The issue this thread raises is complex and controversial. I'd prefer to avoid confronting it and just get on with the rest of my life. But unfortunately it's too important (and potentially too dangerous) to ignore. So here we go …

The song posted by Villan is a good example of the old adage that sometimes half a truth can be more misleading than an outright lie. That song contains two distinct messages, one quite reasonable and the other extremely questionable. The people who are pushing that song seek to blur those two messages into one, and then to persuade us that their position is the only possible one. And thereby to recruit more people to their shoddy cause.

First message – the reasonable one
For quite a while, English people have been encouraged to adopt a pre-emptive cringe towards the rest of humanity.   We have been told to walk about with our heads bowed down in penance for the sins of our forefathers, accepting personal responsibility and individual guilt for the Highland clearances, the Irish famine, the Amritsar massacre, the North Atlantic slave trade, the fire-bombing of Dresden, etc, etc. The song argues that English people should stop cringing, and instead show more pride in the honourable parts of their own history and more enthusiasm for their own culture.

On the whole, I agree. Why? Because the way that (some of) our forefathers behaved was not very different from the way people of almost every other nationality behaved at that time. The English (for a short while) did these dirty deeds more efficiently than many of their competitors. If they hadn't, their competitors would certainly have done much the same to them. That was history – the nightmare from which we are all trying to awaken. By all means let's apologise for misdeeds in the here and now – whether done by us or by those claiming to act in our name – but leave judgement on past sins to professional historians.

Second message – the dangerous one
The second half of the song, however, implies that the best way forward for the English would be to isolate themselves from the rest of the world. By withdrawing from the European Union (and possibly even breaking up the UK), by closing their borders to new immigrants, and by persuading or compelling recent immigrants to return to the countries they (or their parents, or their grandparents) came from.   This is impossible, and even if it were possible, it would be very, very undesirable.

Why? Firstly, because modern transport and communications technologies cannot be uninvented, and the globalised economy they have created cannot be dismantled. The free flow of capital, commodities, and labour between nations can be blocked temporarily, but only at an intolerable cost to the people of any nation whose government is misguided enough to go down that road. (North Korea is the classic example.)

Secondly, because "England" has never been a fixed, static entity. "Our" culture has been renewed and enriched for millennia by successive waves of immigrants – Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Scandinavians, Normans, Flemings, Huguenots and Jews – all of whom have eventually put down roots and contributed massively to the wellbeing of the wider community. Most of our more recent immigrants, whether from the former British Empire or from the European Union, are equally committed to their new home, and willing to share the burdens as well as the benefits of citizenship. (Look again at the names on the casualty-lists from Iraq and Afghanistan.) They have embraced many features of our indigenous culture, while enriching it with fresh ingredients of their own – from curries to carnival. This is A GOOD THING

So what is to be done then?
On this topic, I agree 100% with Billy Bragg – people from the left, the centre, and the reasonable right of the political spectrum have to reclaim the concept of Englishness from the irrational right, before they contaminate it any further. And before they move on from spouting inflammatory rhetoric to doing deeds our descendants will have to apologise for in the future.

Wassail!