“We have experienced the truth of this prophecy, for England has become the habitation of outsiders and the dominion of foreigners. Today, no Englishman is earl, bishop, or abbott, and newcomers gnaw away at the riches and very innards of England; nor is there any hope for an end of this misery.”

— William of Malmesbury

Gesta Regum Anglorum of 1125. (Hugh M. Thomas, The English and the Normans: Ethnic Hostility, Assimilation and Identity 1066-c.1220 (Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 56.)

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William of Malmesbury 3

English historian

V.S. Pritchett (1900–1997) British writer and critic

Quoted in " How Did I Do That? http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/06/specials/pritchett-complete.html" by Deborah Stead, in The New York Times (24 March 1991)

“Working days in England are not the same as working days in foreign ports, because working days in England, by the custom and habits of the English, if not by their law, do not include Sundays.”

William Brett, 1st Viscount Esher (1815–1899) British lawyer, judge and politician

Nielsen v. Wait (1885), L. R. 16 Q. B. 71.

“I’ll tell you what I’m fighting for. Not for England, nor her allies, nor any patriotic cause. It’s all come down to the hope of being with you..”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Love in the Afternoon

“Scotland will not be a foreign country after independence, any more than Ireland, Northern Ireland, England or Wales could ever be “foreign countries” to Scotland.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Speech in Carlisle. http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/04/alex-salmonds-st-georges-day-speech-full-text (23 April 2014)

“England! Ha! What good are they to you, England and its depraved constitution, which may have looked free to you when you had sunk to the lowest degree of servitude, but which it is high time to stop praising out of ignorance or habit!”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

On the Silver Mark (1791)

“The relevant fact about the history of the British Isles and above all of England is its separateness in a political sense from the history of continental Europe. The English have never belonged to it and have always known that they did not belong. The assertion contains no element of paradox. The Angevin Empire contradicts it as little as the English claim to the throne of France; neither the possession of Gascony nor the inheritance of Hanover made Edward I or George III anything but English sovereigns. When Henry VIII declared that 'this realm of England is an empire (imperium) of itself', he was making not a new claim but a very old one; but he was making it at a very significant point of time. He meant—as Edward I had meant, when he said the same over two hundred years before—that there is an imperium on the continent, but that England is another imperium outside its orbit and is endowed with the plenitude of its own sovereignty. The moment at which Henry VIII repeated this assertion was that of what is misleadingly called 'the reformation'—misleadingly, because it was, and is, essentially a political and not a religious event. The whole subsequent history of Britain and the political character of the British people have taken their colour and trace their unique quality from that moment and that assertion. It was the final decision that no authority, no law, no court outside the realm would be recognised within the realm. When Cardinal Wolsey fell, the last attempt had failed to bring or keep the English nation within the ambit of any external jurisdiction or political power: since then no law has been made for England outside England, and no taxation has been levied in England by or for an authority outside England—or not at least until the proposition that Britain should accede to the Common Market.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech to The Lions' Club, Brussels (24 January 1972), from The Common Market: Renegotiate or Come Out (Elliot Right Way Books, 1973), pp. 49-50
1970s

“The very phrase "foreign affairs" makes an Englishman convinced that I am about to treat of subjects with which he has no concern.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Speech to the Conservatives of Manchester (3 April 1872), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume II. 1860–1881 (London: John Murray, 1929), p. 531.

“I want us to be the party that represents the whole of Britain and not merely some mythical place called "Middle England", but the truth is that as our country has become more diverse, our party has remained the same.”

Theresa May (1956) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

We should not underestimate the extent of this problem. Ask yourselves: how can we truly claim to be the party of Britain, when we don't truly represent Britain in our party?
2000s, Speech to the Conservative Party conference http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/oct/07/conservatives2002.conservatives1 (07 October 2002)

“This is to be observed of the Bishop of London, that, though apparently of a spirit somewhat austere, there is in his idiosyncrasy a strange fund of enthusiasm, a quality which ought never to be possessed by an Archbishop of Canterbury, or a Prime Minister of England. The Bishop of London sympathies with everything that is earnest; but what is earnest is not always true; on the contrary error is often more earnest than truth.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Referring to Frederick Temple, letter to Queen Victoria (4 November 1868), cited in The Letters of Queen Victoria, 2nd series) (1926), ed. George Earle Buckle, p. 550.

“That knuckle-end of England—that land of Calvin, oatcakes, and sulphur.”

Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English writer and clergyman

Vol. I, ch. 2
Lady Holland's Memoir (1855)

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