“Insular hobbits”? Englishness, Euroscepticism and the Brexit vote in Jonathan Coe’s Middle England (2018) by Guillaume Clément

“…Among other factors, Coe’s satire draws our attention to contemporary representations of Britishness in media and popular culture, for instance in the London 2012 Olympic games’ opening ceremony, with its quite stereotypical, anglocentric portrayal of national identity. Such depictions appear closer to the outdated mythical tropes of “Deep England” than to the complexities of contemporary Britishness and might have helped fuel Eurosceptic rhetoric and influenced conservative English voters’ beliefs in the run-up to the 2016 EU membership referendum.…”
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