I see many reasons why it does not. But more importantly, I see that it does not.
That is the reality and pretending not to see it doesn't make it go away.
But exploiting a different demographic is . . . okay, because at least they're not suckering migrants? Which is the new reality in the absence of the exploitation of the former demographic, and you pretending not to see that will also not make it go away. None of this is a successful gotcha of whatever beliefs you believe I hold.
We (allegedly) didn't rely on migrants during World War II (though we, uh, fielded a bunch of foreign regiments that get very little modern acclaim and indeed are barely a footnote in UK education compared to any other involvement of the UK. Funny, right?). But you didn't bother actually debating that - you attempted to quibble on the logic of "some things have stayed the same since 1945, ergo, you cannot claim that things have changed". It's a sucky argument because it's tediously
semantic. It exists only in the reading where I claim "everything that was in a specific place in 1945 has changed". I didn't claim this. Maybe next time, try less of that? Especially with such a poor attempt at a personal jab thrown in.
Nationalism is important because the nation is the only effective field of political battle. The left has been crushed - and make no mistake, it is very much suppressed now, perhaps more effectively than under your typical old military dictatorship - because its leaders lost sight of this. Labour's defeat in the UK recently is a very good example: it started losing its traditional voters, low-wage workers, who despised it over its fight against brexit. A repressive dictatorship may silence people out of fear, but does not change their convictions; betrayal changes their convictions.
This is not a thread about the issues around nationalism, but you would understand brexit finally if you understood this issue. Try
reading this. Israel, born in "nationalist sin" more recently than other countries, and still practicing the very sinful parts, at least has people giving serious though to the
positive aspects of nationalism also. In older nations too many people have lost sight of what is at stake: it can be bad
and it can be good. And there is no ignoring it. The political community is the national community and the fights over social influence, class, wealth share, happen within it.
Nationalism as it exists in reality (as you're fond of saying) is bad, pretty much full stop. Could it be reclaimed, as per the theory proposed in the book? Perhaps.
Should it is a whole other thread. I don't really have the budget to buy a book just for the sake of arguing nationalism with you (also, personal aside, I struggle with books these days. It's something I'm working on, but also difficult to work on given personal circumstances. So there's a lot of resistance to me even trying the book were I interested).
I understand Brexit - your failing is assuming that people who oppose modern nationalism (seemingly in any form, because actual evidence in support of the book's overview I'd argue is limited) do so from a position of a layperson. I'd argue (as per Traitorfish's post I just caught while writing this) that
you don't understand Labour, or even UK politics as a whole.
Besides, your whole shtick about nationalism in the context of Brexit is that you view it as a net positive regardless of how much damage is done to the people of the UK as a consequence (dragging in old words from past threads, but I don't think your position has changed here), so your arguments to the
merits of nationalism are both inadequate in the current context of the toxic aspects of nationalism (present in Brexit) as well as with regards to the past context I just mentioned.
We are not yet in peaceful co-existence with Covid 19; and in my opinion, it is not a
normal situation now, normal rules do not apply now and normal human laws do not apply.
You do realise that we cannot, in fact, shoot the virus?
Regardless, back to the subject of fruit-picking, the exploitation of labour, and Brexit. We are not in a normal situation (and beyond Covid-19 haven't been ever since Cameron enacted his popularity gambit of the referendum in the first place). Perhaps if said labour was paid properly, or at least
legally, and upheld by the government as something that should be paid properly, we wouldn't be in this mess. Alas, the government doesn't seem to be very good at that - who can forget the unfortunate example of Cornwall who appealed the government for funds following the realisation that they wouldn't qualify for EU funding anymore?