They were still fought over countless times (and overlap their neighboring island’s border to this day).

Britain is an island whose internal borders have been fought over and moved many times - and still extend onto neighbouring land masses - i would blame the combination of enduring coloniality, capitalism and white supremacy to this sense of ‘Britishness’.

I often think this - not just fought over, but fluid. Just wasn't that big a deal (obviously eased by status/money) to just go and live somewhere else.
Look at Romeo who gets effectively banished to a whole other (city)state!

I think borders being fought over and moved and being governed by people who spoke a different language has also made some people nationalistic. For instance Poland wasn't Poland for a very long time - and now it is they aren't going to let it go easily.

I don't know that it would've lessened any blood and soil nativism, though. There are huge, comparable movements in France, Germany, Poland, Sweden...all over Europe. I do think that being relatively isolated on an island is why we've been so anti-EU, though.

Ironically, these great British ‘patriots’ of ours, always looking to a past golden age, may need a reminder of John Donne’s expression of our collective humanity from 400 years ago.

What's the original sense?

They don’t care about the law, they care about some bullshit ‘ethnic essence’ myth that lulls racist losers to bed.

yeah that's definitely the problem. yeah. they "don't understand". that's right. it's definitely not a thin veneer over dyed-in-the-wool white nationalism. surely not.