Can England’s football team reconcile with Britain?

interview

10 July 2021

If England wins the Euro, can it be a symbol of unity in the post-Brexit UK? The perspective of Olivier de France, director of research at Iris.

Is the England national team a symbol of Britain after Brexit?

It seems to me that the priority in the short term, before reading or political reform, is that it is a team that makes a position happy—lockdown. We saw him during the Three Lions meeting at Wembley, today we see him in the streets of the country.

On the other hand, if England wins the final, we risk hearing a counter-argument to free Brexit: by choosing the open sea, England have regained their right mojo. Breaking free from the European ties that surrounded the country, its scientists developed the vaccine, its administration vaccinated the population, its footballers shed the weight of history and re-twisted the threads of the glorious past of the country that invented football. did, etc. It is not only a question of an imaginary unity on the inner plane, but also of the image projected by the country on the outside (the two are linked): it is “England that wins”.

and internally?

If England wins the Euro, it is possible that a post-Brexit United Kingdom will try to make this team a symbol of unity, like France in 1998. It’s about a team that lends itself, as it leaves a little cliché on Brexit’s England.

On the one hand, there are players like Phil Foden, who consciously call themselves the image of Paul Gascoigne and working class England. On the other hand there are players like Raheem Sterling who are very committed against racism. However, the divide between “Little Englander Brexiteers” and “Communists” picking » Doesn’t work well to describe this team, as everyone claims to be Paul Gascoigne (according to Foden, if it wins the European Championship the whole team will be as white as Gascoigne) and All players put under one knee. Both Stirling and Rashford have also been awarded MBEs.member of the most outstanding order of the British Empire) by the Queen of England, which allows them to escape properlyinstallation, or generation English that assimilates casteism and culture picking.

However, it is still a very short-lived entity. When they win, Sterling or Rashford are persons of unity who are admired, and who temporarily reconcile these different identities. Conversely, they experience online racism when they lose. And after France 98, the 2002 presidential election brought Jean-Marie Le Pen to the second round…

What consequences could this have on relations between England and the United Kingdom more broadly?

the observers has observed that the use of the British flag (Union Jack) was the order of the day during the English victory in the 1966 World Cup. Since then, the English flag (along with St George’s Cross) has taken precedence over the . We will also look at the front page of a Scottish newspaper today wishing Italy a victory in the final.

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