to exist as a distinct people. The erosion of identity is the first step toward cultural death. But where nationalism is kept alive, the nation can weather even the most terrible storms.
Nationalism’s Future
Today, the internationalist order is faltering. Across Europe, ordinary people are awakening to the reality of demographic decline, cultural disintegration, and political betrayal. The spell of globalism is breaking.
From France to Italy, from Hungary to Poland, and here in Britain, the people are stirring. They are saying, in one voice:
We will not be replaced.
We declare that our homeland, our identity, and our future are not bargaining chips in the hands of distant elites. They belong to us — and we will guard them for our children, as our forefathers guarded them for us.
The task before us is not to invent a new ideology, but to restore the organic bond between people, land, and history. This is the work of nationalism in the 21st century. It is the work of the UK Homeland Party.
And it is nothing less than the continuation of an ancient and sacred tradition — one that stretches back beyond recorded history, to the very beginnings of our people.
