Nationalism is relatively recent, mid 18th century, and has always battled with a class sympathy that crossed national borders (the famous question from the Waverley novel where he seems to be protecting English noblemen from the Scottish hordes whilst cheerfully killing the English yeomanry - it being obvious that ones natural allegiance as a gentleman was to ones class).
Winston Churchill stated that the failure of Britain to get involved in the Spanish Civil War against Franco was another example of the British Establishment letting their class interests get in the way of national interest.
Globalization could be seen as a return to ones class being more important than ones nationality, that the sudden upswing in racist belief across Europe (Britain is not isolated in this at all), could be the death throws of nationalism. Not good or bad in itself but a victim of ever evolving capital and its changing needs. Class consciousness capable of throwing up its own evils.
I am capable of being horribly patriotic, but not about stuff that many others know or care about, Putney debates, Royal Society, Barrows Boys, 18th Century Scientists etc...
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