National identity, allegiance and constitutional change in the United Kingdom

It has become conventional to discuss nationalism in terms of identity.While this approach is fruitful and illuminating, it can often be ambiguous, running together cultural, social, personal and political issues. It becomes particularly problematicwhen discussing multinationalism, the character of which may be confused byr eference to national identity alone. Allegiance is used in this article to explore how apolitical commitment to the multinational state can coexist with a range of nationaland regional identities in the United Kingdom. The argument is that, recent constitutionalchanges notwithstanding, the multinational ideal involves still a state ofdistinctive national identities tempered by the habit of allegiance to legitimate British government.