Defending the Nation

Abstract

Cultural tensions between Britain and the European Union take centre stage in the Eurosceptic novels which represent how the EU culturally invades Britain and dystopia-like encroaches on the terrains of British history and identity, fabricating and propagandising a shared European past, a common heritage and culture. The chapter examines the novels’ discursive construction of the British nation and national identity in relation to the EU and pays particular attention to the prominent role that the novels attribute to the construction of the nation’s past and culture, to historical encounters, traditions and narratives. The chapter outlines first how the EU threatens the British nation and its narration, and second, how in turn, the fictitious resistance movements draw from the same set of national(ist) narratives to articulate their points of view: icons of nationhood, sites of memory and historical junctures become indispensable for the formation of national resistance against the EU. The chapter thereby illustrates, how the novels draw from and extrapolate Eurosceptic tropes.