‘Britain as England’ where the entire union is presented as an extended version of England
The presentation of ‘England as Britain’ works directly in the interests of one power elite in the UK: namely the Westminster political system and class, and current concentration of political power. Tories, Labour and Lib Dems have all historically and contemporaneously bought into this. The sublimation of a genuine England into a greater England presented as Britain with the commensurate cost that the ancien regime must be maintained and within it England – the last part of the UK subject to direct rule from Westminster.
There is major political cost to this state of affairs. Not only does it offer ‘England as Britain’ as a major pillar of the existing form of government and state and representation of the UK, it leaves England undemocratically run and un-championed. This has resulted in the likes of Nigel Farage and right-wing populists seizing the terrain of English nationhood and victimhood and weaponising it within the UK and out with, providing fuel and groundwork for the popular backlash of Brexit. England with all its many strands and progressive sentiments was basically abandoned by the Westminster class leaving it vulnerable to the advances and false promises of the populist right.
This is not then about the odd slip in language or even just about how the BBC from its London and Salford bases still miscalls and misrepresents the UK in the most basic ways. Rather it is about a conscious making and remaking of the union which has been going on down the years to suit the self-interest of those who gain most out of the current arrangements that make up the UK.