Now even progressives should embrace an English identity England's success has nudged us a bit closer to the normalisation of a healthy and unapologetic Englishness 11 July 2021 • 7:00am I do love a football tournament. It gives me childish pleasure to stick an England flag on my car and catch the sniffy looks of some of my Hampstead neighbours, contrasting with smiles and thumbs up signs down the road in more multi-racial Hackney. Like clockwork, every tournament triggers debate about good versus bad nationalism and the re-emergence of Englishness from under the smothering canopy of Britishness. Yet whatever happens tonight, the team's success has nudged us a bit closer to the normalisation of that English national identity, especially in places like Hackney.